Not long ago, I visited one of the warm countries, or rather, its island, which I will describe in detail in another article. For about half of my vacation, I had the opportunity to use my laptop while lying on the beach. The experience turned out to be, in my opinion, not very positive, and as someone who has written a book on productivity, I will try to dispel the myth that working directly from the beach is convenient and cool.
The first reason why working on the beach is significantly worse is the atmosphere that prevails both on the beach and at the resort itself. This atmosphere of relaxation and leisure is not conducive to work. Everyone around seems like sleepy and sluggish flies. The relaxing atmosphere surrounding you cannot have a positive effect on your productivity. By the way, I dedicate a significant portion of my book on productivity to the importance of the right environment.
The second reason flows smoothly from the first. In an atmosphere of relaxation, not everyone uses the beach for quiet and peaceful rest. There are constantly people walking by, including both beachgoers and service staff. There are noisy children everywhere and many conversations happening right next to your sunbed. While it’s possible to combat auditory distractions somewhat using headphones, dealing with visual distractions is extremely difficult. Working on the beach, just like working from a café, is significantly worse because there is no privacy, many temptations to get distracted, and not much choice in terms of possible working positions and locations compared to remote work, where you can freely choose a room, sofa, bed, or office chair and quietly retreat (if, of course, the home or office atmosphere allows for that).
The third reason that hinders work may be stronger than the first two combined. This is related to the brightness that you need to crank up to the maximum on your device. Working without sunglasses is essentially not an option, as you have to squint constantly, which quickly tires your eyes. Additionally, bright sunlight requires your device’s screen to be set to maximum brightness, and if you add sunglasses to the mix, it means that in order to see anything on the monitor screen, the brightness must be at its highest, plus you need to choose an appropriate color scheme for the program you are using. Once you get distracted and focus on something for more than 20-30 seconds, the next 5-10 seconds will be spent just trying to locate your cursor. The beach is even poorly suited for reading books; since I like to take detailed notes and work with them, it’s difficult to do this on laptops and MacBooks, and e-readers cannot meet all the necessary needs for creating a comprehensive outline.
The fourth reason is the unsuitable working conditions. Sometimes it’s too hot, sometimes the sun is blazing down, which moves across the sky quite quickly due to the planet's rotation, and you constantly have to watch to ensure that some part of your body isn’t exposed to the sun; you regularly have to move your lounge chair and adjust to the umbrella to stay in the shade.
Finally, the fifth reason is that on many beaches, the internet connection is not the fastest or most stable; and the data can be expensive if you are using a mobile plan without unlimited internet.
As a conclusion to all of the above, it can be said that it’s impossible to stay in this atmosphere for long, as it quickly becomes tiresome: there are many distracting factors, devices drain their batteries much faster, and most importantly, comprehension and efficiency are significantly lower. However, I did not have any illusions about the convenience of working on the beach, but now I have been able to fully verify this for myself. So, no matter how sad it sounds to many: for something important and routine, the gray weekdays are better suited than sunny beach days. Of course, for some managers, a couple of hours of moderately effective work from the beach might be enough, but for most people, the beach is not a viable option for good work.
