Hi everyone,
When I am working in-office (3 or 4 days a week), I can find it quite difficult to concentrate at times (and every time there's an interruption it takes that much longer to get back to where I was). I work in a glorified broom closet with two other people who have very different (higher) tolerances for noise and disturbances. Someone kindly suggested noise-cancelling headphones, but I have a thing about situational awareness and not hearing people come up behind me is unnerving. Does anyone have suggestions for how I might make this more navigable without rocking the boat too much (or even just commiserations)? While we're working hard on our DEAI, recognizing and accomodating neurodiversity in the workplace isn't quite there yet.
Thanks!
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!