stay focused

6 Ways to Stay Focused in an Open Office

Rachel Slifka — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 09:00:10 +0000

Believe it or not, open office layouts were created with good intentions. The idea behind the open floor plan is to encourage collaboration and teamwork among employees, rather than having walls that literally divide people. The design also helps companies save on the amount of office space needed to accommodate everyone. Individual offices take up much more space, and therefore cost companies more money to rent and fill.

While some people love working in an open office layout, it certainly isn't a fit for everyone. Some people thrive among the constant chatter and collaboration of coworkers, while others find it distracting.

If an open office setting is preventing you from accomplishing your to-do list each day, there are ways you can make it easier on yourself. Here are six simple ways to stay focused while working in an open office.

1. Get some fresh air

When the office is full of distractions, it is sometimes best to walk away for a minute to clear your mind. The best way to do this is to step outside for some fresh air. A deep breath of nature can restore the mind from the mental fatigue of work, allowing you to return to your tasks with a fresh perspective and decreased stress.

In fact, Steve Jobs of Apple was notorious for holding walking meetings in order to spend more time outdoors. (See also: 5 Bedtime Routines of Famous Financial Gurus)

2. Invest in headphones

Noise-canceling headphones are a lifesaver when it comes to eliminating distractions. Not only do they help drown out office chatter, but they also signify to others that you're trying to work. People tend to interrupt you less if they see that you're wearing headphones and are in work mode.

Further, research conducted Cornell University in 2016 shows that "streamlined" music can help improve your focus at work, and your mood — giving you all the more reason to crank your favorite tunes. (See also: This Is the Best Music to Listen to If You Want to Be Productive)

3. Establish boundaries

Perhaps the best open office survival tip is to establish boundaries with those around you. There's no shame in letting people know how you work best. You're there to do a job, and if the open office layout is becoming a distraction, it's up to you to find a way to make it work.

Block off an hour or two a day on your calendar that is strictly dedicated to working on your own. Share your calendar with others so they know when you are or aren't available. And chances are, you aren't the only person in your office struggling with the open concept. Lead the charge by creating an office plan of how to let one another know when you're busy. Perhaps you put a do not disturb sign up while you are occupied, or you ask everyone on your team to coordinate an hour of distraction-free work. Whatever the case, find something that works for you and your coworkers.

4. Ask for emails

How can anyone get anything done when coworkers are constantly stopping by or pinging you on Slack? The truth is, it's difficult for anyone to work with constant interruptions.

Fortunately, there's another form of communication can help prevent interruptions: email. Most things aren't urgent, so it's okay to ask your coworkers to email you instead of verbally asking you, or messaging you. By requesting emails, you can respond when it works for you and better establish your priorities. Plus, you can close your email when you're working to eliminate yet another distraction. If someone really needs to speak with you, encourage them to email you and setup a time to speak later in the day. (See also: 5 Easy Ways to Declutter Your Digital Life)

5. Find an alternative workspace

Sometimes, it may be impossible to accomplish your objectives in an open office atmosphere. If this is the case, talk to your boss about finding an alternative workspace to use when you seriously need to concentrate. Whether you need a private conference room for a few hours or the chance to work from home once a week, come up with a few options to present to your manager.

If all else fails, you can always ask to move to a cubical that faces the wall. These are often less distracting since you don't see everyone in the office while you work. (See also: 14 Reasons Your Boss Should Let You Work From Home)

6. Practice tolerance

After setting some established boundaries, your coworkers should better be able to accommodate your need for privacy. However, no one is perfect. Respect and tolerance goes both ways in the workplace.

While it might not be an ideal situation for you at all times, try to see the benefit of your office layout. Understand that no matter your work setup, everyone you work with communicates differently. By practicing tolerance, you can focus your energy back onto your work.

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This article is from Rachel Slifka of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

How to Stay Focused at Work Despite Your Chatty Coworkers

Kentin Waits — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 09:30:23 +0000

Are your coworkers engineers of interruption? Champions of chat? Agents of endless amusement? Don't let them derail your day. With a few simple strategies, you can stay focused at work without offending your cube-hopping coworkers. Here are eight smart ways to beat the masters of distraction.

1. Tell the Truth

Don't feel obligated to engage a chatty coworker. Instead, develop tactful ways to communicate just how focused you are (and how focused you'd like to stay). Go-to phrases like, "I'm really in the zone right now. Can we catch up later?" or "Let's chat after work; I'm under a tight deadline today" are truthful, but polite ways to defend your schedule.

2. Live by Your List

I've a firm believer in the quiet power of list-making — especially when faced with countless distractions (human and otherwise). Take a few minutes each morning and list five or 10 things you must accomplish during your workday. Be specific and keep yourself motivated by mixing minor to-dos with major ones. Don't allow yourself to be distracted until you've completed the last task on your list. (See also: Make Your To-Do Lists More Effective With These 5 Simple Hacks)

3. Divide and Conquer

It's human nature — when overwhelmed, we tend to welcome any distraction that comes along. Avoid this temptation by dividing complex projects into smaller, more manageable to-dos. As you achieve each mini-milestone, reward yourself with a 10-minute "distraction break." If your coworkers are in the same boat, help each other stay on-task and coordinate your break times.

