Well concentration in a busy café but not in the office garden?

Put me in a café around the corner and I can write a book in less than a day. It doesn't matter how loudly and often someone is whining at the coffee machine or what they are talking about at the table behind me. I don't even need headphones to drown out the noise, in fact, I prefer not to. But put me in an open office and I get distracted by every sip of coffee that is taken. No joke.

I always took that for granted. No idea why, but I work so well in an overcrowded coffee shop. Until last week when I heard a very simple explanation. In the podcast SEARCHING Nina Elshof, founder of the Feng Shui Academy in the Netherlands, explains that this is very normal. In a café, you can immerse yourself in the buzz of the environment. It's there, but you don't have to do anything with it, because you have no relationship with the people there. A kind of noise that allows you to focus really well. That works very differently in the open office and even at home.

Put yourself in an open office and you can assume that you are surrounded by colleagues. With each individual present, you have a certain social connection, which can be close or quite distant, and that's why you can't possibly shut yourself off from the conversation between your colleagues about what they ate over the weekend.

When we think of feng shui, you quickly think of the interior of a house. Which is indeed a large part of this ancient teaching, but it primarily gives you insight into the relationship between humans and their environment. Ever thought: this space doesn't feel quite right? That has everything to do with feng shui. So you benefit from arranging a room or place as nicely as possible for yourself. And if you are a bit skeptical: it has even been scientifically proven that it works. Nina Elshof concluded her explanation of feng shui with a quote from Albert Einstein, which I could really relate to: “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” And if Einstein says it, who am I to follow an empty desk policy?