So, it’s Christmas, and not unlike Four Christmases, some holidays are best spent sans family.  As it is, we live overseas, so Christmas is the only time we can come to the States, so avoiding family is not exactly an option.  This year, we spent a month with my parents and 3 weeks with my husband’s parents.  While at my in-laws’ house, my husband’s two sisters and their entourages also stayed with us.

7 adults

+ 4 children (9, 5, 3, and 1)

+ 2 dogs 1 dog (1 got sent away as a result of a scuffle)

_________________________________________

=Stressful & LOUD

Seriously, I cherish family time, and my in-laws are awesome.  However, squeezing that many people in 1 smallish house is painful even if the relationships themselves are not (though they might be after a week of cramped quarters).  Unfortunately, the 2 smaller children are mine- don’t get me wrong, I love my kids, but being the age they are, they still require a certain amount of sleeping that is pretty nonnegotiable.  So, barking dogs, quarreling cousins, boisterous meals, sibling rivalries, and countless other interruptions do not aide in my children’s sleep quota.

Can I say again how much I love white noise?  I used to think I had to blast the world’s loudest fan to block every single noise so my babies could sleep.  I have since learned that a low-level background noise is enough to provide a nice, secure, seemingly quiet nap and sleep area for both my children.

White noise isn’t just for children either.  My poor sister-in-law who only contributed the barking dog, but no children, had trouble sleeping until we insisted upon white noise.  (Evidently, my son’s early 6am rise was not conducive to her sleeping- especially if we chose to pretend we didn’t hear him).  A little white noise and she was able to filter it out.

Here are a few options: babies/children adults

And here’s a cool free generator you can try from the same company.

Yea for white noise!

Can I have a mocha and 2 hours of undisturbed time, please?

My sister-in-law has to leave work to work.  My husband has to leave our house to study for his PhD.  I have to hole myself in my room with earplugs to write.  Why is it that we have to escape our offices, home offices, and even our homes just to think?  Maybe because coworkers, friends, and family are, in a word, LOUD.  Bless their hearts, cuz they don’ mean to be, but seriously, when my husband leaves our home to go to his office to study/write, please don’t bend his ear for 4 hours about your marital problems.  Or when my sister-in-law goes to Starbucks, how productive can she really be as the barista yells out 25 different exotic “coffee” drinks?

Here’s an idea: white noise.  Our lives were transformed when we introduced this blessed and most revered little machine.  We had tried fans (which when you use them to block noise so your kids can sleep and they inadvertently get turned back to oscillating or vibrate off the bedside table and onto your sleeping child, the point has kind of been lost) and ear plugs (which can make your ears sore and don’t come in children’s sizes, nor do children understand when you stiff brightly colored “toys” into their ears) to no avail.  Go figure.  Anyway, my husband googled white noise and found something like this.  Now we use white noise in our room, both our children’s rooms, and at the office.  In all honesty, white noise doesn’t cancel sound- little does that doesn’t distract you even more.  But it does cover all those irritating little noises that keep me from concentrating and even napping.  Anything that does that consistently gets my praise.

I found these comments on this hilarious site:

I love when people around me (we don’t have cubicles either) listen to their conference calls on speakerphone because they would rather ruin my afternoon than hold the phone to their ear…

Count your blessings– we don’t even have cubicles. There is no conversation that goes un-heard, bodily functions are shared, and office slacking requires some very high-tech and creative solutions.

How about some kind of background noise in the bathroom as well. Is anyone else just a little bit uncomfortable when you’re enjoying a morning dump, someone else doing the same, and it is completely silent?

Awesome article. My employer has one of these white noise systems – I have one of the bee-hive looking things that broadcast over my cube. It’s barely noticeable, and you still hear conversations and stuff, but then one day it went out – holy crap does it make a difference! When it went out it was like that scene from Bruce Almighty where he starts hearing all the prayers in his head (anyone?)…White noise saves my sanity…

Cubicles are an invention of the devil. They should be soundproofed. I bet it would even be cost-effective: consider cost of sound=proofing vs. cost of lost productivity. No, I don’t want to hear the guy over there’s phone conversation, and I don’t want random coworkers to be able to hear me when I give a credit card number out on the phone when doing a business purchase. Or for that matter, when I’m talking to clients.

Okay, lazy conference calls and taking a dump made my eyes water.  If I weren’t already convinced of white noise and sound masking systems, I would be now.

You know her- she’s the one who thinks 9am to 5pm is a perfectly acceptable time to:

1. Call her mom and ask about her dad’s bowel movements
2. Tell her girlfriends how many peanut M&M’s she ate yesterday
3. Call what is presumably her boyfriend (though bless him if he is) and leave him 12 messages a day
4. Ask aforementioned friends if she should call him again (surely no is the answer)

Evidently, the answer was yes because call #13 was made.  Seriously?  While making a personal call may be necessary here and there, it’s aggravating to lose time at work due to other people’s noise when they make their personal calls.  From customized ring tones to countless trips down the hall to the bathroom in squeaky shoes, each distraction adds up to a staggering loss of concentration.  But, in an open office situation, that’s the way it has to be, right?

