This is going to be a strange topic you may never thought about, but in the same time, it's important as well. I was thinking about it these days, trying to answer the question myself. Finding the answer is key for everyone.
When it comes to work, there's always the question of productivity as well. This time I'm not going to talk about physical work, only mental work and you'll see why.
When I'm working, I like to have some quiet and privacy above all. Privacy is key, if you're doing something that concerns only you, especially if you're in finance. It's a question of security as well. I like to have a quiet environment, with no distractions if possible. When I'm home, can shut out the outside world without any problems. But when I'm traveling, this is not always an option. You never know what you get, if the place you're staying in is quiet enough for you to be able to focus, or not. Most of the times it is not, but work must be done anyway, so what do you do? How do you handle the situation?
Not long ago, I was at a place, where there were some street works in front of the house. These works came with heavy machinery, which created a lot of noise. You can shut the windows, which can offer some soundproofing, but can't shut the noise out completely. At first it was frustrating as I'm accustomed to having my peace and quiet, but life is not always about what we want. Most of the times it is about what we can do with what we have. So I carried on with my work. Surprisingly, after an hour of continuous work, I had to realize that the noise was still there, but did not bother me so much anymore. I mean I was able to still hear it, but my focus was way stronger than the effect of the noise on me. I think my mind got used to the outside noise, which became normal after some time. This is a huge advantage as I could work without any inconvenience. Most likely it requires a bit of effort on the individual's behalf as well, to be able to focus on the work and not on the noise.
This situation made me think of how the human mind works. I started to think about what would bother me more and the answer is, most likely human conversation in the background would be harder to ignore for me. Now you may ask why? I'm not a specialist in this field, have no clue what psychologists or whichever is the science that deals with the topic, but I think the reason is that human conversation can be understood and our mind can comprehend the talk and make us lose focus.
You can use ear plugs I suppose, to avoid hearing the voices around you, but I've never used any, so I don't know how efficient those can be in such a situation. The other method, widely used is listening to music. With a set of quality ear pieces, you can totally exclude any outside noise, which is great. However, there's still the music that can influence you. If it's a good influence and can help you be more productive, then good. If not, then you're just swapping one distraction with another.
Music that is not mine or not the genre I like, would annoy me as well. The worst thin with music is that sometimes the tunes get stuck in your head and you hear them even if you don't want to. I think this is the worst. In this case I prefer my music.
The situation may be different, when it comes to studying. Studying requires the mind to absorb what you're reading and also store it so you can remember it later. Some prefer to read the text out loud several times, till they can memorize it. I've never been able to do that, actually I hate this method and can't understand how others can do it. If there's noise around you, you most likely have to speak louder, to be able to hear your own voice.
My bulletproof method always have been visualizing what I write. I'm not sure if it's a gift or I have been able to develop this habit, but this is a huge advantage for me. Lucky me, I was able to discover this ability pretty early and use it to my advantage, but it wasn't without difficulties. In order to being able to visualize my notebook pages in front of my eyes, I need to organize the content in a way to be clearly readable and also add some unique elements that could help me remember the text easily. I was happy to do it, draw flowers and color my notebook in any shape and form I wanted, but my middle school teachers had a different opinion. This got me in trouble quite a few times, but have never revealed the true reason to anyone in school. None of them knew why I'm doing that, they just thought I'm crazy or a huge fan of insubordination. The latter was true though.
My notes were sought after assets later, during my university years. Turned out I'm not the only one (ok, this is a joke, obviously I'm not the only one with this ability) that has this skill. Others liked my notes as they were able to learn more easily using them. I still do this till this day and am happy it helps me. If I have the necessary notes, I can shut out any outside noise easily. I don't care about it.
Life is changing fast and the covid lockdown showed us how important adaptability is. Millions were forced to work remotely, from home or from wherever they could. Also, digital nomading is a huge thing nowadays. This means working from wherever you are also requires some extra focus.
So what do you do? How do you handle the distraction and the noise that you may have to face from time to time, if you don't have the perfect environment? Can you focus if the conditions are not ideal for you? I think this is a skill that can be learnt, if you know yourself and know how to overcome these obstacles. It's a must as well as you will never have the ideal conditions in life. Some things don't depend on us, but we must adapt and do our best, if we want results.
If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides:
- Communities Explained - Newbie Guide
- Cross Posting And Reposting Explained, Using PeakD
- Hive Is Not For Me
- How To Pump Your Reputation Fast - Newbie Guide
- Tips And Tricks & Useful Hive Tools For Newbies
- More Useful Tools On Hive - Newbie Guide
- Community List And Why It Is Important To Post In The Right Community
- Witnesses And Proposals Explained - Newbie Guide
- To Stake, Or Not To Stake - Newbie Guide
- Tags And Tagging - Newbie Guide
- Newbie Expectations And Reality
