Deadline Looming? You Can’t Leave Until You’re Done by KM Rockwood

In the trendy Koenji neighborhood of Tokyo, the Manuscript Café stands ready to help writers meet their goals. The staff refuses to let customers leave until they reach their stated goals.

Takuya Kawai, a genial writer himself, is the owner and chief enforcer. Writers, editors, magna artists, and anyone else with a writing project and a deadline, come in to fill out a slip of paper stating their goal for today and the length of time in which they hope to finish.

The staff escorts them to one of ten writing stations, complete with high speed WIFI, chargers, ports and all the coffee or tea they can drink.

By signing the slip, they have agreed not to leave until they have met their goal.

Three levels of supervision are offered: mild, normal, or hard.

For the mild level, the attention is minimal, a staff member occasionally asking, “How’s it going?”

For normal, the check-in will be at least hourly, including reminders of “You have an hour left, right?” and “Not finished yet? Better get on it.”

For hard, designed for the true procrastinating (or overly ambitious) writer, a staff member will frequently stand behind the writer, expressing irritation at the slow pace of the work and admonishing any signs of dilly-dallying.

After her first experience in the Manuscript Café, Mariko Tomioka, a romantic fan fiction magna writer, said she accomplished in two hours what would normally take her several days. “If I worked at a normal cafe, I’d get distracted by my phone, or other people sitting near me—I’m easy on myself. But because I knew I had this two-hour deadline looming, I was able to finish so quickly; it’s very rare for me.” She said she would be back.

Asked about how successful most participants are, Tomu Inokawa, a staff member and himself the editor of a magazine, said, “I think most importantly, it’s the fact that everyone around you is concentrating on a task, which makes you feel like you need to work too. Everyone’s working on something different, but the goal is the same—to meet your deadline,” he said. 

The charge is 130 yen (a little over a dollar) for the first thirty minutes, and 300 yen for every hour beyond that. So far, although a few customers have stayed beyond official closing time, everyone has eventually gotten their work done.

Takuya Kawai admits that some people may find the tactics harsh. "But actually instead of monitoring, I'm here to support them ... As a result, what they thought would take a day actually was completed in three hours, or tasks that usually take three hours were done in one."

"I don't know what kind of work might be born,” he said, “but I'm proud to be able to offer my support so that things written here can be published to the whole world," he said.

A video from the South China Morning News April 28, 2022 

Montgomery, Hanako. “This Café Won’tLet Me Leave Until I’ve Finished This Article.” Vice, April 19, 2022