7 ms·

I really struggle to get in the 'zone' where I can do the creative aspects of software engineering (e.g. researching graph databases like neo4j and determining

I really struggle to get in the 'zone' where I can do the creative aspects of software engineering (e.g. researching graph databases like neo4j and determining if our startup can benefit from it) when I'm in an open environment. I have been diagnosed with ADD for the past 8 years, but am working towards a medication free approach to dealing with it. Open spaces really hurt my productivity because my mind naturally tries to keep track of all the conversations going on around me. This ADD wired brain helped make me a great waiter, but it's hard to explain to bosses/founders why I prefer to work in a quiet environment with as few people around as possible whenever I'm not simply cranking out code that takes no thought. Most of my bosses have been very accommodating at first, but each time the scenario ends up where management feels like my isolation is a sign of not wanting to be a team player and is harming the morale of those programmers that look up to me. I really don't know what the right answer is to this dilemma, but for me, at least, the trend towards an open plan offices is stifling my ability to perform at a consistently high level. Edit: to those replying below, thanks for the suggestion. Thankfully my employer has no policy against headphone usage, so I do get some help from that. One thing many people don't realize about ADD is that a loss of focus can be triggered through other senses such as seeing movement out of the corner of my eyes. Sound is definitely the most distracting element, but an environment with a lot of movement can be almost as bad in my case.

