I think caffeine is often used for motivation during mundane tasks. Imagine working on a tedious engineering assignment like writing unit tests for a CRUD app. Over a few years it becomes a necessary lever, and at that point it is pretty close to an addiction.
Amount of caffeine consumed by a team may be an interesting proxy for how motivated employees are at a company (a small amount indicates high motivation, a medium amount indicates low motivation, and a high amount indicates either a severe lack of motivation or a high level of motivation).
You’re getting downvoted but I strongly believe coffee is a huge net negative on productivity especially in the long run.
It has two scary effects: one is it seems to sacrifice some creativity for some raw output (along with a sort of scattered and less human feel to communication).
Two is that it degrades sleep quality. Which probably means a lack of memory formation at the margin over long time periods.
These are just hunches but people on caffeine just have an attitude that’s a little off putting once you notice it. I’d love to see some big studies that focus on the long term and subtler psych effects.
Hmm, I like coffee very much but I don't really use it to get shit done as much as to open my mind to creative thinking. Perhaps I'm using it differently than most people do?
Without coffee, I will feel sluggish and sleepy all morning. With coffee, I feel alert and inquisitive. I have a rule against drinking coffee after noon, so it doesn't affect my sleep patterns.
Discovering coffee in college was really what allowed me to read things for long hours. I like the fact that it activates inquisitiveness a lot more than that it enables productivity. This is a purely subjective experience, I admit.
The reason you feel sluggish and sleepy is because of coffee (your addiction to it), along with perhaps a variety of other imbalances in your diet, sleep or exercise.
For most of my adult life I drank coffee, with occasional breaks. When I quit a couple years ago I had what felt like burnout for nearly two months. It took up to 6 months after until I really felt fine within a few minutes of waking up. And now my sleep is far easier and better.
Caffeine has a 12 hour half life. That’s incredibly long. Your body is absolutely addicted to it after just a few weeks.
Everyone is different. I am more sensitive to caffeine than most. But it’s absolutely not the case that you need coffee to have energy in the morning. Coffee is a bandaid that temporarily fixes a problem by causing imbalance elsewhere.
Decaf is wonderful though! All the pleasant taste and routine.
Also I find it funny I’m being downvoted given I’m not making scientific claims but rather hypothesis and anecdote. Too many caffeine addicts that don’t want it to be true!
Final note. Focus is easy to come by if you have two things: a good environment (quiet, natural) and an interesting problem. I think the reason why everyone is addicted to coffee in tech is similar to why hard laborers get addicted to painkillers: it gets you through the shitty parts of your job. It’s why college kids get addicted to coffee and adderall as well. You’re being forced to do something that’s far outside your interest, and often in a bad environment. Well that, and it’s fun to do a drug that has a “come up” like caffeine.
Final final note: caffeine has a very specific effect on your thinking. It’s not a debatable point it’s just true. Look at the spider web experiment. It’s makes you excited certainly, it gives you a rush, but it’s almost like a mania much like other stimulants. The weird thing is it almost doesn’t hurt so much in business because so many people do it, so your clients are often also on the same drug as you.
