Back during March Madness last year, I read an interesting article about how much productivity was lost during that 3-week span itself.  The article reported that 80% of interviewed office workers admitted they probably bet on the games during work hours.  In addition, while difficult to measure, one firm estimated that about 8.7 million hours of work time would be lost as a result of the NCAA championship games.  What caught my attention was the later premise of the article:

“If people are getting their work done, and doing it well, don’t make a big deal about distractions,” she suggests, adding: “The last thing you should ever do is make a formal policy restricting non-work activities in the office. Those policies rarely fix anything. They just make people grumpy.” And who needs that?…”

Which Distractions Can You Afford to Ignore?

I know we all have different opinions, which is why I am referencing this article: proof that there are several ways to look at the same problem.  While I agree that cracking down on petty rules is counter-productive and with later comments that workers are adept at multitasking, I disagree that all workers are that adept or that distraction itself, as a whole, should be ignored.  There are many forms of distraction, not just technology.  A major cause of work distraction is co-worker conversation.  I do not know of many people who can hold a sane, coherent conversation while typing an error-free, cohesive project proposal or email response.  Thus, when that 80% of co-workers are betting on the game and setting up their brackets,endless rivalry and chatter doubtlessly surround it.  That’s hard to ignore even when an innocent bystander.

Thus, I stick with my previous opinion that managers should not set up silly rules about computer use and personal versus business because no one will follow them and it’s hard to police without being Big Brother and running off your staff.  However, I do feel that the other side of distraction- those of conversation and noise- are definitely worth counter-acting with sound masking.  Just by introducing a little low-level background noise, you can cover the unwanted sound and restore a little peace to the office without burning bridges with your employees.  And since hundreds of billions of dollars are lost every year because of distraction, it’s hard to ignore them all with a clear conscience.

Some distractions are worth ignoring, while others- those of noise and conversation- can be counter-acted with sound masking for increased productivity office-wide.

What is a sound masking system?

In its simplest terms, sound masking is a system that employs white noise as a low-level background noise to cover ambient noise.  Since conversational distraction is one of the largest contributors to worker-cited distractions, covering those conversations by creating speech privacy is an innovative means of dealing with them. The white noise itself is not unlike an HVAC, except that it is much more consistent.

Adding noise to cover noise seems counter-intuitive at best.  Why is white noise is better than typical office noise?  An easy way to explain that is to imagine how irritating an oncoming car’s bright lights are when not turned off at night.  However, imagine those same lights on during the day- you may still notice them, but they certainly aren’t dazzling or blinding.  The same thing is true in the office.  Loud noises can be almost muted with the use of consistent sound (like bright lights losing their luster during the day).

Why use sound masking?

The main two reasons to use sound masking technology are to achieve speech privacy for the purpose of improving confidentiality and productivity.

• Less distraction at work: By masking conversations and excess noise, the average worker can be up to 25% more productive with their work hours. Sound masking installed in the entire office space will benefit the entire office.
• Improved privacy and confidentiality: Many office situations need confidentiality – human resources, government services, medical facilities, counseling, and many more. Sound masking significantly improves privacy and confidentiality throughout an entire office. It uses white noise to make human speech unintelligible to those beyond the immediate conversation.
• Decreased stress for workers: Most of us are not aware of the stress we experience from trying to block excess noise around us. Think about trying to write an important email, or work through a complicated problem, all the while there is a noise, maybe a conversation or a horn honking, that is trying to gain your attention.  According to a study by the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), even a small acoustic treatment can reduce worker stress by more than 25%.

The appropriate use of white noise in a work place, even on an individual scale, can lower stress and increase concentration by masking background conversations and noise. Quality office-wide, sound masking provides effective privacy and confidentiality, while decreasing office distractions.

It’s not unusual to have to travel a lot for the holidays to visit family.  From parents to grandparents to in-laws to kids who have moved away, there are a lot of family members to see and not much time to do it in.  And if you work from home, unfortunately there’s not a lot of “home” to work in.  It’s difficult to set up and get any work done away from home base, not that home is un-distracting in and of itself.  There are so many distractions just waiting to capture your attention.  Take it all and multiply it by 100 when you travel.  Your mind wanders even more in unfamiliar territory.