Fortunately, no.  Phones will ring, buzz, and vibrate and for some reason people will still buy ridiculously squeaky shoes.  But you don’t have to listen to it all.  In fact, I’ve found that white noise helps me tune out such ridiculousness.  Now, I’ll be the first to say that I don’t always want to tune it all out- I mean, some of those calls are a train wreck and are worth the distraction.  That’s what I love about this white noise generator- it’s adjustable and I can even customize my own preferences.  The best part is it’s free.

Don’t answer your phone.

Turn off your computer or at least don’t access the internet.

Ask you coworkers to tone down their conversations and not to interrupt you.

Yes, my friends, these are the top suggestions for limiting work-related distractions. Does this sound off to anyone else?  It seems to me that answering the phone, using the computer, and having healthy relationships with coworkers are fairly essential parts of working. Now, I’ll agree that I can limit what I contribute to my own distraction level by turning off my cell phone and not compulsively checking my email, but I can’t help what others contribute.  I’ve tried a lot of things, but coworker confrontations are not high on my list of helpful or even productive work tactics.  What has been helpful for me is the use of white noise.  Unlike music or ear plugs, white noise is adjustable without being distracting in and of itself.  Give it a shot and see what you think.

Okay…I normally write about office noise.  And as irritating and distracting as it is, nobody talks about home noise and how LOUD it can be.  So, I’m going to level with you- babies aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be.  I mean, when you’re registering for gifts, you think of little toes and sweet-smelling baths, of toothy smiles and first steps, not of sleepless nights and colicky babies.  So, as the reality of sleep deprivation hits (and you wonder why people say “sleeping like a baby”), as all cranky parents do, you turn to sleep aid books and read about “crying it out.”  This sounds like a good plan until you actually hear your precious baby (who is indeed still precious regardless of all that noise) sob.  How can you do what you think is best for your child and you in the long run and still retain your sanity?

I know it’s crazy, but I tried a couple things as I realized that my two babies “crying it out” was a painfully noisy process.  First, I put in ear plugs- the kind that are squishy and you can stuff pretty far in your ears.  Sadly, this ended up making my ears kind of sore after a whole night.  So, next I turned to white noise.  This was a great alternative- it provided an adjustable background noise.  So, if the baby was in the full throes of screaming, I could turn it up and when the baby had calmed a bit, I could turn it back down so I could still roughly monitor what was going on.

I know it’s a controversial method, but for us it was well-worth the few days of pain.  Now we have 2 wonderful sleepers who can be put to bed by anyone and who go to sleep by themselves without a sound.

Disclaimer: I did not try this when either of my kids were sick, teething, or at any other time that I needed to respond to their cries.

Sometimes it’s hard (RING!) to think (Can I talk to you for a minute?) with all the distractions (click clack click clack) the typical office (buzz buzz) brings- in fact, the average worker (Bob! Come here Bob!) is distracted more than 2 hours (hushed whispers) every day and is interrupted more than 70 times (beep beep beep beep) a day…which leads to increased levels of stress–>fatigue–>and error rates–>which leads to decreased productivity.

Sometimes it’s nice to tune it all out and actually be productive again.

On an average day of work,
My open office shared with me:
Twelve chatters chatting,
Eleven eaters eating,
Ten texters texting,
Nine ladies laughing,
Eight copiers beeping,
Seven cell phones buzzing,
Six doors a-slammin’,
Five high heels clickin’,
Four friends IM-ing,
Three thoughtless comments,
Two chatterboxes,
And a boss with endless deadlines!

It’s crazy how even with all the madness an open office brings, you still have to work.  How do you work and not get sucked in by all the distractions?  If office noise is a problem, it might be time to give white noise a shot.  Your coworkers will still annoy you in the break room,  but at least you can get some work done at your desk without being held captive by office noise.

1st person limited narrator (me)

I rarely pop in on my work blogs like this, so I thought I’d introduce myself.  I am a 30-year-old Caucasian female.  I am married and have 2 very small children.  I recently moved to the UK for my husband to get his PhD, which requires a little more cash than the typical stay-at-home mom makes ($0).  So, I started writing for a sound masking company and find that like George Zimmer and his Men’s Wearhouse…

I’m not just a saleswoman, I’m also a client

Here’s where I’m going with all this- I may not work in a cubicle with tons of conversational and other annoying distractions, but I do live amongst attention-hungry (and therefore crazy loud) munchkins.   This is a problem because living in the UK and not being wealthy means we are in a tiny flat and my 1 1/2 year old son sleeps in a loft that doesn’t have a door…oh, and the base of his stairs are literally adjacent to my 3-year-old daughter’s room.  That is a formula for disaster.

This is where the I’m also a client part comes in.  Whether it’s our own noise, the drunken neighbors enjoying a little Johnny Cash, the local football game, the Uni kids doing a little hazing, the stray dogs howling, the Guy Fawkes  fireworks, or endless other, but typical, sounds, it’s simply never quiet or peaceful in our home.  So, I have started using white noise in each of our rooms.  The result is that most noises fade away, and those you can still hear are rarely ever loud enough to distract or awaken a sleeping child (or parent).  I turn the kids’ white noise generators on pretty high and can keep my on lower so that I won’t miss an “I need you cry” in the middle of the night.  (However, I do reserve the right to crank mine during my own nap time when necessary.)  We even take them on trips or when we have to share a room (yikes).

So, whether you’re distracted at work, your kids can’t sleep, or you’re going on a trip, why don’t you give our free white noise generator a shot?  You’re gonna like it, I guarantee it.