On the noise front the things that work for me are two-fold: Noise cancelling headphones/earphones AND white noise (eg RainyMood) or non-lyrical repetitive mus

On the noise front the things that work for me are two-fold: 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. -- 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.