endianswap 13y ago
I hate to sound like I'm trivializing your disorder, but have you tried a good pair of closed-ear headphones? I sit in a room of 40 or 50 chatty computer folks, and everything is silent when I put on my Sennheiser headphones. It lets be effectively choose whether or not I want to be distracted by sound, which I do sometimes (hearing conversations I want to be a part of it quite important to me).
- ghotli 13y ago
  http://www.amazon.com/Shure-SE210-Sound-Isolating-Earphone/dp/B0013JT3XC http://www.amazon.com/Shure-SE210-Sound-Isolating-Earphone/d... Those effectively eliminate auditory ADD in an open environment. Nothing has been more effective than these for me.
  - bdcravens 13y ago
    I have a pair of Bose Quiet Comfort 15's, supposedly one of the best noise canceling headphones you can buy. While it eliminates alot of the noise, noise still gets in.
    - nairteashop 13y ago
      I've tried the Bose QC and the Shure, and IMO the latter is better at removing ambient sounds. The Shure does not use active noise cancellation like the Bose, but I think it is more effective simply because it fits snugly in your ear like a set of ear plugs. (It's also more uncomfortable because of that.)
    - driverdan 13y ago
      Earphones that actually block sound are far superior to noise canceling headphones that degrade the sound quality of whatever you're listening to.
    - dgallagher 13y ago
      Combine them with 30dB or better earplugs. If you can still hear things that are bothersome, play some music or pink noise. Note that earplug use can cause earwax buildup. There are a bunch of home remedy's that can help. Talk to your doctor about options.
  - jquery 13y ago
    Careful. Daily use of in-ear headphones can lead to impacted ear wax. Your hearing will gradually degrade until you can't understand people at all. Then one morning you wake up and realize you're deaf and you make a trip to the doctor where they pull out a block of ear wax the size of a lozenge and just as hard. Happened to me twice before I ditched using in-ear headphones at work.
    - vibrolax 13y ago
      I have been prone to cerumen (earwax) buildup my entire adult life, regardless of whether I wore in-ear, sealed, open-air phones, or nothing at all. In my early twenties, a doctor showed me how to remove it using a small piece of alcohol-moistened cotton plucked from a cotton ball twisted onto a flat toothpick. He said commercial cotton swabs were too large and the cotton was packed too hard for the task. While his advice goes against the prime directive to never put any object in your ear canal, I have never hurt myself. A gentle self-cleansing in the outer canal every two weeks keeps things clear. Without this, I'd be in the doctor's office getting flushed 3 or 4 times a year. I wouldn't advise anyone to do this without a doctor's recommendation and training.
- gcr 13y ago
  Is it common for employers to restrict the use of headphones in an open workspace? I imagine that some bosses might feel that headphones "dampen the synergy," or whatever language they use.
- kemiller 13y ago
  Not just about auditory stimuli, it's also visual "noise".
- raverbashing 13y ago
  This With noise cancelling for when someone decides to vacuum the office or finds out it's a nice day to use a power drill
  - ghotli 13y ago
    My boss used to say that he felt like he could have shot off a gun behind my head and I wouldn't notice with those Shures in.
- monkeynotes 13y ago
  In addition I think practicing meditation would be an excellent alternative to medication. Meditation can help the mind learn how to focus and compartmentalise your senses.
- rohansingh 13y ago
  If you're listening to music through those headphones, it is definitely having an effort on your creativity that you might net appreciate. The Cornell study about this is referenced in Peopleware. I summarized it a few years ago if you don't have a copy handy: http://rohanradio.com/blog/2010/08/12/one-song-on-repeat/ http://rohanradio.com/blog/2010/08/12/one-song-on-repeat/
  - endianswap 13y ago
    I don't actually need anything playing on the headphones to effectively block out voices, even nearby ones. I compared my HD280s agains active noise-cancelling headphones and the Sennheisers blocked talking much more effectively, because there's that much more material between your ears and the outside world.
    - ax 13y ago
      I could be wrong, but at one point I calculated that the HD280s meet OSHA requirements for hearing protection for certain noise levels.
- jasonlotito 13y ago
  As someone who also has ADHD and OCD, close-ear noise-canceling headphones aren't the solution. And they don't work. As someone else mentioned, visual noise is just as much a problem. Couple that with what an open office implies: easy access. Besides, I don't want to always be wearing headphones while I'm coding. I do enjoy quiet and peace while working, without needing my head and ears wrapped. Another issue with ADHD isn't just being distracted, but also getting back to work after being disrupted. It's easy to talk about getting into the zone, but for someone with ADHD, it's even more challenging. Since I've started medication, I've seen firsthand the dramatic difference. This isn't meant to say you are wrong. Closed-ear headphones do help, and they are just one thing I use. But alone, they simply don't come close. Open-offices are a challenge.
  - mikevm 13y ago
