My theory is subtly different from these. I sometimes call it "ambient sociability".
Humans are pack creatures. If you put us in solitary confinement we go insane. This is generally true even for introverted people; only on the far edge of the bell curve do you find people who crave absolute solitude for weeks or months on end (and these people tend to be really odd, and it's often hard to tell if the oddness is cause or effect.)
However, as every reader of programming productivity books knows, being surrounded by a bunch of people that is constantly interrupting you makes it hard to focus. And so civic design has evolved the library, the coffeeshop, and the coworking space: Places where you can be alone yet also surrounded by people.
The secret is to surround yourself with people who don't have the same agenda as you. Then you won't often be interrupted by things that break your focus: The staff might occasionally ask to refill your coffee, and you'll get interrupted if the building catches fire, but otherwise you can work on your own thing.
> The secret is to surround yourself with people who don't
> have the same agenda as you
Absolutely. I was called for Jury Duty a few months back. No courts ended up needing jurors during my two week service, so I ended up sitting in a comfortable room with wifi and a bunch of people I didn't know who weren't interested in what I was doing.
I got more work done in those two weeks than I had sitting in my office or working from home. It was magical. The next time a heavy deadline rolls around I'm considering packing my stuff and heading to the university library -- anywhere where I can reattain that ambient sociability.
There's also the possibility that this comes more from the change in atmosphere than the particular atmosphere that you change to. Maybe for some people here the change to an atmosphere of ambient sociability is just more of a contrast than the alternatives they've tried.
I've heard and have a lot of anecdotal evidence that would suggest this, but of course that's anecdotal evidence. However, I think most of the answers here are influenced at least somewhat by this.
No, they kept me available for jury service for two weeks.
10:00am: show up at courthouse. Get some free coffee, sit in the juror's assembly room.
12:00pm: Lunch break
1:30pm: Back from lunch.
3:00pm: If courts needed no jurors, go home.
Do that for two weeks, get paid $20 per day by the courts for my time.
Franklin County Municipal Court, Columbus Ohio, United States. While I'm here I urge anyone also in this area to attend jury service if called. The jury commissioner is awesome.
Yes, exactly. I did a lot of my dissertation work and writing in my favorite local coffeeshop. Basically, I didn't feel shut off from my community, despite the fact that I was working.
The only difference with a coffeeshop in a small college town is that after a while, you become a regular, and know all of the other regulars and the staff. So actual conversations happen. But, as someone who spent a lot of time working, I figured that amount of social interaction was good. (And I met some great people this way.) It's genuine social interaction, though. It was quite different than the conversations I had at the office with professors and other grad students.
It works for me when it blends into an undisturbing mixture. This can be, for example, either a few quiet, neighboring conversations and some low, enjoyable music. Or it can be my favorite university cafe, jam packed with conversing parties, but where all the conversations -- and a bit of background music -- blend into a relatively indistinguishable roar.
I can choose to pay a bit more attention to my surroundings -- get lost in a bit of imagining or discreet voyeurism or just the ambiance, while my subconscious moves forward. Or I can focus in on my own work without single neighboring events triggering heightened attention and distraction.
A quiet cafe with a single neighboring group, or some dude on his cell phone: That's murder on the concentration.
My theory is subtly different from these. I sometimes call it "ambient sociability".
That's a beautiful way of putting it.
I absolutely can be productive in a coffee shop. The best ones are busy enough that I feel social activity going on around me and loud enough that I can't pick out individual conversations without effort.
The ambient sociability, as you put it, lets me feel some sense of connection to the world. The fact that I don't have any actual connection to the people surrounding me lets me focus and get work done.
I completely agree. If I'm in a coffee shop, I'm not going to catch a bit of a stranger's conversation focused on the app that I just rolled out, but that happens constantly at work, and I'm pulled away from what I'm thinking about.
a bit of a stranger's conversation focused on the app that I just rolled out
I find that this is the biggest problem: People can be actively trying not to interrupt you but it's no good because they're talking about something that's related to your work and you can't help but overhear. If they're in earshot and they're talking, distraction is inevitable.
It's a pity that at a time with such a high unemployment rate we can't manage to mobilize the resources to build every programmer a tiny office with a door that can close.
Humans are pack creatures. If you put us in solitary confinement we go insane. This is generally true even for introverted people; only on the far edge of the bell curve do you find people who crave absolute solitude for weeks or months on end (and these people tend to be really odd, and it's often hard to tell if the oddness is cause or effect.)
However, as every reader of programming productivity books knows, being surrounded by a bunch of people that is constantly interrupting you makes it hard to focus. And so civic design has evolved the library, the coffeeshop, and the coworking space: Places where you can be alone yet also surrounded by people.
The secret is to surround yourself with people who don't have the same agenda as you. Then you won't often be interrupted by things that break your focus: The staff might occasionally ask to refill your coffee, and you'll get interrupted if the building catches fire, but otherwise you can work on your own thing.