Tips for Working from Home on “Vacation”

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  Set realistic expectations for what you can get done.  It’s important to have expectations, but for them to be reasonable.  Allot enough time to honor any deadlines you have, but allot down time, too.  It is vacation after all.

• Find a spot to work where you can set up and have everything you need to be productive. You may not love your spot, but it’s important you have somewhere to work.
• Talk to whomever you’re staying with and discuss your needs, even your preferences.  Often, your family just doesn’t know what you need (or don’t need) to be able to work.
• Similarly, it may be helpful to talk with each other and even your kids if they’re old enough to understand what and when you need to work.  It’s never good to assume everyone understands what you need if you haven’t actually said it.
• Use a fan or a portable sound machine to mask distracting noises, including your own flesh and blood.

With realistic expectations and a good sound machine in place, here’s to returning home having accomplished all that you hoped to!

The Christmas season is, unfortunately, is packed full of activities, services, and events that end up making the holiday season quite stressful.  Trying to get it all done, and done well, while still accomplishing all the normal daily stuff we have to do is pretty difficult.  That’s probably why many dread it and feel so distracted by all the hustle and bustle instead of focusing on time with family and friends.

Sound Masking

If you feel distracted, you can bet your employees are just distracted, too.  From shopping lists and grocery bills to child care and visiting family, your workers struggle to stay focused, which is hard to judge.  The bad news is that it’s not just the holidays that are distracting.  Even January to October, the average worker loses up to 2 hours every work day as a result of distraction.  Distractions aren’t always daydreaming or thinking of gift lists.  In fact, at work one of the main culprits is conversational distraction.  It may seem that conversations are almost impossible to avoid unless you ban any and all chatter, which is not only an unwise managerial move, it’s also impossible.  However, what you can do is reduce the effect of conversational and noise-related distractions by using sound masking.  Sound masking is the use of white noise to cover other noises, which may seem an odd choice.  Adding noise to cover noise may seem counter-intuitive, but white noise combines sounds from the entire spectrum so that the brain can tune out less consistent, more distracting noises.  It’s kind of like how the dinner conversation fades when you start to wash the dishes…not that dinner conversations are annoying, but they don’t stand a chance against the steady rush of water at the sink.

If distracted workers are an issue in your office, give sound masking a shot- a better, more productive work environment is the best gift you can give your employees this year.

The average worker is distracted more than 2 hours every day.  They are held hostage to their own internal distractions, as well as everyone else’s.  When people think about distractions, they usually think of day-dreaming and text messages and excessive meetings.  Interestingly, and quite frankly surprisingly, it’s not the internet or personal phone calls that claim the bulk of those 2 hours.  Rather, it’s conversational distraction, which includes those conversations the worker actively engages in, as well as the ones (s)he can’t help but overhear and thus fall prey to.  Such distractions are problematic in two ways: not only are conversations not private or confidential, they also add up quickly for a staggering loss of of focus, in addition to increased errors and stress, as well as fewer attempts to problem-solve.  Distracted workers are disengaged workers, and disengaged workers cost businesses a bundle.  Given this high cost of distractions, it’s no surprise that workplace distractions cost businesses like yours an estimated $587 billion in 2008.

Better Sound Masking Affects your Bottom Line

Whether you’re a small business owner, an open office manager, or simply bound by law to safeguard confidential information, speech privacy has never been more important, and improving your office’s acoustics to achieve it is relatively simple and cost-effective.  More effective than adding sound-absorbent flooring or extra partitions, sound masking is the introduction of white noise through in-ceiling tiles in order to treat a particularly noisy area…or multiple areas.  It’s counter-intuitive, but adding noise, the right kind of noise, actually helps the brain tune out the wrong kind.  The good thing is that the sound masking system doesn’t have to blast sound to be effective.  Instead, a low-level background noise is sufficient to cover, or mask, the unwanted distractions so that workers have greater speech privacy when necessary and all workers can be more productive.

