Get an Instant Spark of Ideas — Hit Coffee Shops

For you who feel stuck or need a creativity boost.

The clock hits 5 pm. The office hour has passed. Some people make their way home. As you follow the herd, you forgot that you still have one design for your client due tonight.

What will you do?

“Okay, let’s hit the coffee shops on the next block!”

You open the glass door, entering a cozy room with a white couch and dark brown-themed furniture.

Smells of roasted coffee beans fly in the air makes you relaxed and pumped at the same time.

You come to the order desk. “Excuse me, what can I help you, Sir?” A short-haired woman with glasses in her 20s asked you.

You ordered your favorite Cappuccino then sat on the corner couch.

As you open your laptop to crush the task in your head, the barista makes your cappuccino.

Satisfying right?

Coffee shops have been a significant place to produce many creative ideas. You name it: photography, design, writing, and light reading.

I hit the coffee shops every two days now.

It is a place where creative ideas spark easily.

How come?

You have explicit goals

Before going to coffee shops, you have something in your head needed to be done. It gives you the sense of “preparation” you need before executing specific tasks.

You are one step ahead.

Often in your familiar environment, like in your room, this essentials first step is neglected.

Going to the coffee shops spends time and effort. You have expectations unconsciously.

“I won’t spend $5 cappuccino for nothing.”

Pleasant Music for Your Soul

What type of songs usually played in coffee shops?

Exactly. Smooth, instrumental jazz.

I know. I know. Not all coffee shops out there use jazz as their background music. It is undeniably true. Typical “Top 50 charts” or billboard music is often used nowadays.

The innovative riffs, cool tones, and complex rhythms of jazz music can bring natural relief for the mind and body.

Listening to Jazz can affect the type of brain waves you produce, stimulating or relaxing.

Its distinctive syncopation can bring theta brain waves, the most highly creative brain wave. They inspire new insights and solutions to unresolved problems.

A Cup of Joe

Of course. Coffee shops can’t be separated from Coffee.

Believe it or not, Coffee did help us spark ideas with creativity.

There is some contradiction regarding how coffee can bring creativity, as Geoffrey James said in his article: Coffee May Not Increase Creativity, but Does Something Potentially Even Better.

Coffee is enormously helpful to the creative process because it suppresses unwanted and unnecessary insights and instead helps you focus on the work at hand.

Caffeine keeps your mind from wandering, which is part of the creative process.

Freshen your eyes from the new working environment

Sometimes your cramped workplace makes you bored.

The color. The design. Anything.

It’s just too monotonic! Coffee shops straighten things up. Like instantly.

A new working environment makes you grasp the sense of discovery. It also helps you stay inspired.

The other good thing is, you have an unlimited amount of environment. There are plenty of good coffee shops out there, waiting to be visited. Yes. You are right. Not all coffee shops provide sound design and look, but it is still worth the discovery.

Keep in your mind that even you already visited many coffee shops in your city, there must be another one worth visited. By worth, I mean the fulfilling feel you get.

You might think, “Oh, if that is the fact, then what if I make my coffee, listening to jazz music, and redesign my room all by myself?”

You could!

But you have to take the trouble.

Compared to going to the coffee shops, which have the same benefit but significantly less effort.

So, do you go to coffee shops often?