Feeling Unproductive in Office – Geonoise Instruments

We believe that the best way to be highly productive is to be able to get into our monoideal state. Josh Kaufman says in his book “The Personal MBA”:

“Monoidealism is the state of focusing your energy and attention only on one thing. It’s often called a “flow” state: clear, focused attention on one subject for a long period of time.”

For this to happen, potential distractions and interruptions need to be eliminated. This is the reason for some people, working early in the morning or late at night can feel very productive – because on a normal day, no one is going to call you at 4 in the morning.

However, most of us do our work in an office which does not operate at those silent, undistracted hours. The good news is, we still can manage our potential distractions by knowing what distracts us the most. This can be done by allocating a time when you want to be in your monoideal state and free yourself from distractions during that time. For example, you can put your phone into flight mode and turning off email notifications from 8 to 11 and start to check emails and communicating with the outside world from 11 until lunch. The timing will depend a lot on the type of work you are doing and how much time will you need to be in monoideal state.

Unfortunately, there are things that is out of your locus of control – there is a retrofitting job upstairs, your co-worker decided to sing along to the song he is listening to, people in the other room are laughing loudly (are they talking about their boss?) and so on. If it’s not in front of your eyes, for example pop-up notifications on your screen, most of the distractions come to you in a form of sound, or I think it’s better to call it “noise”.

Noise is a productivity killer that you might be overlooking, especially if you have passed the stage of being distracted by your phone, browsing Facebook on your computer and looking at cat videos on Youtube. Fortunately, noise is manageable in a few different ways. The most viable option for an existing office is to make noise-related rules and to make everybody aware that noise can reduce their productivity. For example, companies can make rules that retrofitting job, singing and gossiping must be done outside of office hour. Another way to fix this is to separate areas for people who want to be focused and areas where people can socialize and discuss with their co-workers.

The best way to manage noise? Is to take noise into consideration from the beginning of the design process of the working space. This can be a long and complex process where there are a lot of aspects to be considered in designing an ideal office. It needs a balance between visual pleasure, company’s philosophy, functionality, health, safety and all other aspects that we want to take into account. A lot of times, all those aspects will relate to noise or acoustics in some ways, depending on each unique case.

For us acousticians, these are the things that we typically think about when helping others to design their working space (and actually any other built environment):

Ambient noise: We want the noise level inside of the working space to be reasonably low, whether it is intrusion from outside such as traffic, railway, aircraft and neighbouring building (neighbour’s mechanical system can be quite noisy), or the noise from inside the building such as HVAC system and lifts.
Sound insulation: We don’t want to hear sound that we don’t want to hear from the next room, upstairs or downstairs. By designing a suitable ceiling, flooring and wall systems, a sufficient sound insulation can be achieved.
Room acoustics: We want to be able to listen comfortably and understand verbal information that we want to. This is critical especially in meeting rooms and event space.
Sound reinforcement and public address system: We want the sound reinforcement and public address system to be heard clearly while not disturbing others who don’t want to hear it.

All the above can also be done after the building and the working space is built. But if it’s done before it’s built, you will have a lot more options and be more cost efficient rather than changing what is already been built.

So, if you are a highly productive person, or if you want to become one, we would suggest you to consider noise in choosing the space you are working in.

Are you stressed at work?

How many times did you need to cover your ears at work? You might be stressed because you are working in a noisy environment even without realizing it.

A noisy environment is one of the primary stress triggers for the employee and it will lead to a reduction in productivity. It is dangerous for your health but it could also impact your bonus at the end of the year? Let us remind you how noisy your working environment is by mentioning some sources:

Copy machines
Obnoxious ringtone
Computers
Air Conditioning
Noises from outside the office buildings (Trucks, Airplanes, Highway noise, nearby constructions)
Laughing/Talking
Gossip about boss
Gossip about co-worker who is not invited into WhatsApp Group

Those are common noise sources that might be contributing to the noise around you. We must remember that the distinction between noise and sound is very subjective. It can be particular to each person and even depend the situation.

Noise and sound can both be dangerous for your health and can be easily measured to quantify. The graphic below shows some noise levels. Fifty decibel would be great for a working environment, exposure for long time to noise levels above 80 decibel will permanently damage your hearing.

How Loud is Too Loud? – Geonoise Instruments

After reading the graphic, please take a moment to think about how many decibels your ears have to endure daily? Let’s say that you’re working in a general business noisy office. The noise levels can be reaching up to 90 decibels because of the cumulation of various noises such as laughter, yelling, ringtones, etc. The World Health Organization (WHO) claims that exposure to noise causes stress, anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Furthermore, loud sounds will damage sensitive structures of the inner ear and cause noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL).

The damage because of the noise exposure is gradual; you might not notice the signs or you ignore them until they become more apparent. Here are the symptoms of the Noise-induced Hearing Loss:

Sounds have become distorted or muffled
You can hear people, but you can’t quite understand what they’re saying
You can’t hear or understand speech from 3 feet away or farther
You must turn the volume up more than others do in order to hear it as well as they can

All checked?

Please call professional help immediately! If it is not, congratulations, you still have a good hearing. But it doesn’t guarantee you that you will be free from NIHL.

Here are the tips on how to stay sane in a noisy working environment and prevent the NIHL at the same time:

• Bring earplugs to your work!

You only need to spend a few thousand rupiahs for this. Wearing earplugs can help you to reduce the noise by 18 – 34 decibels. It depends on the models/brand. By blocking/reducing that amount of noise, you’re still able to hear the sound around you.

• You might want to try the Noise Cancelling Headphones

It is made for keeping the noise away from your ears. If you use this in the office, it not only will help you block the annoying noise but also will make your music sounds way better than any other headphones in the same situation. The price ranges between a hundred thousand rupiah – millions of rupiah. It is an excellent investment, though!

• Take a break!

When the noise around you is too much to handle, give your ears a break! It gives your eara time to recover from the stressful sound and this action also a preventive way to the damage of your ears. None of them seems to be working for you? Please contact the acoustical consulting service. They will help you to find the best solutions to your problems.