Creating With Coffee: A Productivity Experiment
How I jumpstart my daily work with one simple habit
My alarm buzzes as I lay in bed half awake. My eyes won’t open. My legs can’t move.
Just 30 more minutes
I grab my phone to start a 30 minute timer.
Just a little longer
Surely this extra time won’t cost me much?
A couple timer resets later and it’s 11:30 am. I’m rushing out the door with half-done hair and no breakfast just to make it to class on time.
There are 24 hours in a day and I feel 5 hours behind every time I wake up.
I need to make a change.
A week ago I made a commitment to getting up earlier each morning until I hit 6:30 am.
I wanted to start my days with activities that kept me on track with fulfilling my personal priorities:
Classroom success
Research progress
Creative development
This morning I ended that 30 minute snooze timer 29 minutes early.
No more sleeping in. No more momentum sabotage.
In just five days, I’ve gone from being collapsed in bed at 11:00 am to striding out the door at 7:00 am.
This has been a personal victory because over the past six months I’ve learned that I personally get better work done in the morning than at any other time.
I used to be a night owl who would work until 2 am, eat, and then crash into a slumber that would carry me into the middle of tomorrow.
The routine burned me out because I felt like I was catching up all day. It worked for many around me, but not me.
On top of that, my rest time mixed with my work time, inhibiting my ability to decide when I should or should not work.
I would wake up just in time for my lectures, hurry to the library to get my homework started, and then alternate between short breaks and shorter work sessions until the late hours of the night.
It turns out I was always working much slower because of how tired I got throughout the day with this cycle of “catching up”.
Now that I’m on a morning-focused routine, I’m getting the same amount of work done more quickly and even with more enjoyment.
What’s more? This fundamental shift in my schedule makes me feel ahead of the day and by consequence, more motivated and more energized.
But wouldn’t it be harder to break the habit of sleeping in when you also have to tackle hours of early studies right away?
Not at all.
I was able to build this habit through an experiment I started.
Over this one-week experiment, I effortlessly poured an extra 20 hours into finals studying, Substack engagement, and Procreate practice with one simple routine.
Creating With Coffee
I used to sporadically drink coffee.
Maybe I’d drink one halfway through the day to recharge after class, maybe I’d want an evening energy boost for studying, maybe I’d sneak one in at 12 am for an all-nighter.
I usually kept it to one coffee a day but I had no idea when I would be having it.
Amidst brainstorming ways to control my daily energy and boost my productivity it became clear to me that this haphazard coffee consumption needed to be straightened out.
As a college student living in the middle of Seattle, I have the luxury of choosing between dozens of coffee shops within walking distance to visit.
I can play to that by choosing to get out of bed a few hours before my first lecture and use that time to visit a cafe I’m excited to work in.
So the core of this experiment became:
Make time for a morning cafe visit.
Every morning.
For a week.
I started this routine to improve one aspect of myself.
My capacity for focused work.
My cafe strategy fulfilled three crucial pieces to achieve this:
Do something I look forward to right after I wake up
Commit to doing 2+ hours of focused work in the morning
Repeat the process at the same time each day
I committed to going to a cafe right after waking up because it’s always a source of enjoyment for me.
But if I was going to allow myself to go to a cafe every day, I needed to get that money and time value back in the form of 2+ hours of deliberate progression towards my goals each day.
That was an easy trade in my mind.
To make it stick, I chose to repeat this process every day for the week.
Those extra 20 hours I ended up gaining in the form of focused work used to be a confusing late-night mess of distraction-inhibited studying and inefficient breaks sprinkled with guilt for not doing more, sooner.
This cafe experiment is my way of officially rejecting that experience.
Takeaways
To make this possible for myself, I borrowed a couple principles from Deep Work by Cal Newport.
Use solitude to consolidate your focus
Develop routines to signal the start (and end) of deep work
Cal Newport defines deep work as “the act of focusing without distraction on a cognitively demanding task”.
This has grown into my favorite method for getting things done.
I can’t claim to execute it perfectly whenever I want, but I do come much closer to true deep work during my mornings in the corner of one coffee shop or another with a 12 oz latte warming the air around my keyboard.
If, like me, you find yourself struggling to consistently work towards your next big goal, consider giving this a try:
Reserve time within the first half of your day for a focused work session
Spend that time somewhere that relaxes and inspires you
Defend this time and put it towards your goal’s most important tasks
1. Start your day your way
I’ve found that when I put effort into taking control of the beginning of my day, the rest of it goes smoothly.
Instead of starting the day with no breakfast and rushing to your first appointment, you can build in the freedom to put some extra time into your side business, pressing work tasks, or even your creative projects.
2. Find your ideal workspace
For me, cafes work great.
I’m out and about—simultaneously connected to what’s going on around me and isolated enough to take advantage of Cal Newport’s concept of deep work.
I get to ease into my work sessions with a cup of coffee while stationed between a rain-covered window and a 7-foot tall house plant.
I chose a setting that is comforting, inspiring, and accessible.
This doesn’t literally have to be a cafe for you but prioritizing relaxation, isolation, and enjoyment in your space only sets you up for a better, more consistent work session.
3. Spend your energy on what’s most important to you
I’m not just going to cafes to wake up slowly and spend all my money on coffees and croissants.
I’m there to give my long-term ambitions a chance.
I recommend you make it clear what your most important goal is and spend this time getting a head start on it.
With this routine, I’ve managed to fill my days with energy and drop the unnecessary stress I experienced for so long.
So can you.
(Reader Note: If you really like working at night, try this experiment during the hours that work for you and tell me about it!)
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