I recently found a site that talked about avoiding distractions at work.  I enjoyed reading some of the comments left:

One (wo)man's gain is another man's distraction.

Background Noise

Thanks for all of the tips. The background noise thing is huge for me. If I can hear other people’s conversations, then my mind automatically tries to zero in on that rather than my task at hand. If I am really having trouble, I will turn on some white noise so that way I can’t hear the conversations as well. There are lots of free online noise generators.

Agreed.  In fact, I can even supply you with a free online generator.

A woman amongst Men

I am the only woman on a floor with all guys. The locker room banter and bodily noise demonstrations along with the spontaneous outbursts of sounds, whistling and general turrets behaviors is my biggest distraction.

As a fellow female, I sympathized with this poor woman.  Then, I laughed.  Boys will be boys, I suppose.

The 2-Minute Rule

As our office has grown and the faces and dynamics have changed, I wondered if I was just being overly sensitive, so I counted. I used a post it note and every time someone made an unnecessary, rude, disturbing noise I made a tick mark. After four hours I tallied them to find that someone had made a random, useless outburst every 2 minutes. At least I had something to bring to management. I told them I didn’t want anyone punished, after all the bahavior had been tolerated by other workers and management alike, but that I needed a slightly more subdued work environment to focus. There were some seating changes and some new rules. The guys can still be social, but now at least I can get my work done.

Dealing with Distractions

I imagine this last one is pretty normal.  Distractions and interruptions are part and parcel to working amongst others.  Even working from home can be distracting.  The bottom line , though, is to be proactive.  Ask management to look into it for possible solutions.  If you’re not comfortable with that or you feel you are ratting out the very people amongst whom you must work every day, then be a self-starter and take action on your own. Here are just a few pointers for being  less distracted (and therefore more focused) at work:

• Draw some boundaries.  Everyone needs a (coffee) break, so do your socializing then and only then.
• De-clutter your desk so you don’t fell overwhelmed every time you look up.
• Try the free white noise generator.  It doesn’t work for everybody, but most people will say the low-level background noise helps cover otherwise distracting sounds/bodily emissions/unnecessary interruptions.
• Have tech-free minutes, even hours, where you devote time to written work or organizational needs.  IBM mandated “quiet time” for some of their engineers.

As a result of proactive techniques such as those listed above, many workers  found they were able to quit working evenings and weekends due to the increased productivity.  That sounds good, doesn’t it?