    >Another issue with ADHD isn't just being distracted, but also getting back to work after being disrupted. It's easy to talk about getting into the zone, but for someone with ADHD, it's even more challenging. Since I've started medication, I've seen firsthand the dramatic difference. Did you have similar problems in College? That is, if you get distracted from homework assignments (say, friends are bugging you to go out), then it would take you much more time to get back at it again? It happens to me all the time. It takes me a lot of time to finally force myself to do some assignment, and if I go out, I might waste almost the a whole day afterwards just trying to get into "the zone" again... Unfortunately, the meds are giving me side effects (increased heart rate).
    - jasonlotito 13y ago
      > Did you have similar problems in College? Yes. And it was a struggle. I always chalked it up to procrastination. As a 33 year old learning you've had ADHD and OCD all your life, it kind of freaks you out. They say not to do it, but you can't help but think of what you could have done had you been properly diagnosed. Instead, they tell me I need to focus on what I have accomplished in spite of my condition (which, to be completely fair, is nothing that I can complain about). > Unfortunately, the meds are giving me side effects (increased heart rate). Try something different? =)
- dyno12345 13y ago
  I wake up every morning with my ears ringing because I have no other way to work open floor plan
fernly 13y ago
Could you use headphones, noise-cancelling ones perhaps, and music to isolate yourself?
- bentcorner 13y ago
  I've also used noise cancelling/isolating headphones without music and they're effective. Headphones are also a useful social signal that you're not to be interrupted.
ScottBurson 13y ago
Good grief -- you don't need to have ADD to find open environments and interruptions distracting! The vast majority of creative workers need quiet! (A few can focus in any situation, but they are the exceptions.) I find I have to alternate between focused creative work and more interactive work on a timescale of days to weeks. That is, I spend several days to a few weeks (occasionally 2 or 3 months) where I am more isolated from my teammates, and get some specific development task done. Then I spend a roughly equal amout of time in "interrupt-driven" mode, answering questions from teammates and support people, fixing bugs, testing, and generally doing stuff that needs to get done but doesn't require the same level of isolation and concentration. Moving back and forth between these modes lets me do a reasonable job of both kinds of work. (I don't isolate myself totally in the creative stretches, but I let my email back up, for example, responding to only the truly urgent requests.) The problem managers have is that their work tends to be almost entirely interrupt-driven, and the exceptions take place in meetings. It's all they know. I don't know what to suggest except maybe to ask them to imagine they were writing a book -- what kind of work environment would they need?
- wpeterson 13y ago
  Separating focused, creative work from interrupt-driven work is essential. Context switching between them is expensive. On my engineering team we tried to collect all interrupt driven work together (triaging bug reports, working on deployments, production issues) and let it only bother one person. This is a sacrificial duty of your long-term productivity we all rotate each sprint (bug duty). I find it easier to do interrupt-driven work when I'm full time in an interruptible context. I'd much rather be on-call for a week once every couple of months than be interrupted several times a day.
rhizome 13y ago
Pretty much my worst working experience was in an open plan office (the boss had their own office, natch), where the boss would walk into the room, "Hey guys...", everybody takes their headphones off and looks up, and he starts talking about something that is relevant to two, maybe two and a half, people. This would happen about once per hour. Policy against headphones, is that a thing? Shudder.
- kabdib 13y ago
  Intel had (and maybe still has) a "no headphones" policy. Even at night, with no one else in the office. Idiocy.
  - wtvanhest 13y ago
    I worked there a few years ago and everyone was wearing headphones. I worked in Santa Clara.
    - kabdib 13y ago
      That's good to hear. I must have been hearing stories from the 80s.
- driverdan 13y ago
  I could never work at a place with that kind of idiotic policy.
- VLM 13y ago
  "Policy against headphones, is that a thing?" This is normal. We (mgmt) went to great effort to eliminate the possibility of concentration amongst the workers because all wisdom comes from above at our organization and we don't concentrate so you shouldn't either. Furthermore we intentionally designed this for easy collaboration / talking and your wearing headphones is a directly insubordinate act against our intentional management decision to encourage collaboration. As a class observation we are an engineering organization not a customer service organization so I do not want to see my people wearing "customer service" headphones, unless you want to transfer out of engineering and into 1st level support. Finally we occasionally escort outside visitors past this area on sales calls and what would they think if they saw you wearing headphones, that we are not observant, or we tolerate insubordination, or ? This is a paraphrase of the conversation I had at a former employer. I'm shocked any open plan office allows headphones, it is blatantly insubordinate to go directly against your bosses orders and 1) think and 2) block out your coworkers. If they wanted you to think they certainly wouldn't sabotage you by putting you in an open plan office.
INTPenis 13y ago
I think we're all a concoction of symptons due to modern psychiatry, so I've never really diagnosed myself. I do however have the exact same issue as you, I can't focus if there are things going on around me. My cure so far has been raining.fm and big insulating headphones. But it's not ideal, my ideal environment is alone in silence.

