Helping You Be Productive Anyway
Even if you have good intentions, it’s easy to get dragged down by distraction.
As you saw, the well-meaning coworker threw his convictions out the window and got sucked into the black hole of work place distraction, thereby punting on productivity and even sales. Sadly, counting down to Happy Hour doesn’t pay the bills.
If you’d like to avoid this dangerous pitfall ,but not be that guy (you know, the one who complains to the boss), try a free white noise generator (and maybe a new cubicle).
A lot of offices have casual Friday when you can kind of ‘let loose’ with your wardrobe and wear more casual clothes to work. This is all fine and good, except when your coworkers take the idea of casual Friday a little too far. We all know you’d never do that, but just to make sure, we’d thought we’d give you some tips to still look professional and casual, but not distracting. Because even though we here at Noisy Coworkers love us some white noise, it can only help so much with certain distractions.
1. Wear clothes that fit. This seems obvious, but it is not always a given.
Wow! I think this woman violated every rule but number 5. What do you bet she is wearing white tennis shoes?
If you have flesh bulging out anywhere, it is safe to say that you should probably just put that back in the closet (or the trash can). For good. If it looks like you painted the clothing on or have to really squeeze yourself into, again, please put that back in the closet.
2. Don’t wear clothing that is too revealing. Nothing too low. Nothing too short. If you would wear it to a night club, then please don’t wear that to work. Another good rule of thumb is that if you have to keep adjusting your clothing, it might not be a good fit (pun intended).
3. Don’t wear clothing with holes in it. I know the fashions come and go about whether having holes in your jeans is cool or not, but at the office, it just looks like you didn’t care enough to change into some decent clothes. If there are holes in the article of clothing, or if you have ever worn said clothing to do yard work in, then these items are also a no no at the office.
I know these are supposed to be fashionable, but this is definitely not professional.
4. Please try to match. My husband once had a professor whom we wondered if he didn’t close his eyes every morning, reach into his closet and pull things out and then put them on in the dark and never look at this outfit again. Seriously, they were hideous. Don’t mix patterns. Black and brown do NOT look good together. (I know some would argue, but I’m sticking with this one.) No day glow colors. Simple principles like that. (If you are in the fashion industry, please disregard everything I just said. You guys make up your own rules, it seems.)
5. No tennis shoes, especially white ones. There are lots of other nice looking and comfortable shoe options out there. It looks a lot more professional if you don’t have tennis shoes on. (Unless you work at a gym. And then I still don’t like white tennis shoes. How hard is it to throw in some blue or, Lord forbid, yellow?)
6. If you would wear it to bed or to exercise in, then leave those in the gym bag or the laundry room. Definitely not work wear.
7. Just because you are dressed casually doesn’t mean you need to act too casually. Keep it professional, people.
I’m sure you could think of a lot more rules regarding this subject, but if you follow these, you’ll be well on your way to looking good. And for all your other coworkers who don’t read this? Feel free to print this out and post it somewhere highly visible. You’ll be glad you did.
There are a lot of distractions at the office…
Evidently, most of them are a direct result of your own doing. Go figure. Here are a few tips to help you:
You know her- she’s the one who thinks 9am to 5pm is a perfectly acceptable time to:
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.
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.
Life in a cube farm isn't always fun. But you can still accomplish a lot, in spite of the noise, the distractions... and the people.