Ambient noises for distracting work environments

by Jen (October 25, 2007)

It can be absolutely maddening to work in an office where you can hear every conversation happening near you, or a neighbor’s annoying talk radio, or someone else’s typing. Those sounds can irritate you and distract you from your own work, so that the job you drag yourself into every morning becomes even more of an ordeal. Even if you work at home, construction noises or neighbors making top volume cell phone calls about “and then he said she said that I said” out on their padios can make you homicidal.

I’ve tried music and ambient noises, and nothing is quite consistent enough to do the trick. Headphones are great, but not always practical (sometimes they block out stuff you need to hear about, too) and they’re never very comfortable for hours on end.

LifeHacker has found a software application for Mac and Windows called Chatterblock that gives you highly customizable ambient noise. The big difference for me? The options of female and male chatter in various pitches, along with bits of music and/or nature sounds. That creates the full platter of white noise I need in some situations. (Can’t wait to try it out when I take the PDA to a coffee shop.)

ChatterBlocker is $20 (there’s a free one hour demo, though). For me, it’s well worth it. But if you’re less distractable or in a less difficult noise environment, you might do just fine with free solutions like AireFreshener (very good!) or an environment from iSerenity.

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