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Increase Productivity and Concentration at Work

May 6, 2011 By

Most people are overwhelmed with distractions and interruptions at work. We spend our time and energy trying to concentrate, and lose our day to primarily unimportant tasks. This will be a constant battle in any office space, but here are some tips that can help increase your productivity and concentration.

Prioritize your day. Before checking e-mail or phone messages, start working on your more important tasks first. This ensures that your priority projects are accomplished while you are fresh and focused.  Only check your voice mail or e-mail once or twice a day, and keep your own messages short and direct. Don’t let low priority tasks interrupt you constantly throughout the day.

Use white noise. Today’s sound masking technology is very precise and floods the background with “white” noise that focused on the spectrum of human speech. Office-wide sound masking can lower distractions by up to 51 percent by covering the excess conversations and noise in an open floor plan. You can also try a personal sound machine, if you don’t have control over the sound quality in the office.

Limit distractions and interruptions. The average worker is interrupted more than 70 times each day. And most people suffer almost equally from self-distraction. Try establishing a “no-interruption” time of about an hour to focus on important tasks. Start by turning off all your self-distractions, like your phone and e-mail. Spend this time in focused concentration. Turn on a white noise machine to cover office noise. And post a sign indicating that you currently cannot be interrupted, and a time when you will next be available. You can repeat this focused time throughout the day to make the most of your time.

Improve your posture. Most people do not realize how much energy is wasted with poor posture. Good posture can boost productivity and energy. Start with a good, ergonomic chair and adjust it to properly fit you. First, adjust the height of the seat so that your feet are flat on the floor. Next, move the backrest on your chair to fit the curve of your spine. You should also add portable lumbar support if your chair does not fully support your lower back. Finally, move your arm rests low enough or out of the way while typing to allow free arm movement.

Making changes to your daily habits can increase your productivity and efficiency. Make an effort to maintaining good posture while sitting with a good, ergonomic chair that is well-adjusted to support your body. Also, upgrade your office space with sound masking technology, or try using a white noise machine block out the distracting conversations and office noise that interrupt your concentration. Better focus and productivity at work help you feel better about your work and enjoy less stress at the end of the day.

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Sound Masking for Conversational Distractions

May 3, 2011 By

Distracted

Did you know that the vast majority of your employees are distracted more than two hours every day?  Actually, 2 hours is the average.  It’s no wonder that they lose one-fourth of their work day when there’s time sucks out there like email, Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, Skype, texting, etc.  While it’s easy to point your finger at your workers, or even technology itself, it’s important to realize that these distarctions are only a small piece of the pie.  In fact, it’s due to technology like this that your company can function the way it can.  That’s not to say that all your employees’ use of time online is noble and for the sake of business, but on the other hand, cutting them off from this technology cuts your business, as well.

Conversational Distractions

If online distraction is only a part of the huge distraction level employees experience, what accounts for the larger part?  Interestingly, conversational distraction is what takes a huge bite out of productivity.  Co-worker chatter, water cooler gossip, loud sales guys, and the like dominate employee distraction.  It’s hard to tune out colleagues’ conversations and especially their conflicts.  Furthermore, most employees engage in quite a bit of their own distraction, but they are also victims to co-worker chatter even when they don’t want to be.  That’s what has led to workers reporting that all they want is distraction-free solo work time.  Time to be free of office noise and to get work done.  Far from being unreasonable, distraction-free solo work time seems like a pretty valid request.

How do you facilitate distraction-free solo work time?

Companies have gotten pretty creative, offering conference room time blocking slots even for individual work time or mandating “quiet” time in which all noise-producing tech stuff gets shut off.  In addition to corporate mandates, sound masking has risen as a viable option for noise reduction in general.  Like its name suggests, sound masking is white noise through office speakers in the ceiling tiles that is low-level but just structured enough to cover, or mask, unwanted, intrusive noise.  Workers with sound masked offices report less stress, fewer errors, better focus, and more productivity.

Thus, if office noise and its resulting distraction are a problem for your business, consider sound masking for more productivity.

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The Cost of Distraction {How Sound Masking Helps!}

April 26, 2011 By

The Cost of Disengaged Workers

Do you feel like you are managing the Office?  Co-worker conflicts, conversations, dares, sales jockeying, even romances gone awry.  Thankfully, you’re not Michael Scott, so at least you’re not contributing to the mayhem.  On the contrary, you should be the first running to resolve the issue.  And the issue isn’t all the personalities or even the disfunctionality therein, but rather the cumulative distraction that many personalities and voices bring to work each day.

