A Latte – Good For Creativity, Reflection And Patience

Is your local coffee shop your ideal third space, away from work and home? Do you reach your goals more easily with a cup of your favourite coffee in hand? Or maybe you mooch about with a Mocha when you want to refocus your work and life?

If you answered ‘yes’ just then, you may want to learn more about the BBC’s collaboration with the Open University. The first episode of Business Boomers sheds light on the subject of the rise and rise of the coffee shop, a thriving part of the hospitality sector, even after the global economic crisis of 2007-08.

Coffee Shops As Places To Change Your Life

As Chris Ward’s book ‘ Out of Office’ suggests, the wifi enabled coffee shop is a place where you can change your life, or have the big ideas which can change the world around you.  Here’s a link to the Business Boomers Open University mini site: if you are very curious you can also click on a programme summary here – Business Boomers Coffee Shop Pdf

Despite the new types of working venues and the new technologies to support that work times are still tough.  The focus remains getting the best possible results from limited resources.  How much of your To Do list gets done, or thought about outside office hours?

What Is Your Third Space?

One of my local third spaces – Cafe Le Delice – attracts customers for work and leisure by offering an attentive quality of service; handmade food; and flexible usage (reserving a private room for a voluntary project meeting for instance).  This makes it the kind of venue where work  can still get done, after the 9 to 5.

There’s an analogue to the coffee shop as third space destination of choice.  How does an individual stand apart from his or her more prominent peers, when their offer seems similar?  How do they retain the work-life balance they want whilst giving their best performance?

Your 2 Questions To Help Distinguish Yourself At Work

Here are two related questions to work on:

• What is your unique offer and how does it stand out in quality terms from everyone else’s?
• What actions will you take in the next 12 weeks to further differentiate your brand from others; improve your prospects; and enjoy your free time?

Help yourself to the further ideas relating to your work and life goals in the Archive section here, on Facebook and Google+ too.  Or you can go to LinkedIn and View Roger Dennison’s profile