All these past years I have read in many blogs and articles that freelancers and web workers choose various coffee shops as their makeshift offices. Starbucks is kind of a rage among designers in the US for this reason. I have been thinking how would it feel to work in such a bustling and busy environment. Ok writing a blog post or creating a document is one thing but creating layouts/logos etc. in such environments. Is it possible?

Couple of weeks back I had an opportunity to find out. I had a meeting scheduled with a friend of mine to talk about his personal website in a Coffee shop. I of course had my laptop and all my stuff with me but when I reached there my friend called up and said he would be delayed by an hour or so. So here I was, with almost an hour at my disposal with nothing to do. I was not carrying my data card with me and the coffee shop had no Wi-Fi, so I was without internet (To think of now it was a good I had no internet).  

So I though why not catch up on some of my backlog of work. So I ordered a Café latte and popped open my laptop. Since a past few days I had been stuck on this layout which I was unable to focus and complete. So I started working on that layout. The first thing I did was to crank up the volume on the iPod and I was able to block out all the noise around me. With a regular intake of caffeine and music I was able to finish the layout before my friend came (although he took around 90 minutes to reach there).

I was really surprised by the outcome of this experiment. I was in new place with lot of people and noise around me but still I was able to focus on what I had to complete (and without the internet).  I guess I would try to do this more often