Working in Distracted Environments
When I was in grad school at Parsons, there was a definite divide between the people who chose to study in the 10th floor lab and those who went…well anywhere else that was quieter. The lab was (and probably still is) more of a lively environment. People user tested in the lab, did group projects, ate meals, checked out equipment, had loud Skype calls, and just about anything you can imagine. Suffice it to say, there was a consistent buzz around the lab. If you needed to get serious work done, the adage was that you went somewhere other than the lab.
And yet, I was always in the lab. It was always a challenge to try and focus on whatever I was working on but I felt the social and academic benefits outweighed the bad. If you were in the lab when the director or the dean needed someone for a project, you could volunteer. You overheard the true rumblings of why so-and-so was asked to TA or run a special program. You became friends with other lab rats who you normally would never have a class with. In short, there was tremendous gain had in the lab; you just had to learn how to be productive with so many distractions.
Fast forward to life back in an office environment and I’m thinking how the 10th floor lab was actually an amazing training environment for learning how to get work done in the real world. Because as I’m re-learning, people at work do pretty much the same things: have meetings in common areas, eat meals where smells linger, have loud phone conversations, even user-test over Skype. Let me just say, it is a definite skill to have to be able to ignore someone who is talking about picking up their kids from daycare while still trying to design a new product feature or webpage.
And while I could put on headphones to work, just like I could have gone somewhere else to study, I always feel like I’m missing out on the social and professional benefits of being a part of the conversation. It’s something that Richard Meier’s COO echoed 6 months ago in a 99% article–with headphones on you’re missing 95% of what goes on in the office. Not wearing headphones has made sure that I’m involved in projects (and happy hours) I might not have heard about otherwise.
So I guess after all my begrudging of the 10th floor lab, what it did for me was train me to be productive in the very real, yet distracted, workplace world.
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