I’ve talked to several writers lately about ADHD background noise. When does it help? When does it hurt? How do coffeeshops play into that? I’m noticing something simple about myself. I do benefit from coffeeshop noise, but not from active conversations in my own language nearby.

Whatever’s happened to my brain since moving to NYC, it’s gotten harder and harder for me to filter out what’s relevant information and what’s irrelevant. Might come from dodging cabs or something, I’m unsure.

The ultimate result is that crosstalk in coffeeshops immediately makes it to where I have to pay attention to every single word. Sometimes, especially during COVID and where some particularly nasty b-cluster personality types had assaulted our lives, I would apply these conversations to me. This was mainly because a lot of folks in the neighborhood and city were gossiping about a specific situation. Combined with having been the center of attention in some very unfortunate situations, it makes it hard to filter.

As a result, when it comes to ADHD background noise, I benefit from coffeeshops like the one pictured above. They’re older in style, remind me of kitschy coffeeshops in the midwest and are run by internationals. Sometimes this doesn’t help because I’ll catch a single word in another language and realize they’re making fun of the Αμερική in the audience, and then it takes focus to jack myself back into English.

Overall, though, it helps. It’s the noise, but it’s structurally irrelevant noise.

Thought it might be worth considering for those in global cities and the like.

What about you? What helps you focus?