[0:00]T.S Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and J.K Rowling wrote their masterpieces from coffee shops. So my work isn't exactly comparable to The Great Gatsby, but my intuition tells me that there's something about coffee shops that makes us more productive and creative while we're in there. I don't think it's just a caffeine buzz, you know. In this video, expect to learn how people and silence affect your creativity, how novel environments lead to novel thoughts, and how procrastination is the enemy of productivity, but might be a resource for creativity. So let's get into this. Coffee shops operated by the big chains like Starbucks and Costa Coffee has shot up in the last year. All together, there are nearly 12,000 coffee shops in the UK. Most of those are still independently owned.
[0:53]This article in the Harvard Business Review found that when you sit next to certain people at work, you're way more productive. You see, effort is contagious. We're more likely to invest in ourselves and our work when we see other people making similar investments. Surrounding yourself with people that are focused and motivated pushes you to mirror that mind frame. Coffee shops are full of people focusing on their own projects. I find that surrounding myself with those people, rather than isolating in my room at home, allows me to feed off the productive energy in the room. I sat next to Stanley for years, and this was nap time. Now look at them. You got to unleash the power of the pyramid. When I'm at home, I end up going on my phone to see what other people are doing and then falling down an Instagram rabbit hole. In a coffee shop, I can look up and people watch without the algorithm hijacking my attention. It isn't just the people, though. The ambience is also affecting us.
[1:57]When I'm learning, I talk through my understanding of a topic in my head, and loud conversations and music can often disrupt that internal dialogue. But when it comes to my creative work on the other hand, I thrive in a buzzing coffee shop. When I was looking into this online, I found that it isn't just me. It turns out that 70 decibels is the perfect amount of background noise to stimulate creativity. Louder than 70 decibels is distracting, and quieter doesn't quite get those creative juices flowing. So we've drawn motivation from those around us and thrived off the perfect amount of background noise. But the novel space might also be leading us to leave our conventional boxes. It turns out if we want to prime ourselves for maximal learning, we need to break our comfortable routines. Exploring a novel environment might actually increase the nerve formation and changes in your hippocampus. That is the part of the brain that is essential for learning, for forming new memories. Putting ourselves in new situations and places makes us curious to see what new rewards this can offer us. It turns out that novelty has a huge association with both motivation and memory. But there's a problem, novelty is fleeting, it goes as quickly as it comes. A couple of weeks ago, I took a trip down to London. In between meeting my friends, I edited a video in a couple of coffee shops. Black Sheep Coffee is the dream. The new environment led me to be way more creative than I am in my usual coffee shops. You see, at home, I'm always in the same ones, so while I feed off the other benefits, I miss out on that novelty aspect. As our familiarity increases, our creative inspiration drops. But there's one last thing, though, these ventures allow us time to procrastinate on our ideas, and that may not be all bad.
[4:07]In Originals by Adam Grant, book review coming very soon. He says that procrastination may be the enemy of productivity, but it could be a resource for creativity. I often find that as I'm walking or driving across to my coffee shops, I ruminate on the problems that I've got to solve while I'm there. They're at the back of my mind, but passively processing the problem can often lead me to solutions that I would never have actively thought of. A study found that people who were allowed time to procrastinate on their problems presented more inventive solutions and novel business ideas. The students who were presented with a problem, then allowed time to play video games before providing their solutions, were 28% more creative with the ideas that they came up with. Combine that with the fresh air and exercise of the walkover, and you've got all of the ingredients for an innovative solution or idea. So coffee shops aren't exactly going to turn us into literary geniuses. However, the people in ambiance, the novel environments and the procrastination time might just lead to a more productive and creative day. If you're going to try out the coffee shop work, please let me know how it goes. I hope you get all of these benefits while you're there.
