Noisy Coworkers And Other Sounds Are A Distraction In Workplace

Re:Noisy Coworkers And Other Sounds Are A Distraction In Wor... by Xcelerate on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @03:20PM (#12799565)

As a graduate student, I was lucky to have an advisor that let me work on research from anywhere as long as I was getting stuff done. I tried to work in the office a few times, and a couple loud people made it almost impossible for me to accomplish anything. Coffee shops, despite the presence of ambient conversations, were much more effective for me. I haven't quite figured out the difference between coffee shop noise and office noise — I just know that I can tune the former out, while the latter makes it difficult to concentrate.

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Re:Noisy Coworkers And Other Sounds Are A Distraction In Wor... by Swizec on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @03:54PM (#12799872)

> I haven't quite figured out the difference between coffee shop noise and office noise — I just know that I can tune the former out, while the latter makes it difficult to concentrate.

Coffee shop noise is irrelevant, office noise might be relevant. You automatically pay attention even if you don't want to.

For me, noise cancelling headphones are a necessity. Impossible to get anything done otherwise.

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Re:Noisy Coworkers And Other Sounds Are A Distraction In Wor... by TeMPOraL on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @04:38PM (#12800272)

Exactly this.

What finally made me buy a good set of headphones for work was a cow-orker that would regularly come to my office to talk to a colleague about some project. Nothing to do with my work, but the words he used made me involuntarily tune in to the conversation every 10 seconds, just because it sounded relevant.

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Re:Noisy Coworkers And Other Sounds Are A Distraction In Wor... by barleymash on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @04:29PM (#12800174)

Have you tried coffitivity.com? Lol every time I tell people I use this, they look at me sideways. I discovered it a few years ago, and still use it just about everyday.

It's basically just ambient noises from a coffee shop, and you can choose a couple of different "environments". I pop that on in my headphones, and layer on some instrumental music. I love it.

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Re:Noisy Coworkers And Other Sounds Are A Distraction In Wor... by Xcelerate on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @11:18PM (#12802677)

Haha, that's pretty cool actually

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Re:Noisy Coworkers And Other Sounds Are A Distraction In Wor... by Eric_WVGG on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @04:02PM (#12799955)

Your office was a couple loud coherent voices. Cafe noise is white noise.

Right now I'm in a cafe that has 50+ people and thumping bass music, all sweet white noise. With a beat.

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