Ask HN: How do you deal with never ending noise and distraction WFH?

I'd love to know the opposite - how do people manage to get focused at the office? Offices seem to be full of unavoidable visual and aural distractions.

I really dont understand what compels people to listen to music constantly on full volume. from their cars and apartments. 7am full volume and bass spanish music? why...

Reducing or even just slowing ship traffic would help cetaceans hunt, communicate, and, presumably, get enough sleep.

Short term, selfish view: double-pane windows, air conditioning since your windows will be closed, wall hangings for soundproofing- make your office a recording studio and that might help.

Open office was a torture at first, but after years of ear abuse some of us build the super power of just ignoring everything happening around and concentrate. A problematic (?) side effect is you also start ignoring people in front of you once you subconsciously categorized them as "noise".

It's kinda like ad banner blindness, but for sound. But it's still exhausting to be honest.

A more decent advice: if you can afford it noise insulate your home (or at least one room) or move to somewhere else. That's the same level of quality of life improvement as choosing a place with cleaner air or good water. The side health benefits are tremendous, cannot be overstated.

If you're dealing with foot-fall / impact noise from the apartments above, you might benefit from moving to a higher floor.

If it's a really spacious apartment and/or you're not claustrophobic, you could maybe build a room-within-a-room structure. But it's hard to imagine that being a better option than moving.

Cal Newport has written about this very well here https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/remote-wo...

Noise cancelling headphones/earphones AND white noise (eg RainyMood) or non-lyrical repetitive music with get in flow. I actually play both at the same time normally.

For extreme situations I also wear earplugs under the headphones. But that's pretty rare.

The noise cancelling is important because it lowers the volume at which you can listen to the noise-countering stuff (eg music) which hopefully means less risk to your hearing and longer periods doing so. But note I am not a doctor/sound engineer.

The white noise helps to submerge last remnants of choppy background sound, allowing the music to dominate. Experiment to find a good baseline volume for each.

You will need to pay for the ANC, cheap ones don't work. Bose QC/Sony XM class.

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Having said that, I have a great set up at home but as often as not work in public spaces with a laptop for social rather than noise reasons.

So ask yourself if you absolutely have to work from home all the time, or if you can schedule blocks where you can work remotely, and if so, do so.

WFH means that I burn out much faster on the little annoyances around my home. I can only do 2-3 years in the same physical place before I have to think about moving again.

I am hoping this next one might stick longer (i.e. 30 minutes from nearest grocery store).

Luckily these days you could access from anywhere so move to a hamlet or have a soundproof room

When I'm vising my parents in the suburbs... its generally quiet, but that one leaf blower 4 doors down or the one garbage truck crawling down the block suddenly becomes the only thing I can focus on. The noises are infrequent and jarring when they occur.

When I'm at home in my city apartment, the background noise is truly constant - it forms a canvas, nothing really jumps out and therefore the level of what it takes to make a distraction is a lot higher.

My practical advice is to explore headphones with passive noise isolation instead of active noise cancelling. The passive isolation is pretty foolproof, even with sudden or extreme changes in background noise content that the active noise cancelling sometimes takes a moment to adjust to (or perhaps try something like working in a coffee shop for an hour to get the other extreme and reset: write emails where distraction is more OK, come home to the relative quiet of the home office for focus time. I've also found even a change of scenery can get me into the zone regardless of what is going on environmentally)

But I often end up wearing earbuds or headphones and listening to music while I work anyway.

White noise from a fan can help with noise. Also good for ventilation.

You can also consider changing your schedule. If you get rotated around to night shift like I am then it's going to be quieter while you are awake.

If it's that bad where you are then you should move. I have moved multiple times. Not because of noise pollution but mainly for things like saving money.

You can also try going to a coffee shop or a library. Or co-working space. Many co-working spaces have actual offices you can rent.

There are also e-ink things like the Remarkable tablet which you can view the screen outside if you really need to escape.

There are also double-pane or windows designed to limit noise pollution.

An area that is more suburban or even rural may be quieter. A lot of places in this part of Texas have apartments that are actual single story and only share one or two walls. They have not been very noisy.

If you are fully remote then you have the option of going to a cabin or RV in the middle of the woods if you want.

If you can afford it, why not take advantage of AirBnb to find a quiet place to work for a few weeks? You could leave tomorrow.