Do you find that the time that is allocated to you for your coffee break is just that little bit to short? How would you like to be spending the majority of your time on a coffee break, while getting the majority of your work done on that coffee break? What about if that coffee break lasted all afternoon.
It is really one of the quite attractive parts of working with no fixed office. The ability to be able to take your work with you and spend the afternoon working in a coffee shop is something that I am sure many people would prefer then having to sit in a small office, be it at home or as part of your job. Trying not to get distracted by other things that could just as easily take your attention, eg coworkers, meetings, email, and the likes at work, or when in a home office things like TV, kids, games, or anything else around the home.
While taking your work to a coffee shop will not avoid all these distractions all the time, it can be sometimes easier to set the differentiation between what you are doing and what distractions you will encounter. But we will take a look at how some of the distractions can be avoided by going and working on a full time coffee break at a coffee shop.
Co-workers – This will be an easy distraction to avert, as it can come down to most of your co-workers will not be willing or able to step outside like you are. Of course if you are planning to go and work in a cafe for the afternoon, ensure you have it approve by your boss, but this often will not be overly difficult if you can prove increased productivity, and may even lead to you needing to work less hours to get the same amount of work done. As long as you can actually buckle down and get it done.
E-Mail – This distraction can be a tricky one to avoid. Everyone seems to try and work with email, to get in touch with clients, management, and other co-workers. One way to negate this distraction is to not connect to your email when out of the office, leave email to be checked in the office, and make anyone who may really need to contact you aware they will need to contact you by phone.
The distractions that you encounter when working from a home office are going to be a little easier to negate when you are working in a cafe or other remote office location, but lets look at the benefits.
TV – This is a no brainer, while you do find that many cafe’s have a TV in the store somewhere and it may be switched on, it is probably going to be rare the show is one that you are interested and often times the sound is off or turned down low anyway. Working in a cafe really does make it that much more difficult to just get up from your work work and go and sit in front of the TV to watch a football game or other show.
Kids – This is another easy one. By taking yourself out of the home, away from where children might be, it makes that definite cut between being at home, and working. Do ensure that children have proper supervision, of course. But children can be a big distraction as most of the time they do not realize or understand the differentiation between playing and working.
These are really just some of the distractions that you can face there are many different distractions which will be different for everyone, the challenge comes down to identifying these distractions and ensuring that your stepping out of the office or home, and going to get your work done in a cafe is actually going to make a difference to the distraction.