4. Gamify Your Day

Games are an effective way to work toward a goal and still have a little fun. Engage your distracting coworkers with a friendly low-stakes wager. Bet on whatever makes sense for your line of work: who can take the most calls in a week, make the biggest sale, or follow-up with the largest number of clients. The winner gets a free morning coffee. The loser has to clean the microwave.

5. Plug In and Tune Out

You've marveled at how well your kids can tune out the world with technology, so why not give it a shot yourself? If it doesn't conflict with office policy, listen to music or podcasts on your MP3 player or smartphone. Those little earbuds are magic — they discourage interruption without saying a word. Can't concentrate with music or podcasts playing? Pop in the earbuds anyway and just enjoy the silence.

6. Sneak Away

Most offices today are open-concept with low-walled cubicles as the only nod to privacy. If your area is hopelessly chaotic, try to find a reasonable alternative. Sneak away to the office library, a corner table in the cafeteria, a flexible workspace for traveling employees, or a seldom-used conference room.

7. Make Interruptions Part of Your Itinerary

The longer we work, the more likely we are to suffer from fatigue, lose focus, and fall victim to any diversion that comes along. Instead of pushing yourself to work eight hours straight without a single distraction, segment your day into 90-minute chunks. At the end of each hyper-productive period, refuel with a well-deserved 10 or 15-minute break. (See also: 8 Ways to Take a Break at Work and Still Look Busy)

8. Don't Feed the Wildlife

Distracting coworkers tend to buzz from desk to desk looking for receptive audiences. Don't lure them with sweet treats. Retire your community candy dish or reserve it for specific times of the day or week (say, Friday afternoons). It's a passive, but effective way to discourage chatty visitors.

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This article is from Kentin Waits of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Shhhhh: How to Block Out Noise

Meg Favreau — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:36:15 +0000

As I’m writing this, the apartment to my left is having its kitchen smashed out with a sledgehammer, the apartment across from me has power tools running with the door open, and in the hallway, a couple of chatty fellows are spraying the ceiling down with something — pssst, pssst, pssst, talk, talk, talk.

I am the last tenant on the fourth floor of an apartment building that is being completely rehabbed, and I have been thinking a lot about quiet recently.

See, I work out of my apartment, and having that apartment dropped in the middle of a construction site during working hours isn’t exactly conducive to quiet concentration. I have, however, figured out some ways to battle the noise (and researched others that I have yet to try). So if you’re looking for a little quiet — at home, at the office, or while traveling — I hope these suggestions can help you out. (See also: In Search of Silence: 4 Ways to Get Peace and Quiet)

Wear Earplugs

I developed a bad habit in college that I haven’t been able to completely shake — wearing earplugs to bed. The good news is that I always have earplugs around, and they’re a cheap, easy-to-find (most drug stores have them), and relatively effective method of blocking noise. The downside is that earplugs often don’t block noise entirely, they just muffle it.

Listen to Music

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from stereotypical teenagers on TV, it’s that turning up the tunes is a great way to drown out annoying parents (parents who also, most likely, just don’t understand). If you’re trying to listen to music while working, the key is to find music you can work to. Personally, I can’t write to anything with lyrics, so recently I’ve been playing Ratatat and Pretty Lights in heavy rotation. Pumping the music directly into your ears with headphones can also be more effective than just playing it in your space.

Use Noise-Canceling Headphones

Of course, even more effective than listening to music through headphones is listening to music through noise-canceling headphones. They can be an investment, running between $100 and $300, but they read ambient noise in your immediate area and create a signal to cancel it out.

Close Your Windows

It's really quite simple, but if you’re getting noise from the outside, close your windows. This might mean you need to turn on the heat or AC, so there’s definitely a cost involved — but the white noise from the machines might help block the noise even more.

Pad Your Space

Soft things help suck in noise (that’s why you always see foam on the walls of recording studios). So opt for a plush living space instead of one with all hard surfaces — thick curtains, carpeting, pillows, and other bits of softness can all help dampen sound.

Renter’s website Tenant.net also recommends adding a second wall if you can.

Meditate

When you’re better at focusing, it’s easier to block out noise.

Ask for the Noise to Stop

If you can, go to the source and ask for the noise to stop or the volume to be reduced. And I’m not talking about banging a broom on the ceiling — ask directly and politely. Moreover, make sure you’re asking the right person. Earlier today, I overheard a woman who lives on the floor below me chew out the construction workers for starting so early in the day. While I’m not thrilled about it either, it’s not their fault that our building management asked them to start banging around at 8 a.m.

Go Somewhere Else

When all else fails, it might just be time to go elsewhere. Sometimes I’ll work in a coffee shop (yes, it’s quieter than my apartment). At work, you might be able to temporarily move to another space, or even ask your boss for your desk to be moved permanently. But I'm sorry, that baby on the plane is not going anywhere (except your flight's final destination).

