What is the advantage of taking your laptop to the coffee shop to work?
It seems to me I have control of my environment at home that will make me more comfortable. I set the thermostat to my liking, adjust the lighting and wear my pj’s. Not to mention the noise level in a public place and being interrupted.
Are they looking to meet people? It seems they are concentrating on the screen and not those around them.
What makes you think they’re working? I just assume that it’s supposedly a cool thing to do and they’re just likely cruising the Dope or watching porn.
I could work at home but choose to go the 4.6 miles in. I like separating work and home. Maybe they think likewise, or there are too many distractions at home, or they are sweet on the barista.
[ul]
[li]Home is not always a safe space. For some people, home is full of chaos, strife, stress.[/li]
[li]Home is not always a calm place. A four year old doesn’t care if mom is not “on duty” and dad is supposed to be watching him. Even if dad can keep the four-year old corralled, there’s a good chance that the struggle itself will be disruptive. It’s easier for everyone if the parent that needs to concentrate be someone else.[/li]
[li]Home is not always convenient. Sometimes you are meeting someone or something and you have some time to kill and driving home or to work would be backtracking.[/li]
[li]Home can be very distracting. Some people work better in “work mode” and that’s harder to get into at home, in your PJs. It’s also easier to get pulled away by TV or chores or whatever. All your stuff is there.[/li][/ul]
I could work at home if I wanted, but I don’t. I could get a lot of work done at home, but I think I would miss “people energy”. So I could see someone choosing to work at a coffee shop so that they can get that energy without the downsides of going into the office.
Plus, the coffee shop might be more comfortable than the home and the office, despite the ambient noises. Like, I have a coworker whose cubicle is right next to the men’s restroom, so she can hear all kinds of "interesting’ sounds all day long. She’s also nowhere near the windows. So why wouldn’t she want to work in a coffee shop when she needs a break from working at home?
It’s not like these things have never occurred to them, some people are just different. I can’t work in coffee shops but I have a hard time working without some background activity, home is too quiet for me. Other people like the coffee shop vibe, and that’s fine too.
I would guess this. My internet is like Dixie Cups on rotten string. I’d be at Starbucks if the stench of coffee didn’t make me sick and football wasn’t on. And it wasn’t 12 miles away.
Some may not be at home, they may be traveling and prefer anything over the boredom of a sterile hotel room. And sometimes it may just be simple work they’re doing. Updating your slides to say San Diego instead of San Francisco doesn’t require intense focus nor does going through work emails. At my former company, you weren’t allowed to get work emails on your phone.
This is me. When I’m traveling for work and in between meetings, I often stop at a coffee shop and use the time to catch up on emails, prepare for my next presentation, etc. Apart from these rare occasions, I work from home.
I don’t do it at all now, but I used to from time to time because it made me more productive. At home, there’s too many distractions. I can decide to take a break and watch TV. I can decide to take a nap. I can mull around the fridge and see what’s in there. Etc. As someone who works from home a lot, while it’s convenient and relaxing, I don’t find it makes for efficient use of time. If you are a disciplined person, you’re fine, but I personally find the mental break of a home space vs a work space to increase my own efficiency a shit ton.
I have a friend who just explained to me that she goes to her favorite coffee/bakery spot to work sometimes when she is on deadline and because she is too easily distracted (by other work or something, I’m not sure) at home. She lives alone and works freelance, so I don’t really understand how that works, I am much better able to concentrate at home. Other people talking, background music, food smells, I find those all distracting. But to each their own.
Home has too many justifiable distractions. Laundry, cleaning, cooking, etc. When I go to a coffee shop, or the reading room at my public library, I find I can focus much better on the task in front of me. There are fewer distractions there that I can justifiably indulge in, as compared to home.
There is also something about going to a separate space that I associate with work that puts me in the “time to get work done” mentality.
I worked from home for a while and it’s not as fun as some people think. When I was asked to log my work hours, it came out to 16 hours a day. Wake up, you’re at work. Eat at your desk taking bites between keystrokes. Work until you can’t do any more. Rinse and repeat. Easy to lose track of time when there aren’t others moving around you.
I don’t think I’d do well working from home because I associate home with leisure. Leisure = watching TV. Leisure = napping on the couch. Leisure = playing with my cat. None of these things are conducive for work.
That’s why I go in to the office. I like to do work at work, and home stuff at home. (Also work has food I don’t have to pay for, and a pretty good gym – although I couldn’t get that in a coffee shop).
I work from home two days a week, and I really enjoy it; I have a very nice office at home and, as said in the OP, have complete control over temperature, sounds, etc. Having said that, I tend to go stir crazy if I spend too much time at home, where no one is around all day. So once every week or two, I will head over to Starbucks (the third closest to my house, but with the best environment) and work for 2-3 hours there, while having a couple of lattes. I like being in the middle of people and being able to people watch a bit, even if I have my earbuds in. I like being somewhere different. I like looking out the window at a different view. It’s just nice to have a change of environment sometimes.
As others have said, I will also do it sometimes when traveling, if I am either sick of my hotel room, or haven’t checked in yet.
When doing this at home, I only do it when I have no meetings and fairly low-intensity tasks on my plate. I will usually clear out my inbox while I am there. Personally, I wouldn’t want to put together a presentation that is due by the end of the day in that environment, but I am sure there are some folks who could do that.
We have never worked from coffee shops or other noisy public places. We have telecommuted from home and, without office distractions and interruptions, doubled our productivity as software engineers. I can’t imagine coding or debugging at a Starfucks, or even taking a drive-thru cup and keyboarding in the SUV’s front seat, leeching off a nearby Wally’s WiFi.
Home is much better. Right now I’m lounging naked in our leather recliner couch with a Lenovo laptop warming my knee, a cup of coffee+cocoa+tequila nearby, and no noise in our snowed-in winter-fucking-wonderland. At a Starfucks, I couldn’t watch deer stumble through deep drifts outside. Couldn’t play harmonica there, either.
Why do folks keyboard in coffee shops? If their alternatives are worse, have pity.