Regardless of who you have working for you, co-workers will distract one another.  And that distraction costs businesses like your around $600billion a year!  It’s not that a little chatter here and there adds up that quickly, it’s that when you take into account the variable distractions and interruptions throughout the day, you end up with the average worker losing over 2 hours of productivity a day.  Multiple your employees by 2 and you get the number of hours you lose every day- take that and total it for the year, and you see a massive leak.  Interestingly, that’s not all- distracted workers are usually disengaged workers who experience higher levels of stress, make more mistakes, and turn-over faster.  When you calculate the cost of work-related stress, injuries, errors, absenteeism, and turn-overs, you can see how expensive distraction really is.

How do you re-engage your workers?

Brilliant question.  There are a variety of business techniques you can take, and that’s up to you whether you want to be creative with “quiet time” and how many meetings you call and how you generally run your business.  However, there is one solution that works for any office, and that is sound masking.  Sound masking is the use of speakers mounted in the ceiling tiles to emit low-level background noise that serves to cover, or mask, unwanted, intrusive noise.  Before you worry about adding sound to cover sound, you need to know that those who have experienced sound masking barely notice the white noise, or the background noise, at all.  What they do notice is an office environment much more conducive to productivity.

If office noise is a problem for your business, consider sound masking to reduce distraction and improve productivity.

{photo credit}

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The Problem with Office Noise {& How to Fix It!}

April 7, 2011 By

The Problem with Noise

Noise is part of working with people.  Plus, most offices are open, meaning there are dozens of cubicles, side-by-side that can’t help but be intrusive with regard to one another.  Interestingly, open office floor plans were designed to save money in that there were fewer resources used, with more workers in the same amount of space.  The problem is that cramming in more workers adds to the volume level which, in turn, increases the distraction level, which, of course, lessens productivity- and we all know what that means: less profit.  It’s a funny situation for sure.

On the flip side, distraction doesn’t just bother managers; most workers are fed up with it.  Surveyed employees report that all they want is distraction-free solo work time.  High noise levels not only break their concentration, they also add to their stress levels, as well as their error margins.  Essentially, a distracted worker is a disengaged worker, and disengaged workers feel less inclined to show up every day, adding to absenteeism and turn-over costs.  Finally, disengaged workers are less likely to make ergonomic adjustments to their work stations, much to their own detriment time- and health-wise.

So, what’s a boss to do?

The boss doesn’t like loss of productivity and increased costs, and workers just want to be left alone to get their work done.  A solution many businesses have turned to is sound masking, or the use of white noise as a low-level background noise to cover, or block, much more distracting noises.  It’s counter-intuitive, but uniform white noise actually does mask irritating, less consistent noise.  It’s the same principle as running the sink.  The sound of water flow in and of itself is neither lour, nor distracting.  However, when you do run it, the water renders the conversation outside the bathroom door unintelligible.  That’s an example of white noise.

In the work place, you don’t have to install sinks every few cubicles {which is good thing since you’re not trying to encourage extra bathroom breaks}.  But you can use in-ceiling speakers to provide white noise and even a paging/music system to cover the noise that is detrimental to everyone.

Distractions cost businesses $600 billion a year.  Sound masking is a fraction of the amount of money your business loses and not only reduces distractions, but also stress levels and errors.

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Sound Masking: The Solution to Office Noise

March 28, 2011 By

The average worker loses about two hours of work each day due to interruptions and distractions. Especially in the open office, employees are exposed to dozens of conversations each day that may or may not have anything to do with their current task. So much energy is spent trying to tune out everything going on around them. They have also lost all privacy for their conversations, whether in person or on the phone, adding to their feelings of stress and being undervalued.

How to control sound

Sound issues in any space can be treated in three main ways:  absorbing, blocking and covering sound. These are known as the ABC’s of noise control. These three, used in combination, provide the best solution to noise issues in an office environment. Sound is best absorbed through the use of appropriate ceiling tiles, and it is blocked by proper office panels between cubicles and offices.  However, very few offices utilize the third treatment, covering or masking sound.

What is Sound Masking?

Most offices already utilize the first two treatments, but sound masking, the most effective of the three, is often overlooked. Sound masking is the technique of adding barely noticeable background sounds to cover the intrusive noises all around us. Today’s sound masking technology floods the background with specific “white” noise focused on the spectrum of human speech. This precision of white noise will effectively cover conversations in an office setting, returning privacy to the open floor. Proper sound masking, or covering, has been shown to lower distractions by up to 51% and reduce stress by 27%, both of which contribute to employee satisfaction and productivity.

