My Office is a Coffeeshop

I work primarily out of coffeeshops. Why, you ask, when there’s a perfectly good office 22 minutes from my house, loaded to the top with employees who work on some of the same things as me?

Because, I answer: no one here works on what I’m working on, and that means I can focus. When I’m at the other office, the “official” office, there are lots of pertinent answers that require thought, conversation, meetings, and further answering. When I’m at the coffeeshop, my questions come into me in a row. Email. Email. IM. Phone call. It’s all fairly linear.

The office proper (the gray place, I call it, due to the cubicles and bland walls) is a great place for collaborative work, should I need to collaborate. The PEOPLE in the office are all lovely. They are smart. Every time I spend time with them, I think and learn. A few of them would be perfect to brainpick for a year or two straight. And the others are at least pleasant and helpful.

But what do I do MOST in a day? Connect. Write emails. Talk with folks. Answer questions. I move little pieces of the project forward. I write copy for email blasts, for websites, for private conversations. I’m a words and message guy lots of the time. I’m a thinker. I’m someone who has to poke and prod the various weird pieces of the big picture.

None of that is conducive to the other environment, of answering questions, having conference calls, etc.

Monday, I’ll go to the gray place, and I’ll have lots of great conversations, lots of meetings, and will be helped, and be helpful. I will answer to things I’ve forgotten or dropped along the way. But I won’t do many creative things. I’ll just do things that make business happen. And the two are related, but not. It’s like a foreign language. Until then, signing off from the Yellow Coffeeshop.