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by eswat 4171 days ago
I freelance. I can’t be productive at all working from home, so I just work at coffeeshops, anywhere from a 1-minute walk or a 20-minute bus ride.
1 comments

Do you alternate coffee shops? Any tips for working at coffee shops? Have you considered coworking?
Yeah I alternate. There’s about six within a 10-minute walking distance of my house, so if I feel I’m not really getting any work done I’ll just move onto the next or come home for a quick nap.

Working at these places is not for everyone, specifically if you really prefer a quiet environment and without music, even your own. I used to always wear noise-cancellation headphones while working here but now I just use normal-type earbuds and can tune out the background noise without much trouble. The seating is not ergonomic; even if you do the standing desk thing and work at a bar-height table, your neck is still going to be at a position that works against you. So to offset the bad posture you’re going to develop at these places, it’s important to fix that in your off-time (strength training, yoga, massage therapy, etc.). Also keep security in mind: tether when you can, use a VPN if you have to use someone else’s wifi, figure out what you’re going to do before stepping into a coffeshop to work so you can seat yourself accordingly (if you’re dealing with sensitive documents you might get a bit anxious if you work with them with the entire cafe being able to view your screen).

I’ve done coworking before but I haven’t found the spaces in my city to be more than “just a place to work” for me. If I’m going to be going to one I want to have a support network as well, but the coworking spaces here cater to businesses and people I can’t really relate to. You also lose random events like running into a client who just needs a break or a student asking questions about the stickers on your laptop.

Hope that helps.