Read time: 5 minutes
TLDR:
- We can work in distracting environments!
- Use a hooded sweater, wired earbuds and white noise to decrease distractions to kick productivity ass!
Preamble:
Hi Readers,
I feel like I’ve figured out a great lifehack that I need to share! I’m currently living at a hostel and finding a place to work can be a bit of a challenge. I don’t like working in bed (I like my body associating that bed = sleep), it’s too cold/rainy to sit out on the balcony and coffee shops might be cold or loud. Where does that leave me? Well…the common room.
While the common area here is lovely and calm, it can still be loud by ADHD standards. Even if there’s only a couple of people here, they might be having a conversation or watching TV. It’s extremely distracting and definitely not the best of working environments for someone with ADHD. Now I’m going to use the common area in the hostel as an example, but I think this knowledge can also be applied to working in a cafe or other non-silent/distraction-free spaces.
Distractable aspects of the common area:
– People: I’ve heard great conversation and sometimes I’ll impulsively engage only to be like “oh shit…now I’m stuck…”
– Music: hard to form thoughts when more than half of my brain is singing along to ABBA
– The TV: visually stimulating…need I say more?
– I’m a volunteer: the owners, other volunteers or guests come up and ask questions or chat
Can’t I just quickly answer a question then refocus?
I have learned that is no…it’s not that easy for me. If I need to work, I need to work as distraction-free as possible. I have tried working without some of my learnings below, but there’s always some combination of my focus wandering or others interrupting me. Even with a good set up to limit distractions (such as a silent room in a library), it can still be difficult to concentrate. Plus, with more distractions, I make more mistakes and often forget whether I’ve done a task correctly. Then I have to spend time doing the task from the beginning to ensure I’ve done it right. (I work part time as a book keeper and I don’t really want to make a mistake on money). Bottomline? Too much time is lost, thus I’ve decided that I work best with specific boundaries. There’s a time to work and there’s a time to socialize or be a volunteer.
What about using the busy environment to practice focusing?
The simple answer is yes I could and I have tried, but attempting to concentrate in a distracting environment and work at the same time is way too taxing on my brain. I end up feeling irritable and exhausted…Precious energy that I could instead devote to having fun after I finish what I need to do. Perhaps in the future my tolerability to loud environments will increase, but right now it’s not feasible. The time I actively practice focusing is for when I’m meditating.
How I Create my Anti-Distractibility Space:
| Anti-Distractibility Hack | Why it Works? |
| Wear a hooded sweater…and use the hood | 1) I look busy and unapproachable: people don’t know who I am from behind and are less likely to approach 2) It decreases my peripheral vision. I see less movement of the TV and people (…now I know why horses wear blinders) |
| Use wired earbuds or visually large headphones | Same as the hood. Visually I look busy and people think I’m listening to music. It’s one extra barrier to them impulsively starting a conversation. (…Ironically it still happened twice during the writing of this post) |
| Listen to white noise *bonus points for heavy rain sounds!* | Decreases auditory changes/distractions. I like the heavy rain sounds when I’m in places with conversation as my ears are less likely to pick up laughter or pitch changes. |
My Reflection on Anti-Distractibility Hacks
It’s kind of fascinating for me to read this table because it makes me realize that these are just external hacks to do what others’ brains do naturally – tune things out. It also makes me excited because I used to think that my environment had to be perfect in order to focus but now I realize that it doesn’t have to be. Having knowledge of my own adaptability brings me more confidence and the feeling that I can explore even more :).
…Maybe you’ll do the same and adjust your environment for your brain?
T
World of Wandering Minds 