Does it really Work?

Yes. The correct use of white noise really does mask conversations and other noises that interrupt you throughout the day. This technology is used in government offices, medical facilities and many other businesses because of its effectiveness. The result is that private conversations are not overheard, and office noise is not longer a huge distraction for workers. And the best part is that this technology is now affordable to smaller businesses as well.

Most employees are interrupted several times a day by conversations and noise that does not directly involve them. In addition to sound-absorbent, ceiling tiles and sound-blocking cubicle panels, sound masking is an effective and affordable way to control sound in the work place. It covers distracting noise increasing concentrate, lowers stress levels, and returns a level of speech privacy to the open office plan.

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Taking Advantage of Technology with Sound Masking

March 15, 2011 By

How can we harness technology's advantages without suffering its toll?

Average Distraction Levels

Most workers clock in at 9 and out at 5, which should add up to 8 hours, minus lunch.  However, most studies are showing that nowhere near 7-8 hours of work are being done in any work place.  Why?

Well, let’s break down the typical day at work:

  • Workers are interrupted as many as 11 times an hour, with managers at about 6 times/hour and cubicle workers as much as 70 times a day!
  • It takes most workers 5 minutes to get back on track
  • This usually adds up to 2 hours per worker every day

Two hours per worker per day costs businesses around $600 billion a year.  That’s a staggering number, especially so since your business is not immune.  Now, it’s only fair to say that many interruptions are self-imposed or simply part of the job, such as having an open door for your employees when they need you.  However, these types of interruptions do not cover the entirety of those 2 hours per worker per day.  In fact, many polled workers state that office noise is just as much to blame.  Most are frustrated, and all but a few are less productive as a result of it.  From office gossip to personal calls to texts zinging in, office noise is at an all-time high.  And staying plugged in seems to be the name of the game.

What can you do to help your workers stay more focused on work-related tasks?

Since shutting off all distracting electronics would pretty much shut down business for the day, is there anything you can do?  Yes. Sound masking.  Truly a simple approach, sound masking is the use of white noise to cover the distracting/intrusive sounds in the typical office.  Workers can still take care of their own business, but not feel captive to others’ conversations and noise.  Basically, the white noise is run through speakers mounted directly in the ceiling tiles- many systems have paging and music systems, as well.  So, all in all, sound masking is a quick, non-invasive solution for recovering all those lost hours.

Rather than blame technology for distraction and loss of productivity, take advantage of it with sound masking!

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Reduce Stress and Boost Productivity with Sound Masking

February 7, 2011 By

Did you know that the average worker loses two hours of productive work each day due to distractions in the office? There are constant conversations buzzing around them – the person in the next cubical is on the phone; the water cooler talk is almost always present; and the discussion between two co-workers in the hall is louder than they realize. Even at their most productive times, they are wasting energy and time trying not to hear all the noise around them. Businesses around the country are installing office-wide sound masking systems to increase privacy and productivity among their employees.

What is sound masking?

Sound masking seeks to “mask” unnecessary sounds with the use of white noise. White noise is sound, or noise, created from all the frequencies in the audible spectrum; it is named after white light which is created from all the colors in the visible spectrum. With today’s technology, white noise is specifically focused on the specifically on the frequency range of human speech.

The first question that comes to mind is how adding noise helps people concentrate better. A great illustration is a flash light in a dark room. Imagine you are in a dark room and someone across the room is randomly blinking a flashlight at you. The flashlight is very distracting and even irritating. But what happens if you turn on the overhead lights? Now you hardly notice the flashlight; the overhead lights have covered, or masked, the smaller light of the flashlight.

Sound masking works on a similar principle. By adding general white noise, similar to the gentle “whooshing” sound of a fan or an AC unit, you hardly notice the distracting sounds around you.

Why use sound masking?

This technology is used all over the U.S. to improve privacy and productivity – at government agencies, medical facilities and standard office buildings. Sound masking has incredible advantages for any office setting, and especially in open floor plans with cubicles. Here are some of the top benefits:

  • 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.

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What Makes White Noise “White”?

