The FT Work & Careers team recently took a class in how to become more creative at work and learnt that getting away from your desk is key. In this weekly summer series, our writers try different out-of-office activities to see whether they help develop creativity.
It is easy to feel uninspired by the monotony of working every day at the same desk. So, struggling with motivation for an article I had been working on for over a week, I decided to spend an afternoon in a café — to see if working in a new place and surrounding myself with different people would make me more creative.
Research has found that moderate levels of “ambient noise” — around 70 decibels, or about the level of conversation in a café — improves performance on creative tasks. Emboldened by this promise of a productive afternoon, I left my desk and found a table in The Wren, only a minute’s walk from the Financial Times.