managing in-office noise / distractions

couple random ideas... I have noise-cancelling headphones, but I wear only one most often (earbud-style headphones). I think it makes a difference to me! 

I know that more noise is the opposite of your goal, but sometimes the passive noise generators help me a lot with drowning out the distracting sounds of typing or talking. white noise, soft instrumental music, or a generator that does those calming sounds like a beautiful bubbling brook or open ocean oasis could be easier to convince your broom closet-mates. 

you could also stick a little mirror on your desk so you could visually see who is approaching before they arrive at your desk. or ask that people shoot you a private message before coming to chat so that you can pull off your headphones and expect them. I'm imagining your personal work handbook idea where this could be in a section about you, and it would hopefully be easy for your coworkers to accommodate. 

I second the mirror idea. I've also seen people have like a stop light system. Green for "I'm happy to chat," Yellow for "I don't have a ton of time," or Red for "Unless the building is on fire, don't talk to me." 

Ooh, I really like the mirror idea!  I don't know why I didn't think of that! It makes so much sense...   

I joked to my boss that I was going to get some kind of flag and raise/lower it, like the Queen of England did whenever she was at one of her residences - if it's raised, come say hi.  :-)

I struggle with this a lot too Kathleen! Particularly getting back into it after an interruption. I share an office with one other person and we sit with our backs to the door, we get a lot of visitors which I LOVE however, it really does throw me those challenges you mentioned. 

I by no means have the golden answer but thought I'd share how I manage it currently, which is two ways;

I have a pair of loops that I pop in, these help damper the noise but still allow me to hear if folks are talking/likely walked into the room etc. They aren't the super noise protecting ones, but the mid range ones.   

The other thing I do is about 50% of the time, when I need to do a piece of deep work, I grab my laptop and go sit somewhere else. I have a wireless mouse and I just pick up and go. For me, this works because if I'm feeling a bit frustrated (because I can feel managing the distractions eating away at my executive function) I've got up, moved and changed all sensory inputs/outputs. We don't really have meeting rooms at my venue, everything is front-facing except for our actual offices so sometimes I'll find a quiet spot in the foyer - where we have tables and chairs and a comfy environment. I think what worked for me here was approaching trying to find ways to deal with the situation that wasn't all or nothing - so I know that this is something I can, give myself permission to do it and follow through when I need - this just means I then don't spend 70+ mins trying to work whilst stewing on how distracted I am getting. Just acknowledging that I know I hold a lot of privilege to have that flexibility to work that way, but it definitely was something I brought with me into the org as an unapologetic behaviour and have tried to grow this culture in other folks too. 

I have also seen on Amazon that you can get little USB lights that shine to say when you are and are not available for chats/talks/interruptions. They are green for yes and red for no. I haven't seen these used in any office I've worked within but I'd be curious to hear if others have implemented them! 

can't get better that $9 lol https://a.co/d/bedSjts

I love the Red and Green sign. The first time I saw it was Meike Bliebenicht's post in Linked In, and I think that Shelly made an amazing one.  

There is no possibility that I can do deep work in a noisy office.  That means no problem solving and no coding. When I was working in Ticketing I used to work in the Box Office. The regular office noise takes a toll on me but I'll live with it - but the ebulient social celebrations, people having excitable conversations meters away, and the many visual discrations that really take a load. I've found that if I'm engaged in focussed work and someone breaks that by waving in front of my face, snapping fingers in my ear to get my attention, or bumping me it feels like violence.  Breaking concentration leaves attention residue making it hard to refocus.

Some larger meetings can be a social moshpit and with out bracing myself it feels like someone poured gasoline on my soul and set it on fire.  For the longest time I kicked myself for it and powered on or got upset and lost friends.  "Powering On" really means turning up the concentration and filtering and that burns enusergy fast and takes a lot of IQ to manage.

These days I need to be a smart as I can be and that means that I've had to drop a lot of old habits like masking. I've also let people know that after interupting me it'll take about 5 seconds for me to make the turn from focussing to interacting. My user manual helped get some of that across.  Having key people in my corner is also helpful.  

My last job I moved into the finance office which was very quiet most of the time.  I got to choose the direction I sat so that noone was behind me..  When people started talking next to me I'd do the same as Jesse and change locations and run my laptop using my phone as a mobile hotspot.  I'll also walk over Sydney Harbour Bridge (it's about 30 mins round trip from my desk) and dictate email responses using speach to text.

I love NC Headphones and practically live in them.  I use over ear to reduce noise as much as possible and am a huge fan of masking noise over the top like Eric.  My favourite is rain and thunder sounds - I have a large playlist of them on Youtube and Spotify and a 1hr sound file saved on my phone.

And just as an offer, if you ever need me to do the Neurodiversity @ work talk over zoom I'm happy to.  I ran it for my front of house supervisors yesterday and talk for the students at the dance school every year.