How to Stay Focused When You Work from Home with Noisy Neighbours

The secret is in the scene you create

Photo by Mihai Lazăr on Unsplash

We all know how hard it can be to focus on anything when the house is noisy and your environment feels totally out of control.

We all react to and are affected by sensory inputs differently, with some people able to manage and deal with much more noise and stimulation than others. But no matter how high our tolerance is, we all have a certain threshold, and once that threshold is reached, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain sanity.

Unfortunately for me, my threshold is very low.

A little bit of noise or commotion is okay, but if it’s sustained for any period of time, I become overstimulated and quickly sink into overwhelm. Loud, sudden, or otherwise unpleasant sounds seem to affect me on a deep level. If the kids downstairs are crying, screaming, or bounding around the house in what sounds like their winter boots booming on the wood floors, my physical reaction is stress. My body tenses up, and I start to mirror the emotions I’m perceiving.

Obviously, this does nothing for my productivity or mental health, and considering that I work solely from home, I needed to find a solution that didn’t involve melting into a ball of mush on the couch or swimming in a pool…