endianswap 13y ago

I hate to sound like I'm trivializing your disorder, but have you tried a good pair of closed-ear headphones? I sit in a room of 40 or 50 chatty computer folks, and everything is silent when I put on my Sennheiser headphones. It lets be effectively choose whether or not I want to be distracted by sound, which I do sometimes (hearing conversations I want to be a part of it quite important to me).

ghotli 13y ago
http://www.amazon.com/Shure-SE210-Sound-Isolating-Earphone/dp/B0013JT3XC http://www.amazon.com/Shure-SE210-Sound-Isolating-Earphone/d... Those effectively eliminate auditory ADD in an open environment. Nothing has been more effective than these for me.
- bdcravens 13y ago
  I have a pair of Bose Quiet Comfort 15's, supposedly one of the best noise canceling headphones you can buy. While it eliminates alot of the noise, noise still gets in.
  - nairteashop 13y ago
    I've tried the Bose QC and the Shure, and IMO the latter is better at removing ambient sounds. The Shure does not use active noise cancellation like the Bose, but I think it is more effective simply because it fits snugly in your ear like a set of ear plugs. (It's also more uncomfortable because of that.)
  - driverdan 13y ago
    Earphones that actually block sound are far superior to noise canceling headphones that degrade the sound quality of whatever you're listening to.
  - dgallagher 13y ago
    Combine them with 30dB or better earplugs. If you can still hear things that are bothersome, play some music or pink noise. Note that earplug use can cause earwax buildup. There are a bunch of home remedy's that can help. Talk to your doctor about options.
- jquery 13y ago
  Careful. Daily use of in-ear headphones can lead to impacted ear wax. Your hearing will gradually degrade until you can't understand people at all. Then one morning you wake up and realize you're deaf and you make a trip to the doctor where they pull out a block of ear wax the size of a lozenge and just as hard. Happened to me twice before I ditched using in-ear headphones at work.
  - vibrolax 13y ago
    I have been prone to cerumen (earwax) buildup my entire adult life, regardless of whether I wore in-ear, sealed, open-air phones, or nothing at all. In my early twenties, a doctor showed me how to remove it using a small piece of alcohol-moistened cotton plucked from a cotton ball twisted onto a flat toothpick. He said commercial cotton swabs were too large and the cotton was packed too hard for the task. While his advice goes against the prime directive to never put any object in your ear canal, I have never hurt myself. A gentle self-cleansing in the outer canal every two weeks keeps things clear. Without this, I'd be in the doctor's office getting flushed 3 or 4 times a year. I wouldn't advise anyone to do this without a doctor's recommendation and training.
gcr 13y ago
Is it common for employers to restrict the use of headphones in an open workspace? I imagine that some bosses might feel that headphones "dampen the synergy," or whatever language they use.
kemiller 13y ago
Not just about auditory stimuli, it's also visual "noise".
raverbashing 13y ago
This With noise cancelling for when someone decides to vacuum the office or finds out it's a nice day to use a power drill
- ghotli 13y ago
  My boss used to say that he felt like he could have shot off a gun behind my head and I wouldn't notice with those Shures in.
monkeynotes 13y ago
In addition I think practicing meditation would be an excellent alternative to medication. Meditation can help the mind learn how to focus and compartmentalise your senses.
rohansingh 13y ago
If you're listening to music through those headphones, it is definitely having an effort on your creativity that you might net appreciate. The Cornell study about this is referenced in Peopleware. I summarized it a few years ago if you don't have a copy handy: http://rohanradio.com/blog/2010/08/12/one-song-on-repeat/ http://rohanradio.com/blog/2010/08/12/one-song-on-repeat/
- endianswap 13y ago
  I don't actually need anything playing on the headphones to effectively block out voices, even nearby ones. I compared my HD280s agains active noise-cancelling headphones and the Sennheisers blocked talking much more effectively, because there's that much more material between your ears and the outside world.
  - ax 13y ago
    I could be wrong, but at one point I calculated that the HD280s meet OSHA requirements for hearing protection for certain noise levels.
jasonlotito 13y ago
As someone who also has ADHD and OCD, close-ear noise-canceling headphones aren't the solution. And they don't work. As someone else mentioned, visual noise is just as much a problem. Couple that with what an open office implies: easy access. Besides, I don't want to always be wearing headphones while I'm coding. I do enjoy quiet and peace while working, without needing my head and ears wrapped. Another issue with ADHD isn't just being distracted, but also getting back to work after being disrupted. It's easy to talk about getting into the zone, but for someone with ADHD, it's even more challenging. Since I've started medication, I've seen firsthand the dramatic difference. This isn't meant to say you are wrong. Closed-ear headphones do help, and they are just one thing I use. But alone, they simply don't come close. Open-offices are a challenge.
- mikevm 13y ago
  >Another issue with ADHD isn't just being distracted, but also getting back to work after being disrupted. It's easy to talk about getting into the zone, but for someone with ADHD, it's even more challenging. Since I've started medication, I've seen firsthand the dramatic difference. Did you have similar problems in College? That is, if you get distracted from homework assignments (say, friends are bugging you to go out), then it would take you much more time to get back at it again? It happens to me all the time. It takes me a lot of time to finally force myself to do some assignment, and if I go out, I might waste almost the a whole day afterwards just trying to get into "the zone" again... Unfortunately, the meds are giving me side effects (increased heart rate).
  - jasonlotito 13y ago
    > Did you have similar problems in College? Yes. And it was a struggle. I always chalked it up to procrastination. As a 33 year old learning you've had ADHD and OCD all your life, it kind of freaks you out. They say not to do it, but you can't help but think of what you could have done had you been properly diagnosed. Instead, they tell me I need to focus on what I have accomplished in spite of my condition (which, to be completely fair, is nothing that I can complain about). > Unfortunately, the meds are giving me side effects (increased heart rate). Try something different? =)
dyno12345 13y ago
I wake up every morning with my ears ringing because I have no other way to work open floor plan

fernly 13y ago

Could you use headphones, noise-cancelling ones perhaps, and music to isolate yourself?

