This Cafe Is Designed for Writers with Deadlines

When you’re a writer with a looming deadline, putting words on the page becomes incredibly difficult. Making yourself focus is easier said than done. But one cafe is here to help you do the work: Manuscript Writing Cafe. Located in Koenji, a district of Tokyo, this co-working space helps writers with deadlines using rules and a minder who will check up on your word count progress. It’s only open to people who are writing.

Manuscript Writing Cafe’s premise sounds perfect. If you’ve tried writing at home or at your local coffee shop with little success, it’s the next step. The cafe’s structure builts in external accountability. When you arrive, you let the staff know how many words you need to or want to write during your session at the cafe. You’ll note that work goal on a card. Then a manager will check up on your progress every hour. As the cafe’s site says:

· Upon entering the store, write down at the reception desk how many words and by what time you are going to write your manuscript.

· The manager asks you every hour how your manuscript is coming along.

· You are not allowed to leave the store until you have finished writing your manuscript or writing project.

· Customers can choose different “courses” in terms of how rigorously staff check up on your progress. For instance, an “S” course sees them hurry you along pretty aggressively, and “M” course has them do it a more mildly.

· The “manuscript writing” at the store includes “translation work”, “proposal writing”, “layout work”, “image processing”, etc., indicating that the store caters to a wide range of people.

You pay to use the space, and if you don’t finish the work you put on your card, the staff won’t let you pay. Thus, you can’t leave without breaking the law. This kind of pressure may not work for everyone, but some folks will thrive.

Since this business primarily functions as a recording and broadcasting studio with Manuscript Writing Cafe operating during the studio’s off hours, it’s not so much about the cafe part. They offer hot beverages, and guests can bring their own snacks or have meals delivered to the cafe. For the rental of your seat, you’ll get Wi-Fi, an outlet, a USB charger, a laptop cooling stand, and access to the “free drink corner” to get coffee or to make hot tea.

All I know is my town needs a Manuscript Writing Cafe.

What Really Drives You Crazy About Waiting in Line

Have you ever noticed the two main lines you encounter in daily life? Some businesses have many parallel lines that consumers have to choose from. Others have one long, serpentine line that everyone waits in, and when you reach the front of the line you are served by the next available register.

The systems each have advantages and disadvantages. The biggest obstacle to adopting the serpentine line is that you need floor space where the line can form, meaning it doesn’t work in all store designs. Often, the lines will snake around the entire store, blocking customers’ access to the shelves. Special line manager or automatic system is required for organization.

What about the time each line takes? According to Larson, the wait time is about the same. However, the variance is larger for the parallel line system than for the single serpentine line.

In practice, the system of many parallel lines also gives rise to inefficiencies — like when customers don’t notice that one checkout counter is open — which slows down service. “So, the many-line system can never have a mean queue time less than that of a single-line system,” Larson says.

Researchers argue that the serpentine line has more advantages. Namely, it seems socially fairer, because customers who arrive first are always served first. Because people waiting in line often value fairness more than efficiency, studies have shown that serpentine lines make customers happier than parallel lines, regardless of the wait time.

That guarantee of fairness eliminates a lot of stress and anxiety. You might not think about it much, but a system of many parallel lines, like at a grocery store checkout or toll booths, can be very anxiety provoking. There’s the stress of choosing the shortest line, and then there’s the possibility that, for unforeseen reasons, your line will grind to a halt. You can analyze the contents of people’s carts all you want, but the person in front of you may still pull out an envelope stuffed with coupons or a giant bag of pennies.

These lines are what Larson calls “slips and skips”, where people who enter the line first watch those who arrived later overtake them. He says these generate anxiety and uncertainty, and “the victim experiences more psychological loss than the perpetrator (犯罪者) enjoys benefit.”

When people later were given a choice of which line to repeat, a significant majority chose the latter one. Even though it lasted for a longer duration and clearly included more pain overall than the first one, people preferred it because it had a relatively better ending. So we can conclude that the duration of the experience doesn’t matter that much to people — what matters is the discomfort at the worst and final moments.