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- Hello, hello, hey there.
Welcome into another edition of Between the Lines.
I'm Josh Ellis, editor-in-chief of SUCCESS magazine,
joined today by one of my favorite writers for SUCCESS,
Jonny Auping. Jonny wrote "The Slow Drip Back to Routine"
in the brand new September/October issue of the magazine,
all about his triumphant return after the pandemic,
to working in coffee shops.
Jonny, I enjoyed it, thanks for doing this today.
- Yeah, thank you.
Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.
- So this falls in the Lifestyle chapter
of the issue, that is of course all about
how we work, especially for solopreneurs,
people who work remotely.
You have been a solopreneur, a freelancer
for almost all of your professional career.
Working in coffee shops was just something that you did
as a matter of course like almost every day, right?
- Yeah, I think that, I mean,
there was one point where it was,
I would say an average of six days a week,
and that was for like a good two or three year period.
- Why is that more comfortable than just like
from your couch?
- I mean, a couple of reasons.
I think one is if you're trying to get in a steady rhythm
of working, and you're trying to have like still have
some degree of work-life balance I think,
which I assume a lot of people are going through this
or have gone through this for the past year
and a half working from home is that walk from your desk
or wherever you work in your home, to maybe the couch
to watch TV it doesn't feel like you're off
the clock anymore I mean, it's not enough of a separation.
So part of it is just being in a different space.
And then a lot of it too when I was early in my career,
and I didn't have as many assignments as I do now,
and wasn't as established of a writer.
I mean it's like, you're trying to make things happen
you're trying to like avoid getting discouraged.
A lot of the time it's just kind of like getting
in the car to go somewhere, feels like
you're playing the part of someone who's productive
and knows what they're doing.
Part of it is just, it feels like you're clocking
into something, you're maybe trying
to make something happen.
- I had a stretch at one point in my career
when I was unemployed.
And I know exactly what you're talking about.
When there was no like structure to the day,
I got pretty down about it
and lost a lot of motivation.
And so this totally makes sense to me.
And as I said, the headline is "The Slow Drip Back Routine."
That routine aspect, just having something to kind of center
your day and your work, you feel like it always made
you do better work.
- It's hard to say, I think that
I've always been a writer and I think it probably applies
to most professions, if you're good at what you do,
or good enough at what you do then
when it comes time to where you have to get it done,
you can get it done in probably any setting.
But I think it's just sort of the getting out
of your own head a little bit as a writer
'cause a lot of writing is hopefully
you're ahead of deadlines and you're not always
on the day of the deadline.
You have a lot of this like in-between time
where you should be getting work done,
or having ideas pass through and I think the same,
on one hand, this sounds like a remedy to a home office,
but I think it's also you get caught up in the same problems
in a actual office building where you work.
You seen the same things every day
and all becomes monotonous, and coffee shops are nice
because people watch.
And I think when you can go to different ones,
you don't have to be tied to the same one.
It kind of like, obviously I'm not saying that
I see somebody walk by wearing a funny hat and I'm like,
all right about that person but
it's just more the idea that your brain is more wired
to not get in a completely, it's like in a routine
of thinking about things the same way it's like
you kinda said, is it good for a routine as a question.
To some degree it is but I think like it's also helpful
to not feel chained to a routine
because if anything if you're a freelancer,
someone who doesn't work for a single company,
you have some freedom and luxury that
for all there's a lot of drawbacks.
Like I definitely know the drawbacks,
so it's good to utilize the things that are pros,
which is you aren't restrained.
You can decide to work on a Sunday.
And that sounds like a con, but the pro might be like,
well, I worked on Sunday,
I can kind of relax on Tuesday if I feel like it.
And part of that reminding yourself that,
or reminding myself that it's kind of just like working
somewhere random like a coffee shop.
- One of the challenging parts about the pandemic,
aside from the existential dread that everybody dealt with
to some extent, you tended to kind of like get to know
the people up there and in a way,
I think you expressed at some point that
you miss those little micro relationships in a way.
- Yeah, for sure.
I'm sure that it was a version of what people have
in their offices of like, they obviously they know
their coworkers better than I know.
The baristas at the coffee shops knew me but like
I did kind of know the baristas, I knew a lot of their names
and I hung out with some of them recreationally,
and a lot of it that like,
low stakes casual relationship
of sort of like interaction with someone.
It was like during the pandemic if you live with someone,
you're probably living with someone you love,
whether it's family or a partner,
you're embracing how great it is to spend that much time
with them, and then like you're also focusing
on not frustrating them, not driving each other crazy
after so much time spent together and like,
to be able to have these little like catch ups that
are basically like a bunch of versions
for the same conversation,
You're asking about one of the three things about them
and vice versa, but I don't know that's an ice,
and especially when you have a creative job where
when it's time to work,
if you're not feeling super inspired,
you're just kind of staring at a blank page
and there's nothing you can do about that.
That can feel super heavy, it can make you
be really dramatic about that.
But if you're kind of getting to say what's up
to some people or just be around people doing
their own thing, it kinda like breaks
that up in a way that makes your workday
not feel so dramatic.
- Well, I love these kinds of stories,
these essays for success because
there's only so many times that you can have
a 13 point guide to productivity or
the do's and don'ts of sales.
Our work in so many ways is part and parcel to our lives.
I think that the essay is a great slice of life.
It's a insight into a shared experience that we all had
in one way or another, over the last year and a half.
So. Jonny, really appreciate you writing it for SUCCESS.
And I hope everybody out there we'll check it out
in the September/October issue.
It should be on newsstands everywhere or in your mailbox.
Jonny, thanks for joining me today.
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