I love coffee. It’s delicious, chock full of life-enhancing antioxidants and fosters connections and collaboration, too. After spending a few weeks in Italy last year, I developed a love of espresso. In addition to the concentrated caffeine boost that a shot brings, espresso also improves focus (in the moment and over time) as well as positively shifts our energy. We can learn a lot from this simple and effective beverage in terms of how we show up in our communities. Here are five productivity lessons from espresso.
Condense your focus
Espresso is made by forcing very hot water under pressure through finely ground compacted coffee. Espresso is different from regular drip coffee because of the fineness and compactness of the preparation (called tamping) and the much shorter brewing time. A lot of great value is packed into a small serving.
We are in an age of addiction to distraction. I think I notice it most while riding my bike to work and swerving around or away from people walking wherever they’re going while glued to the screen of their device. One of the ways that we can break our habit of filling downtime with scrolling or liking is by giving our brains a few shots of short, deep focus every day. Headspace’s Andy Peddicombe recommends a few one minute breaks per day where you simply direct your focus on what’s happening, where you’re at, and what’s in front of you. This can be achieved while waiting at a red light during your commute or during a meal.
Have bursts of productivity
Espresso packs caffeine into a very compact serving compared to an Americano or drip coffee. Research has found that starting our day with a cup of coffee can actually make us more likely to stick to goals associated with physical activity. The caffeine boost of an espresso gives us a boost of productivity that helps us turn off Netflix, get off the couch and go for a bike ride with friends.
Human beings can produce quality work for about 45 minutes. Maybe 90 minutes. Basically, we are more wired for espresso-like-productivity, which involves short bursts of production focused on a specific outcome, than we are for drip-coffee-productivity, which is a bit like sipping away at work over a longer period of time. The more time we spend looking at a spreadsheet or an inbox the less productive we become. Cal Newport has some great tactics for organizing your day in order to achieve the best kind of focus be elevating what will make the biggest impact and blocking the things that distract us, like email or social media.
Give shots of inspiration
Espresso is generally consumed quickly. I finish mine in two or three sips. While a regular sized drip coffee contains more caffeine than a double espresso, we might feel the outcomes of coffee more with a shot of espresso because of how fast it moves through our system: “Caffeine can be more rapidly assimilated when taken in concentrated dosages; hitting your central nervous system differently than if you sipped a drip cup over the course of an hour.”
Inspiration and motivation can be achieved through a TED Talk, a keynote speech or a weekend seminar on personal growth. We can also shift peoples’ perspective and help them raise awareness in themselves and their community with simple and powerful questions. The other day a colleague was listening to me explain some of the things I was doing to wake up early – he said to me: “you’ve mentioned this practice a few times throughout the year, but it seems to be sticking now; what have you done to make this happen?” This question took about seven seconds to ask and it really inspired me to reflect on the habits I created in the last few weeks and where I was getting some newfound discipline to ensure they keep happening. And if questions aren’t your thing, the espresso-shot-benefits of a short, simple and specific compliment is inspiring for our colleagues, friends and family members.
Enjoy lighter living
Espresso is best consumed out of a stylish ceramic cup while standing at the café’s bar. Drip coffee is most commonly consumed from a disposable cup en route from one place to another whilst texting, scrolling or podcasting. Humans use over 16 billion disposable coffee cups every year, which is clogging up the planet like multitasking clogs our mind. By taking a quick moment of savouring espresso in a coffee shop we can enhance our ability to be present while keeping cups out of the waste stream.
My wife and I have made personal commitments to use disposable coffee cups less than 10 times (combined) this year. Thanks to the few minutes that it takes to order, prepare and drink an espresso I don’t compromise my schedule when I forget my travel mug and need to stay in the café. Personally, I think that leaders of all sorts showcase their genius and talent by focusing on a few things and doing them very well. Their life is lighter because they literally and figuratively carry less baggage, which results in them demonstrating calm amidst chaos and clarity within complexity. My take on leadership in the next decade is that the most impactful producers will create value while leaving a lighter environmental footprint, too.
Invoke collisions
Espresso is often consumed in a slightly different manner than its coffee cousins, like The Latte. Espresso bars, where you sidle up next to someone for a few moments while you sip coffee, force micro-community-building. Whether it’s with the barista or a stranger, we exchange a few words of small talk and then move on to the next part of our day. Coffee might even help people collaborate more effectively because it enhances focus, elevates energy and increases talkativeness.
So many great ideas come from ideas colliding across a messy desk or through chance encounters in a workplace kitchen with the right person at the right time. Healthy communities – and definitely smart ones – tend to be more diverse and inclusive. It’s hard to foster diversity when we’re not focused on our surroundings or, better yet, engaging with them. Fast Company’s Aaron Hurst outlines the positive impact of Steel Case’s leadership team putting itself in the middle of the action (at the espresso bar, if you will) as part of the company’s novel office design:
The new space puts the senior leaders in a more accessible position, literally, with everyone who comes through headquarters. It’s creating more unplanned interactions between the leadership team, employees and customers. The senior leadership team now has a better pulse on how things are going. It has provoked his team to take on new challenges while giving up control at the same time.
The ambient noise and bustling activity of coffee shops have been found to enhance productivity and foster creativity, too, but your ability to produce will depend on your task, plowing through email is more likely than writing a screenplay, and style (how distracted are you by shiny things?). Regardless, colliding with new people, ideas and settings helps shift our perspective and raise our awareness, which mitigates bias and unblocks our stuck thinking. Our minds wake up with a shot of espresso!
—
This article was originally published on January 16, 2019