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Coffeehouse Culture III: "Now Serving Optimal Distraction"

by Sandy Ikeda
Sat, 26 Jan 2008 at 12:48 AM

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So what's the difference, as it relates to work productivity, between distractions at home and distractions in a coffeehouse?

There are at least two.

The first is that, because you're being watched by a number of people, whether they let on or not, you're more self-conscious in a coffeehouse about getting up all the time (admittedly, surfing the Web may be immune to this social constraint), which raises the cost to you of doing it (and this is in addition to the cost of food and drink) and so you do it less. Consequently, at a coffeehouse I'm less likely to get up for trivial reasons. If I'm going to leave my stuff on the table to get another drink or whatever, it's a bother and I'm not going to do it too frequently, maybe once an hour instead of every 20 minutes if I'm at home.

Second, everyone is different, but I need to take some kind of minor break from reading or writing. It could just be a momentary distraction, perhaps every few minutes. If I had to go full bore continuously, I doubt I could last an hour.

Now, at home there isn't much going on around me, and the need for minor distractions may take several seconds to satisfy, as I stop, look around for a change of scenery, and get back to work. I may have to look farther for one, into another part of the apartment perhaps, for a change of scenery because things are pretty static. Consequently, the search for a minor distraction can easily result in a major one.

Also, I need a major break of a couple of minutes every hour or so to stretch my legs, etc. Home is good for this, with its "big four" (TV, bathroom, refrigerator, and Internet). But having too many of these major breaks lower productivity significantly.

Maybe I'm just weak, but the point is that I need both kinds of distractions, major and especially minor, to keep my focus over the long haul. I would wager though that most people are like me.

So, paradoxically, we need to be distracted to stay concentrated — kinda like the way we need brakes on cars so we can drive faster. But they have to be the right kind at the right time. At home there aren't enough minor distractions to help us maintain our focus over the long haul and so major work-breaks come too frequently and our productivity suffers.

The trick is to find the right balance -- not too much, not too little — juuuuuuust right. Economists like to use the word "optimal" to describe this sort of thing. It's a word I'm not overly fond of, but I think it's apt in this case.

I think a coffeehouse is good place to be optimally distracted.

When someone unexpectedly walks in the front door or passes by my table, I look up briefly to look. This is a minor distraction that takes only a moment, and then I'm good for another few minutes of solid concentration. This happens regularly but not entirely predictably throughout my stay, and so I keep fresher, longer. And I don't get up as often as I would at home, where major distractions cost less to indulge in.

I think it's empirical support for my thesis that you rarely see people working in coffeehouses with backs to the rear (or wherever there's less traffic). Instead, they sit facing the front because that's where the minor distractions. They want to be distracted … optimally.

The circumstances under which you tend to see people sitting facing away from traffic, when they have a choice, are an unfavorable physical environment (e.g., too hot or too cold), or where there are too many major distractions like loud noise or overwhelming traffic, or where there isn't much of a coffeehouse or public culture. (I saw the latter in the suburbs of Phoenix when I was there over the holidays.)

A lot here depends on where you live. While you can see this sort of thing in the suburbs (even in Phoenix sometimes), I think it's primarily an urban phenomenon. The time cost of bringing your stuff to the coffeehouse, as long as it's not too big or bulky, is much lower when you live within walking distance of many things, including at least two or more coffeehouses (to avoid overcrowding). That is, where population densities are high and land uses are highly diverse. In short, in a living city.

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