bentcorner 13y ago
I've also used noise cancelling/isolating headphones without music and they're effective. Headphones are also a useful social signal that you're not to be interrupted.

ScottBurson 13y ago

Good grief -- you don't need to have ADD to find open environments and interruptions distracting! The vast majority of creative workers need quiet! (A few can focus in any situation, but they are the exceptions.) I find I have to alternate between focused creative work and more interactive work on a timescale of days to weeks. That is, I spend several days to a few weeks (occasionally 2 or 3 months) where I am more isolated from my teammates, and get some specific development task done. Then I spend a roughly equal amout of time in "interrupt-driven" mode, answering questions from teammates and support people, fixing bugs, testing, and generally doing stuff that needs to get done but doesn't require the same level of isolation and concentration. Moving back and forth between these modes lets me do a reasonable job of both kinds of work. (I don't isolate myself totally in the creative stretches, but I let my email back up, for example, responding to only the truly urgent requests.) The problem managers have is that their work tends to be almost entirely interrupt-driven, and the exceptions take place in meetings. It's all they know. I don't know what to suggest except maybe to ask them to imagine they were writing a book -- what kind of work environment would they need?

wpeterson 13y ago
Separating focused, creative work from interrupt-driven work is essential. Context switching between them is expensive. On my engineering team we tried to collect all interrupt driven work together (triaging bug reports, working on deployments, production issues) and let it only bother one person. This is a sacrificial duty of your long-term productivity we all rotate each sprint (bug duty). I find it easier to do interrupt-driven work when I'm full time in an interruptible context. I'd much rather be on-call for a week once every couple of months than be interrupted several times a day.

rhizome 13y ago

Pretty much my worst working experience was in an open plan office (the boss had their own office, natch), where the boss would walk into the room, "Hey guys...", everybody takes their headphones off and looks up, and he starts talking about something that is relevant to two, maybe two and a half, people. This would happen about once per hour. Policy against headphones, is that a thing? Shudder.

kabdib 13y ago
Intel had (and maybe still has) a "no headphones" policy. Even at night, with no one else in the office. Idiocy.
- wtvanhest 13y ago
  I worked there a few years ago and everyone was wearing headphones. I worked in Santa Clara.
  - kabdib 13y ago
    That's good to hear. I must have been hearing stories from the 80s.
driverdan 13y ago
I could never work at a place with that kind of idiotic policy.
VLM 13y ago
"Policy against headphones, is that a thing?" This is normal. We (mgmt) went to great effort to eliminate the possibility of concentration amongst the workers because all wisdom comes from above at our organization and we don't concentrate so you shouldn't either. Furthermore we intentionally designed this for easy collaboration / talking and your wearing headphones is a directly insubordinate act against our intentional management decision to encourage collaboration. As a class observation we are an engineering organization not a customer service organization so I do not want to see my people wearing "customer service" headphones, unless you want to transfer out of engineering and into 1st level support. Finally we occasionally escort outside visitors past this area on sales calls and what would they think if they saw you wearing headphones, that we are not observant, or we tolerate insubordination, or ? This is a paraphrase of the conversation I had at a former employer. I'm shocked any open plan office allows headphones, it is blatantly insubordinate to go directly against your bosses orders and 1) think and 2) block out your coworkers. If they wanted you to think they certainly wouldn't sabotage you by putting you in an open plan office.

INTPenis 13y ago

I think we're all a concoction of symptons due to modern psychiatry, so I've never really diagnosed myself. I do however have the exact same issue as you, I can't focus if there are things going on around me. My cure so far has been raining.fm and big insulating headphones. But it's not ideal, my ideal environment is alone in silence.