Optimizing Work From Coffee Shops - A Primer
As a digital nomad, I always prefer to work from a coffee shop, rather than from a coworking space. I don’t have anything against working from coworking spaces, to be honest, and, sometimes, I go test a new space or I try to participate in the events organized by them. It’s just that working from coffee shops gives way more diversity to the entire process.
It’s not only the space that changes almost every day, (if you work every day from different places, which I try to do as much as I can) but also the people who are there with you, the vibe of the place, the coffee taste, and, alas, sometimes the internet connection, which, every once in a while, decides to just go away. But, in all honesty, this is a minor inconvenient nowadays, with the ubiquitous coverage you get from mobile operators and the falling price of mobile data. If you plan your mobile subscriptions well, you’re properly insured.
But, as divers as this process may be, it is also quite hectic. Its mere diversity makes it difficult to formalize it, to put it in a predictable structure. So, the challenge is to keep the freshness high, while lowering the entropy.
Optimization to the rescue!
What follow is a primer I put together for those who are preferring coffee shops over coworking spaces. It’s just a rough draft, so if you have anything to add, please do so in the comments.
1. DYOR – Do Your Own Research
This phase can last anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, depending on the city you are, what type of work are you doing and your budget constraints. But it’s a very important stage.
At this level, you’re just trying as many places as you like and try to understand how it is to work from there. By trying I mean going there at least 3-4 times, so you can account for as many situations as you can.
At the end of this process, you should know a few basic things about every place you visited, including (but not limited to):
*price for a coffee and a snack
- power outlet availability
- staff attitude and service quality
- internet connection quality
- overall specific of the place (see below, number 3).
2. Plan The Week Ahead
It’s important to have at least some basic idea where are you going to work this week. You’d want to make this schedule based on coffee shop opening hours, your workload, current available budget, and so on.
You can perfectly go without a plan, and that’s sometimes very exciting, but if you go without a plan too much of the time, you may start to experience the downside of diversity, which is fatigue, lower quality of your work or budget imbalances.
3. Mix, Match And Adjust To The Specific Of The Place
That’s probably the thing I like the most about working from coffee shops. Let me give you an example: I may start the day in a coffee shop owned and managed by a German lady, where the service is impeccable, the internet stable and the power outlets abundant, but after lunch I may decide to go to an Italian place, where the attitude is more outspoken, the coffee better and the interaction more fulfilling. And I can go on with this mix and match for ever. The “adjust” part is related to your work constraints, which you should take into account when doing this. For instance, if I know I’ll have a lot of calls, I will choose a stable internet coffee shop.
This kind of diversity and richness in choices is very hard to find in a coworking place (which, like I said, still has its own advantages).
4. Budget Mercilessly
That’s something that you should really watch when you work from coffee shops. I’ve been guilty if ignoring this part in the past, with annoying consequences. It’s so easy to get caught into the stream of “needs”, like “just one more cupcake”, or “it’s safe to have a beer now”, that you hardly notice your budget is exploding.
My rule of thumb is that what I pay while working from coffee shops should never exceed what I would pay on a full subscription in a coworking place. If I go over this budget, I simply stop working from coffee shops and work from home – which is something I’m not very fond of, to be honest – until the budget is balanced again.
Also, another rule of thumb would be that financial discipline should be an ongoing activity, and not only related to the choice of the place where I work from.
Well, that was my primer. Feel free to add your own suggestions, critiques or improvements to this article.
Originally published at DragosRoua.com.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
Wanna know when you're getting paid?
|
I know the feeling. That's why I created steem.supply, an easy to use and accurate tool for calculating your Steemit rewards |
Our coffee shops are full of digital nomads. Starbucks is the obvious choice, but Dunkin' Donuts (a New England institution) has really gone overboard trying to attract customers with USB chargers as well as regular outlets at every booth. I joined a writing group that met at one twice a week and it was surprisingly easy to get work done there.
My favorite is still public libraries, though. Usually you have to bring your own coffee. But the Boston Public Library has a cafe on the first floor and then there's this room:
Superb :)
This post has been included in the latest edition of SoS Daily News - a digest of all the latest news on the Steem blockchain.
🏆 Hi @dragosroua! You have received 0.5 STEEM reward for this post from the following subscribers: @cardboard
Subscribe and increase the reward for @dragosroua :) | For investors.
I've found the quality of the internet is key. When my wife and I moved we tried going to McDonalds to use there free wifi to get online just to pay some bills while we're eating.
The internet was so slow Google would barely load and you can forget actually getting to the bill site. We decided to finish our food and try and pay the bills on our phone which was also a pain, but at least the sites would load.
All chain restaurants / coffee shops suck for digital nomading, except, maybe for Starbuckses. At least in my experience.
Yeah I would have to agree with that statement, though I have found some fast food chains in my area that offer internet that is at least usable for things like surfing the web. and "working" on Steem.
Am yet to understand fully this coffee shop thing, you mean buying a coffee in a shop and they'll allow you to sit there all day and do your work while also providing you with free Wi-Fi?
You didn't make it easy for those of us who aren't privilege to be in those country to understand.
It's not a privilege, I experienced this in many countries. And yes, many coffee shops are allowing people to work from there, in the ways I'm describing in the article.
Some cities are friendlier than others, that's true.
You still don't get me, am not saying they aren't friendlier, am saying, you, sitting there all day, what if other customer comes then what happens.
Posted using Partiko Android
:) Well, the coffee shop owners are happy to bring people in, because if they stay there longer, they may order other stuff. That's how it works, usually. I'm not staying more than 2-3 hours in a place.
As a internet marketer myself I find it more comfortable and relax working from home than from any other place , I do sometimes from a coffee shop but it is not always because to me such places is not convenient and thee noise from the surrounding at times make it uncomfortable to work from such places
In my country, no coffee shop will allow you to stay long enough to work for few hours.
Although i am not a digital nomad but that point of planning your week, i always do that. I always make sure to plan my week ahead. Know what i am going to do througj the week and what i should be able to achieve at the end of the week
There’s a new coffee shop in Dublin where you pay for your time in there . And you can have as much coffee /buns as you want. It’s a pretty cool idea. So these guys love you staying the day on the laptop where most coffee shops scorn upon it for leeching.
Posted using Partiko iOS
So much fun when you are in a coffee shop, of course you will be very happy with the coffee shop where you work