Your Workplace Shouldn’t Inspire You, It Should Be Innovative
My most productive places of work are cafes. They are not very inspiring. In fact, they are usually loud and uncomfortable, but while I’m there, I get things done faster and more efficiently. The writer Asher Stevenson has a theory to explain why this happens: It’s about novelty.
We spend a lot of time and energy organizing our workplaces to be inspiring and productive. As Stevenson points out, none of this matters as much as simply working in a place you’re unfamiliar with. That’s why:
What [the cafe] really gives you is an environment free of the distractions that fill your home and your office. When you travel to a new location, doing work there is as new as watching Netflix for six hours. Your body (and brain) does not go into your normal unproductive decline because it is not affected by the triggers of your normal environment.
I am deliberately changing my work environment not because these other environments are better, not because they are inherently more productive – I do this to exploit my own mental tendencies. But at the same time, I am working hard to not rely too heavily on these external signals to improve performance.
In other words, sometimes the signals and triggers we set for our motivation actually backfire. If they don’t work, we begin to associate them with distraction, so it helps make a difference. This doesn’t mean that you should give up your workplace entirely, but it might be worth focusing your efforts on novelty rather than inspiration. To find out more, skip to the full post below.
Your table is a drug | An illogical life through the environment