Table of Contents

• Follow the journey beyond the clocking-out point
• A cup is a container, not a caffeine unit
• Look beyond the drinks called coffee
• Use four fields, then stop adding fields
• Read the pattern before trying to change it
• Keep the journey itself in a separate box
• Frequently Asked Questions

Last Updated: October 23, 2026

How many coffees have you had today? Two at work. Definitely two. Unless the takeaway on the way home counts. And the one bought while waiting for the delayed train. Apparently the answer has acquired footnotes.

Caffeine after work is easy to leave out of a mental count when the drink belongs to the journey rather than the shift. The useful move is not to judge the cup. It is to count the whole sequence honestly, including the less memorable drinks between places.

Here is a simple way to record what you actually drink, without turning an ordinary coffee into a spreadsheet with a password.

Follow the journey beyond the clocking-out point

For one typical working day, write down drinks from waking until your next main sleep, with the actual dates and times. This is an observation exercise, not a new definition of a medical daily limit.

Include the journey to work, breaks, the journey home and the first hour after arrival. A split shift may have several journeys. An early finish may put the commute in the afternoon; a night shift may end beside a café opening for breakfast. The clock alone does not explain where a drink sits in your routine.

Use obvious reminders: a receipt, a note made while stationary, or the order history you already have. Do not try to reconstruct a precise record from memory several days later. “Around 6pm, medium takeaway, details unknown” is more honest than a tidy number invented afterwards.

A cup is a container, not a caffeine unit

Two coffees do not automatically represent the same amount of caffeine. The European Food Safety Authority’s caffeine overview explicitly describes its examples as approximate: caffeine content and portion sizes vary.

Record the drink you ordered, its size and any known number of espresso shots. A small cup and a large mug are useful descriptions of the objects, but their appearance is not a laboratory result. Milk, water and ice also make the outside of a drink a poor guide to what went into it.

Where the café or manufacturer publishes caffeine information for your exact order, keep the source with the note. Check that the size and recipe match. If you chose an extra shot, a figure for the standard recipe may no longer describe your drink.

If the information is unavailable, write “unknown”. A useful record can contain gaps. It should not hide them.

Look beyond the drinks called coffee

A coffee count and a caffeine record answer different questions. EFSA identifies caffeine in sources including tea, coffee and cocoa, and its examples include cola and energy drinks. The name on the cup is not the boundary of the exercise.

For packaged drinks, read the actual label or the manufacturer’s information. The Food Standards Agency’s published advice specifically recommends checking caffeine information when buying energy drinks or energy shots.

Also check what a stated amount refers to. Is it per serving, per container or per 100ml? As a purely arithmetic example, a drink stating 20mg per 100ml would contain 50mg in 250ml. Those invented numbers explain the calculation; they are not a claim about a particular product or a suggested intake.

There is no need to interrogate every sip forever. Start with the drinks that recur on your working days and the ones you usually forget to mention.

Use four fields, then stop adding fields

A note with these four headings is enough:

• When: the date and time you had it.
• What: the drink, including size or portion.
• Details: recipe information you know, such as the number of shots.
• Evidence: the label or café information, or simply “not available”.

Add a short context note only if useful: “waiting for a lift”, “habitual station stop” or “wanted something warm”. That can reveal what the purchase is doing in your journey, without pretending to diagnose why you feel tired.

Keep dates explicit when work crosses midnight. A drink at 11.40pm and one at 12.20am are forty minutes apart, even though a calendar app places them on separate days. Preserve both timestamps rather than resetting the story halfway through a shift.

Read the pattern before trying to change it

At the end of a few representative shifts, look for the forgotten part of the sequence. Perhaps your workplace drinks are accurately remembered and the travel drinks are not. Perhaps one familiar order has a different recipe from the version you assumed.

Then choose one practical action: ask for the café’s information, record the actual serving, or decide in advance whether you want a drink at that stop. If warmth or the ritual is what you enjoy, you can compare other options using their ingredients and caffeine information rather than assuming a name means caffeine-free.

This article does not set a caffeine target. Personal circumstances, including pregnancy, medicines and sensitivity, can change which guidance is relevant. Use appropriate NHS or clinician advice for those questions. Better recording helps you describe your routine; it does not turn a general article into a personalised assessment.

Keep the journey itself in a separate box

A coffee purchase is not proof that you are fit to drive. If you are very tired after work, the travel decision comes first. The HSE advises considering alternatives to driving and stopping somewhere safe if you become sleepy on the journey.

Record drinks only when it is safe to do so. The point of this exercise is a more accurate picture of your day, not another task competing for your attention while travelling.

Next time someone asks how many coffees you have had, include the one between work and home. It was part of the day, even if it never made it onto the mental tally.