Sound masking is the most effective means of dealing with unwanted noise so workers have more speech privacy.

Try Using White Noise – It takes a great deal of energy and effort to concentrate in the midst of distractions and noise.  Most people lose up to two hours a day from interruptions and distractions at work. But a personal sound machine can help by covering unrelated conversations and surrounding office noise. Better yet would be office-wide sound masking that would benefit everyone. This will allow you to work with focused energy.

Limit Your Energy-Draining Tasks. Are you aware of specific tasks or certain people who drain you of energy and motivation faster than your normal work? Be deliberate about how you approach these tasks or people in your work day. Find the least stressful time of day for you, when you are not hungry or especially tired, and spend only 10 or 15 minutes dealing with this work.

Upgrade to Ergonomic Tools.  Ergonomic products are specifically designed to encourage a natural,  ergonomic posture where your muscles are at their lowest strain and and work is minimized. Start with a supportive, ergonomic chair that helps maintain good posture for long periods of time. With any chair, make sure your back has good support;  try adding portable lumbar support if your chair doesn’t provide enough.

Drink More Water.  If you wait until you feel thirsty, you are already dehydrated. Because our bodies and brains are made up largely of water; even slight dehydration of less than 5% decreases our energy and productivity by more than 20%. A good place to start is with the general rule of daily drinking at least eight glasses of water.

Everyday we are bombarded with  distractions, interruptions and physical discomfort that quickly, and unnecessarily,  drains our energy and breaks our concentration. Consider using white noise to cover the office noise that continually interrupts you. And upgrade to a good ergonomic chair to improve your posture and relieve some of the energy-draining pain. Adjusting your office environment and habits can make a huge impact on your energy and productivity.

Block out distractions. Try covering the office noises and distractions with white noise. Today’s sound masking technology is specially focused on the frequency of human speech, so it effectively covers unrelated converations, lowering your distractions by up to 51 percent. Even if you have no control over the sound quality or co-workers around you, a personal sound machine can create a distraction-free zone at your desk.

Set your priorities. Always start your day with your high-priority work; don’t even open email or pick up your phone until you complete at least one important task. For better productivity, you can’t allow lesser tasks like e-mail or phone calls take up more time than they warrant. Accomplishing something at the very start of the day can help boost your confidence and improve your attitude about your work day.

Improve your posture. Poor posture can actually drain your energy and limit your ability to focus. The goal should be to maintain a neutral typing posture in order to minimize the work load for your muscles and stop you from wasting valuable energy. Start with a well-adjusted ergonomic chair to help you maintain good posture; this will give you better concentration and will also lower your stress levels. Next, make sure your feet rest firmly on the ground and that your armrests are out of the way. Also, if your chair is somewhat lacking in back support, try adding portable lumbar support.

Limit your interruptions. The average worker is interrupted more than 70 times each day, and half of those distractions are self-inflicted. Set up a “no-interruption” time to focus on your work for 30 to 60 minutes at a time. Turn off all your self-distractions, like your phone and e-mail, and turn on a white noise machine to block office noise around you. Find an alternate place to work, such as an empty conference room, or consider hanging a sign at desk requesting that you be interrupted, but will be available in 30 minutes.

You can learn to accomplish more during a work day by eliminating distractions. Start by maintaining good posture with a supportive ergonomic chair. Next, decrease the time-consuming distractions with a white noise machine. At the end of the day you will feel less stressed, more productive and ready to enjoy a relaxing evening.

What caused them?

Not surprisingly, the study found that most people suffered from both internal and external interruptions.  However, it also found that most managers suffer from external interruptions, most workers distract him/herself almost as much as others do!

How many were there?

About every 3 minutes, the average worker faced some sort of interruption or distraction.

How long did it take to get back on task?