January 27, 2011 By

Define “white”

“White” is an interesting concept.  All ethnic implications aside, the simple “color” of white has several implications itself.  Your child’s art teacher will be quick to inform your eager pupil that white is the reflection of all visible wave lengths of light, or basically a combination of all colors. Fast forward a few years to high school physics and that same child will learn that white light is all the colors of light combined within the visible light spectrum.  Essentially, the term “white” refers to the combination of many parts of the spectrum, be it light or wavelengths, etc.

“White” Noise

The same is true for “white” noise. Often people hear the term “noise” and associate it with a pesky, irritating sound they’d rather not think about.  Interestingly, businesses, medical facilities, and even the military use white noise to combat those pesky, irritating noises and even to provide greater speech privacy.  You see, just like white light reflects all kinds of visible light, white noise is a combination of all kinds of sound.  Sound from every part of the spectrum is used so that the brain tunes out unwanted noises, namely conversational distractions so that you literally can not discern individual conversations and sounds.  It’s not noise cancellation, rather it’s masking- speech and sounds are present, just not intelligible.

This lack of intelligibility is referred to as “speech privacy” and is a valuable tool for those with confidentiality concerns as well. For them, white noise is used in the same way but for a different purpose:  the brain is forced to tune out sensitive conversations because it simply can’t process them.  Just like before, nothing is canceled.  Rather, speech is rendered unintelligible and therefore is protected.

Thus, whether you’re trying to focus on work, or you’re trying to safeguard important information, white noise is a huge resource.

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5 Practical Ways to Use a Sound Machine

December 28, 2010 By

What is White Noise?

People often talk about white noise and sound machines, but do you know how it works and how to use it?  Let’s start with how it works.  A sound machine (and even sound masking systems) uses white noise to help the brain tune out unwanted noise.  This is possible because white noise uses noise from all parts of sound spectrum which masks distracting sounds, like running water covers conversations.

Now, let’s move onto 5 practical uses for said white noise and sound machines.  This technology is priceless when you need to concentrate and/or ignore the disruptive noise around you even for sleep and relaxation.

5 Uses of White Noise & Sound Machines

1. For work. Open offices, especially those with tons of cubicles crammed together, are noisy.  In fact, the average worker loses more than two hours of work because of distractions and interruptions. Portable sound machines help you tune out distracting noises and conversations so you can focus on your work. Furthermore, a sound masking system throughout the entire office will benefit everyone in the office.
2. For sleep. Do you ever have trouble falling (or staying) asleep because of annoying sounds? White noise covers up interruptive sound, helping you sleep through street noise, or unfamiliar hotel sounds while traveling. The result is a better night’s sleep at home or on the road.

3. For kids. Sound machines can work wonders with kid’s sensitive sleep schedules. Maybe your children are sharing a room for the first time, or you want them to easily sleep through the noise of your dinner party. White noise can ensure good, uninterrupted sleep for your little ones, which means better sleep for you, too.

4. For relaxation. After a long day at work, you want to come home to relax and unwind, but a barking dog across the street is interrupting your reverie. Use white noise to block the sounds. Or better yet, use a sound machine with nature sound and relax to the sound of flowing water.

5. For tinnitus. Ringing in your ears, also known as tinnitus, can be very distracting and uncomfortable. The irritation caused by tinnitus can be lessened though the use of sound therapy, letting you relax.

Try this amazing technology for your cubicle, your office, even your home, and begin to enjoy the benefits of improved concentration and better sleep!

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Office Distractions & How White Noise Works

October 25, 2010 By

Office Noise

From gossip, texting, and surfing the internet to social coffee breaks, bathroom trips, and whirring machines, employees report that it’s hard to focus at work for longer than half an hour at a time.  That staggering loss of time adds up quickly to a similar staggering loss of productivity.  In fact, an estimated $600 billion were lost in 2008 due to office distractions.  Fortunately there is a solution, and it is simple: white noise.

Airplanes & White Noise

It may seem counter-intuitive that adding noise actually aides in blocking noise, but indeed that’s what it does.  Think about the last time you were on an airplane.  Before the engine starts, you are privy to the many conversations (and children) around you.  Then, magically, the engines start and all those voices fade away.

What happened?  Did the conversations actually fade away?  Obviosuly not.  The noise of the engine overpowered the competing sounds.  Even though the sound of the airplane isn’t really deafening, it was just enough to cover the noises around you while still allowing you to converse with the people next to you.   It was white noise, the effect of low-level noise that fills the sound spectrum so that your brain cannot physically process it all to the effect that the loud sounds are effectively covered.

Whether you need office-wide coverage with a sound masking system or a single sound machine, white noise will help your workers tune out all their office distractions.

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