Apr 17, 2016

Coffee Shops: Providing Uninterrupted Personal Space & Time

As I sit in this Starbucks coffee shop here in Connaught Place, New Delhi, I can't help but observe how many people have made this place their office or adda. A couple of days ago, I was in Indiranagar outlet in Bangalore and believe me, that place was overflowing. I overlooked an outlet in the Mumbai airport and there was no place to sit. It is not a different story here in New Delhi either as there is not a free table that you can select. I have had no option but to share a table with a couple of other individuals, who, to my surprise, were welcoming.

As I sit here, I see some people who look like students, studying & making notes. Some people staring on their phones, a few animatedly catching up with their friends. A couple of backpackers replenishing themselves and people like me, typing away into their laptops.

It is amazing what coffee shops have done to providing uninterrupted personal time. One other place I can think of that does this is the library. Apart from the ones attached to the educational institutions, I don't recall any other library that one can go to as of today. Perhaps, a costlier alternative would be to get into a hotel room who charge by the day and the personal time required is in hours.

If there are really so many of us wanting uninterrupted personal space & time, why are more businesses not cashing in on this? 

It is possible that only a section of the population would like this and it is easy to wrongly assume that everyone needs this. It is also possible that more people are here in this part of the year to get away from the searing heat of the sun. 

As far as I am concerned, if I want to get something done and be productive, I head to the nearest coffee shop! If there is none, you can create a virtual coffee shop here: https://coffitivity.com/ which will provide the sounds that you hear in a coffee shop. There are a couple of youtube videos as well that provide this background noise for us to focus.

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