When you’re interrupted, you don’t immediately go back to the task you were doing before you were interrupted. There are about two intervening tasks before you go back to your original task, so it takes more effort to reorient back to the original task. Also, interruptions change the physical environment. For example, someone has asked you for information and you have opened new windows on your desktop, or people have given you papers that are now arranged on your desk. So often the physical layout of your environment has changed, and it’s harder to reconstruct where you were. So there’s a cognitive cost to an interruption.

Interruptions are sometimes necessary, but they always derail productivity for the interrupted party.

So, back to the matter at hand….Distractions and interruptions are abundant, and while many workers cause their own, this does not help determine how to deal with them.  As I previously mentioned, some distractions are necessary- email notices for meetings and the like.

It’s difficult to control for internal interruptions, but you can control for external interruptions.  It’s not inevitable that your employees have to be held captive by others and their noise.  A more recent development has been the use of sound masking.  Sound masking is low-level white noise to cover office noise (i.e. external interruptions and distractions).  Interestingly, sound masking can help workers tune out their distractions, too- they tend to focus on work instead of looking for other things to do. Thus,  the result is less distraction, more focus, fewer errors, and even lower stress levels.

An effective manager doesn’t micromanage every detail.  On the other hand, (s)he does provide a productivity-friendly environment.  You don’t need to worry about every moment lost to interruptions, but you can guard against unnecessary distraction.

It’s no surprise that workers are distracted at work.  With the advent of the internet, we get almost as much of distraction as we do of productivity.  From personal email to Facebook to Twitter to messaging of millions of types, we all get a bit carried away…away from out to-do lists and work tasks.  Interestingly, studies tell us that most of us are distracted more than 2 hours every day.  Even more fascinating is that the majority of these distractions aren’t blamed on internet interests.  On the contrary, conversational distractions top the list.  They include those conversations workers want to take part in, as well as those they can’t help but overhear.

In addition to co-worker chatter and water cooler gossip, another complaint ranks among workers- that of feeling frustrated by interruptions and needless meetings.  Case in point: take a look at a recent description of the modern work place by Jason Fried of 37 Signals:

What happens is, is that you show up at work and you sit down and you don’t just immediately begin working, like you have to roll into work. You have to sort of get into a zone, just like you don’t just go to sleep, like you lay down and you go to sleep. You go to work too. But then you know, 45 minutes in, there’s a meeting. And so, now you don’t have a work day anymore, you have like this work moment that was only 45 minutes. And it’s not really 45 minutes, it’s more like 20 minutes, because it takes some time to get into it and then you’ve got to get out of it and you’ve got to go to a meeting….

And managers are the biggest problem because their whole world is built around interruption. That’s what they do. Management means interrupting. Hey, what’s going on? How’s this going? Let me call a meeting because that’s what I do all day, I call meetings. And so, managers are the real problems here and that’s got to change too.

It’s not good news for managers that a worker defines management as “interruptions.”

How can you dis-connote management and interruptions?

Instead of getting frustrated with your workers or even yourself, take a step back and survey your office.  Check out the noise issues.  Imagine working in the midst of them, or trying to, then getting a memo for another meeting.  How would you feel?  How do you feel when this happens to you?  If your workers feel interrupted and that their time has been wasted, they will be frustrated about it and, obviously, less productive.

Remedy the situation

It’s time to take action.  You can’t control the economy or each worker’s sense of accomplishment, but you can do your part to help the situation (versus fueling the flame).

• Rework your office space so that people aren’t crammed next to each other.
• Institute a “quiet time“ like IBM and Intel did.  It’s just time to work on projects and be free from distraction.
• Minimize conversational and other noise-related distractions with sound masking, which provides a quieter, less stressful, more peaceful work environment.
• Streamline the tech devices you use- consider instituting a Campfire system, or something akin to what Friedman suggested, that enables workers to ignore nonessential interruptions and keep working until there’s a natural break.

Surveying office noise and pointless meetings, and then taking action with measures such as sound masking, is a crucial step in reclaiming your office’s productivity.