I am a founder working from home on my small business, in an apartment complex in a nice location in CA. Every day there is at least 4 times a garbage pickup, by an extremely loud garbage truck. Then there is the people racing their motorcycles and cars up and down the street, the airbnbs on weekends, stay at home moms/dads or nannies with kids on balconies, the endless moving trucks, amazon/fedex/ups trucks, and so on. Then there is the endless landscaping and street cleaning trucks. Gas powered garden equipment and blowers. Even with the windows closed it is very hard to block out all the noise. How do people who live in tech metros in apartment complexes manage to concentrate on their work on a day to day basis? Love to hear stories and tips and what people have done to improve their productivity even if it means moving somewhere else.
There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.
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High quality noise cancelling headphones. If that’s not enough then I’ll play white noise, soundscapes, or music. There’s a lot of variety out there so finding your fit is key. Here are some examples of what I listen to:
- Noise - white noise, brown, pink
- Soundscapes - waves, rain, etc.
- Music - techno, binaural beats, deep focus, lofi.
Edit: I totally missed what sub this was. Gonna leave it up in case it helps someone.
Also - if you don’t already have window coverings, then heavy curtains or honeycomb blinds will also help with noise.
This.
I have curtains and a decently sealed front door and I hardly hear outside noise. Some days I’ll have YouTube on because waiting around for someone and that’s helps. Generally though my pace at work allows for me to get distracted and no one gets upset because I answer promptly and get stuff done on time.
I’d like to come out and say FUCK LEAF BLOWERS AND EDGE TRIMMERS. Nothing is more annoying them them. Even though mowers are actually louder, they aren’t that bad because once they start, they go for like 30 to 60 minutes and you get used to the noise. But those goddamn edge trimmers… they stop and start and stop and start endlessly.
Anyways, I use white noise to block out as much disruptions as possible. Alexa has various white noise generators. I actually prefer the sound of brown noise rather than regular white noise. Also youtube has tons of background noise videos. Many are many hours long. One of my favorite ones are the sounds of the Enterprise from Star Trek, as well as a video that is Cafe sounds. The Cafe one you can hear people talking, but it isn’t clear enough for you to understand so after a bit it all kind of fades into the background.
I also have a Playlist of music that is all instrumental. If it doesn’t have words, it doesn’t bother me if I am trying to concentrate.