Surviving in landscapes

Our open landscape office environments, as they are today, are pretty sub-optimal constructs. They seem deliberately designed to minimize creativity by maximizing unwanted distractions and disturbances. On top of that, the arguments for the open office landscapes are dishonest. Open offices are mostly implemented because they are cheaper, not more creative.

Here are some things I do to survive in landscapes:

• I use Bose noise cancelling headphones. These are the only noice cancelling headphones that I know of that actually make a difference for me

• I often listen to soundscapes with sounds that further dampen the surrounding sound. I like train sounds, and nature sounds. Sometimes I use binaural beats.