why you should never write copy in a coffee shop

Back when I was a freelancer, I used to bang out all my copy at a little coffee shop near my house in Columbus.

I had the same routine everytime I went…

I’d a get myself a peppermint tea at the counter…

Then I’d plop down at the corner table with my laptop where I could see everyone in the place.

From there, I’d proceed to write for the next 2 or 3 hours.

I did this day in and day out for a number of years.

But eventually I stopped going to the coffee shop when I had writing to do.

Why?

Cause it finally dawned on me that trying to do “deep work” in a busy coffee shop was not an ideal environment for me.

Basically every time someone walked past me, I’d look up from my laptop…

Or if the espresso machine made a noise, I’d look to see what was going on…

This would happen like every 30 seconds…

So every time I’d get in a flow with my writing, I’d get distracted by something, and my writing flow would be broken.

I’d have to recollect my thoughts…

And basically “start over”.

Which is not ideal.

What you want when you’re writing is to be in an environment that has as few distractions as possible.

That’s how you get in the flow…

And that’s how you crank out a lot of copy in a relatively short period of time. 

So my advice?..

Do everything you can to minimize the distractions around you when you have writing to do.

That means minimizing the number of people around you…

Not having your phone on…

Not getting messages on Slack…

All of these are distractions…

And each distraction will just pull you out of your writing flow.

This stuff isn’t a big deal if you’re just checking email…

Or doing ho-hum tasks…

But when you’re trying to write a sales page…

Or you have 5 emails to write for a client…

The more you can isolate yourself away from the distractions, the more you’ll be able to get into a flow, and the better your writing will be. 

So keep that in mind…

– Justin