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Why can you concentrate in the coffee shop but not in the office?

Published: 2026-04-28 Author: World Gafei

Last Updated: 2026/04/28, Communication of professional baristas Please follow the coffee shop (official Wechat account cafe_style) people often like to work in coffee shops because the office is too noisy and interfering, but the coffee shop is not particularly quiet, why can't people go to the coffee shop and concentrate in the open room office? People often find the open space of the office noisy and easily distracted, and like to go to the office with a computer.

For professional baristas, please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style)

People often like to work in a coffee shop because the office is too noisy and interfering, but the coffee shop is not particularly quiet. Why do people run to the coffee shop but can't concentrate in the open room office?

People often disrelish that the open space of the office is noisy and easily distracted. They like to work in a coffee shop with a computer, so they can finish the work more efficiently.

The coffee shop is also open, why does it feel more efficient to work in the coffee shop?

Past research has shown that the main problem encountered by workers in open-plan or cubicle offices is to hear unwanted noise. But new research shows that it may not be the noise itself that distracts us, but the person who makes it.

In fact, a certain degree of office background chat may help us to carry out creative tasks, provided, of course, that we are not attracted by the conversation.

The ideal office environment for creative work is not completely quiet, but with a little background noise. You may have a way to concentrate on your work in a noisy coffee shop, but you can hardly work in a noisy office, which is why.

The study, published in Journal of Consumer Research, found that the right level of background noise makes us think in a more creative way. The Ravi Mehta team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign asked participants to test their creative thinking at different noise levels and examine their performance.

Participants were randomly divided into four groups, and all had to complete the long-distance Association Test (a common creative thinking test in which they came up with a series of words that seemed unrelated at first glance and asked the subjects to find out how they related them). Different groups are exposed to different noise levels: completely quiet, 50 decibels, 70 decibels and 85 decibels.

An extremely quiet environment is not necessarily conducive to creative thinking.

The performance differences between most groups were not statistically significant, but the groups with 70 decibels (chat background noise close to the coffee shop) performed much better than the other groups. Since there is little difference in performance between the completely quiet group and the 85 dB group (about equivalent to quieter motorcycles), this may mean that there is not much difference in our creative thinking ability between the two situations. This surprised me, because probably no one would want to work next to a motorcycle.

However, due to the outstanding performance at 70 decibels, the study also shows that appropriate background noise that is not too noisy or too quiet may really stimulate creative thinking.

The appropriate background noise may be enough to break our normal mode of thinking and let our imagination wander around without distracting people.

"distracted concentration" is the best condition.

This "distracting concentration" seems to be the best way to deal with creative tasks. As the researchers write, "entering a relatively noisy environment may prompt the brain to think abstractly, which in turn leads to creative ideas."

In another study, the researchers used frontal lobe electroencephalography to examine the brainwaves of participants when they completed creative tasks in different sound environments. It was found that there were statistically significant changes in creative scores, and the scores were associated with specific brainwaves. As in the previous study, a certain level of white noise is the ideal background sound for creative tasks.

Such being the case, the whispered chat of colleagues and the slight sound of air conditioning should help to concentrate on work. Why do so many people still hate open-plan offices?

The problem may be that in the office, we just can't help being attracted to other people's conversations or being interrupted when we try to focus.

In fact, the second study also found that face-to-face interaction, dialogue and other disruptive factors can have a negative impact on the creative process. On the contrary, a common workspace or coffee shop can provide a certain degree of ambient noise while keeping us uninterrupted.

Therefore, the ideal focused workspace is not completely noise-free, but so that people will not be interrupted.

No matter how noisy it is, finding a space where you can hide may be the best strategy to make sure you can get important work done.

Source: Harvard Business Review

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