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Overcoming Distraction with a Sound Machine

July 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Unfocused at Work & At Home

Sometimes work can feel like a circus.

Do you struggle to stay focused at work?  How much worse is it if you work from home?  Either way, you have external and internal forces to deal with distraction-wise, and I’m not sure which one is worse.  In the typical work place, the average worker is distracted more than 2 hours of his 8 or 9-hour work day.  All distractions count, but the main culprit is conversational distraction, which comes in the form of annoying co-workers, water cooler gossip, and your own mischief.  In addition, many studies estimate that we are interrupted about 70 times a day and that it takes minutes {not seconds} to get back on task once interrupted.  You throw in random meetings, bathroom breaks, and coffee runs, and it’s astonishing we get any work done at all!

Lest cubicle dwellers think they have the worst of it, it’s important to note that those who work from home have the same struggles, possibly even magnified since they have all the distractions of their own home: phone, TV, internet, cleaning up, snacking, kids, dog, neighbors, etc.  Plus, many people assume that those who work from home don’t have to honor a schedule so they pester their work-from-home friends without realizing what a distraction they are.

Overcoming Distraction with a Sound Machine

So, what’s a worker to do?  Whether in a cubicle or at home, distraction is nearly inevitable.  I will say that while distraction is inevitable, being distracted is not.  You may have to draw a few boundaries which might be a little awkward at first.  For example, if you’re in a cubicle, you might have to ask distracting co-workers to wait to chat until a break and lunch.  There are nice ways of doing this, but this means you also have to discipline yourself not to break your own boundaries.

Additionally, you might consider a sound machine. As fun as it is to wear headphones, listening to music isn’t exactly professional or accepted in many offices.  Plus, jamming to your favorite artist might prove even more distracting than the office hum.  Thus, a sound machine is a nice compromise- choose a relaxing nature sound and allow your brain to stay focused on work instead of what’s going on around you.

Workers in offices and at home are too distracted- it’s time to set some boundaries and try a sound machine so you can reclaim your lost time.

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Stop Wasting Time!

March 12, 2010 By 1 Comment

Recently I have been thinking about how I use my time. I am HORRIBLE about wasting time. Like just now, when I was supposed to be writing this blog post, I might have wasted an inordinate amount of time on Facebook and reading blogs. When I was working in an office it wasn’t the internet that kept me distracted, but it was conversations with my co-workers. If there was a conversation, I wanted to be in on it! (Can you tell I am an extrovert?) I am not a task oriented person if other people are around that I can interact with. Consequently, I ended up taking longer on a project than I needed to or causing myself undue stress trying to meet a deadline. Now, since I work from home, I end up working at undesirable hours because I might have squandered away the desirable hours wasting time. I know I am not the only person who struggles with this.

Obviously I need to be more purposeful with my time. I know this is a cliché, but it works and it is true. I need to:

Work hard: This is simple, but it is really difficult for me to do sometimes (especially when I am supposed to be doing

Git-R-Done

it). Work hard when you are supposed to be working hard so that you can stop when it is time to stop and not feel guilty about it. For myself, that means getting away by myself so that there is no one else to interact with and buckling down. That may not be possible for others, so you could use headphones to listen to music or white noise to drown out the distractions in the background so that you can concentrate on the task at hand. As my father in law likes to say (and incidentally Mater too): Git R done!

Play hard: Since you have finished you work, you can now play hard. Whether this means spending time with your significant other, your kids, or just watching TV, you can do it with a clean conscience. This is what this time has been allotted for, so enjoy it!

Sleep hard: You have to have enough rest to be able to accomplish the above tasks. Do whatever you have to do, but getting enough sleep is important.

Now if only I didn’t need the internet to do my work so that way Facebook wasn’t always calling out to me…..

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Off to Starbucks so I can hear myself think

December 24, 2009 By 1 Comment

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.

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