What methods do you use for dealing with noise?

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This article is from Meg Favreau of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

The Fallacy of Multitasking

David Ning — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 13:00:16 +0000

Let's imagine that you finally decide to ignore the latte factor and buy a cup of $5 iced coffee at the nearby coffee shop. It smells good, but you want to drive home before you drink it because your baby just started crying, and you know she wants to be home as soon as possible. (See also: 3 Reasons Why Keeping Your "Latte Factor" Will Help You Save Money)

You get out of your car, holding the cup of coffee in one hand and while carrying your baby home, and she decides that the coffee is better on the ground than in your hand. Slap! With baby arms swinging, all you can manage is the look of disbelief as you see your coffee splattered all over your front lawn.

You ask yourself why you didn't just carry the baby into the living room before going back out to get the coffee, but what's done is done. You make sure your child is safe, and then you quickly try to undo the new "brown grass" that you just created. In an effort to save about 35 seconds of your life, you wasted that cup of coffee, managed to wipe that smile off your face, and spent another 10 minutes trying to turn brown back to green.

Misconceptions of Multitasking

I hope this doesn't sound familiar, but how many times have you tried to do two things at once, only to end up taking more time than if you just focused on one task at a time?

Every time I hire someone, I make it a point to discuss multitasking if the word ever shows up on the resume. Many people think that multitasking simply means doing two things at once, but it's seldom possible. What ends up happening is that the quality of work on both tasks suffers, and sometimes, things even need to be redone. This is the opposite of efficiency.

There's No True Multitasking

In reality, we just aren't wired to perform two tasks at once. And this may come as a surprise to some, but neither are computers. What actually happens is that all the resources of the computer are shared by each task, with some resources used to handle the switching between the tasks. The illusion of true multitasking only happens because the computer can do this so efficiently and quickly that it seems to be doing everything at once. Have you ever tried to open many different programs, and they all take forever to load? This is multitasking at work.

How to Improve Your Efficiency

Instead of trying to do two things at the same time, you should actually be trying to focus on one task at a time. Get one thing done, then move onto the next. In real life, there will no doubt be times when you have to handle two projects concurrently. In these cases, you still have to focus on one project at a time. Work on one, then set it aside while you work on the other. Anytime you try to switch between the two means time lost, so do your best to keep "project hopping" to a minimum!

Additionally, here are some tips to help you focus on only one task:

Cut out distractions by learning to say no.
Write down everything about the project you aren't working on at the moment, so you don't have to think about it or worry that you will forget about little details.
Put a higher emphasis on having enough sleep. It's hard, I know, but when you aren't tired all the time, you will be able to concentrate better and you can get everything done more quickly, giving you a bit more time to have more sleep.
Check out these tips to help you get more done.

Next time you try to multitask, beware of the loss in efficiency, and think twice before you try to work on two tasks at once.

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This article is from David Ning of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Stay Focused: 300+ Tips for Staying Focused

Elizabeth Lang — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:00:02 +0000

I don't know about you, but for me, spring brings out the worst in my ability to focus. When the weather turns sunny all I want to do is be outside. My basement renovation project gets pushed aside for garden work. Library studying turns into less-than-productive patio studying. Of course, the upside is that I no longer have to try to drag myself into the snow and ice for exercise as I'm much more inclined to head out for a long walk or run.

Despite my desire to pursue outdoor projects and work outside, there are some things I just need to stay focused on and finish up.

So what are the best ways to stay focused? I pulled together some of my favorite posts from around the web.

Get Motivated to Focus

Sure, it may sound strange that you have to first be motivated to say focused, but it's true. To finish a project you have to force yourself to start on the project before you can actually stay focused to work on it. Here are some great sources of motivational tips and tricks:

Zenhabits has 16 motivational tips.

Scott Berkun writes about what motivates him.

ABA net has 10 tips for motivation that apply to any profession.

Pick the Brain offers 21 ways to increase motivation.

The 99 Percent offers simple but practical motivation advice.

Planting Dollars lists several motivational videos .

Quick Sprout shares 101 motivational business quotes.

Nora Dunn tells you 100 way to change your life.

Once You're Motivated, Stay Focused

Once you're motivated to keep working on a project what is the best way to stay focused? These experts offer some of their favorite advice:

Location Independent Living describes how to stay focused on the goal.

Sara Winfrey reminds you to look within to be able to finish something hard.

Dave Cheong details 11 ways of staying focused.

Toilet Paper Entrepreneur gives focus tips from 63 other people.

Dumb Little Man's 9 practical tips will help you focus.

Almost Fearless brings 5 tips for working in the midst of chaos.

Just Do It

Instead of linking to hundreds of other tips telling you to just get get started and stay focused, I'm going to offer the 1 ultimate tip. Suck it up, take a deep breath, and power through until you're done.

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This article is from Elizabeth Lang of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: