Is café working really workable?

Working from home is fabulous. I’ve been doing it for 17 years now and most of the time I love it.  Just occasionally though, domestic life gets in the way. For the past week and a bit, we’ve had workmen in renovating our bathroom. The work was pencilled in months ago when I had no idea how it’d fit into my work schedule and inevitably, it’s come at exactly the wrong time, just when I’m at my busiest, juggling a couple of projects and really can’t afford the disruption. What with the noise, the mess, no loo and the water and power going on and off, it’s meant that I haven’t been able to work from home.

Because I can’t afford to lose the hours, I’ve worked through the past two weekends, I’ve been squeezing a couple of hours in each evening and I’ve been trying to get in a few hours during the day working in cafés. All of which has left me exhausted, frustrated and having actually achieved very little in the way of work.

The idea of the freelancer sat in acafé with their laptop seems very appealing, but in my experience, it’s really not a workable solution.

Focus:
I’m lucky that living right in the city centre, I have a huge choice of cafés all within a few minutes’ walk, so I can pick spots that are relatively quiet. Even so, there is inevitable background noise and distractions. And however laid-back the café, you’re always a bit conscious of the time. The waitress has cleared away your coffee cup and you’re wondering how long you can stretch it out before you order something else. Or the free wi-fi only lasts for an hour.

That’s not so bad when you’re working on things that don’t need your full focus and that you can pick up and put down. I soon exhausted those tasks though and found that I was onto new, from-scratch writing that really needed my full attention and an uninterrupted run. In trying to squeeze in bits and pieces here and there, I was being really unproductive – spending ages puzzling over the same thing, going back over stuff again and again and just not moving forward. To the point where I just had to give up and admit it was better to lose a few days.

Logistics:

I generally work at a desktop pc, so decamping to a café means transferring stuff to my laptop. That isn’t that difficult in an age of Dropbox, but it still requires a bit of thought and planning. Making sure you’re always working on the latest version, uploading all those incidental files you might need to refer to and oh yes, coping with slow/intermittent wi-fi.

Ergonomics:

For me though, the real killer is the physical workspace. As someone who suffers from chronic pain, working at a laptop for an extended period is generally a no-no – you’re hunched over with the screen at completely the wrong height in relation to the keyboard and those horrible fiddly little trackpads are a nightmare. Then when you add to that flimsy café chairs that don’t offer any proper support and a table that’s at the wrong height for the chair, it’s a recipe for disaster. This morning’s café stop, for example, had a nice quiet table with a reasonably comfy chair, but the chair was much too low for the table and within minutes, my shoulder was killing me. This afternoon, I’ve switched to somewhere with a high, bench-style table and a seat that puts me at the right height for my arms to drop down more comfortably onto the keyboard, but I’m perched on a stool with no back, which is starting to take its toll on my lower back.

The good news is, the work on the bathroom is due to finish tomorrow, so fingers crossed, I’ll be back at my own desk by Thursday. And yes, at least I’ll have a nice new bathroom …