I was playing Red Light / Green Light with my daughters the other day.  My favorite part is when I yell "red light" while they are running at me with the same intensity and drive as linebackers trying to sack the quarterback!  I usually cover up my man parts and hope for the best.

Red Light / Green Light reminds me of the constant stop-and-start of my work routine.  I workshift on Wednesday's because that's the day I've chosen to read, do research, write blog posts, and generally catch up.  What I've learned while workshifting is that distractions are literally everywhere.  Yesterday I was workshifting from my local coffee shop.  It has the classic steady hum of your typical coffee joint.  The steam from the espresso machine, the beans grinding, the cars passing by, locals and tourists stopping in, the shaking of my table because the legs aren't even, James Blunt playing in the background and a nice breeze coming through the windows.

Whether you're workshifting on a corporate campus, coffee shop, co-working space or by the pool, there is a steady stream of distractions.  When we choose to workshift, we eliminate the distractions of the traditional office setting, but we substitute them with new ones.  They are distractions all the same.  This got me thinking about the game, Red Light / Green Light.

As I was listening to the factory style hum of my coffee shop, I just wanted to yell, Red Light!  Can't you see I'm working!  Being the nice guy that I am, I started to think about alternatives to yelling and general mayhem.  What about noise canceling headsets, I thought?  People use them on planes, they should work perfect in a coffee shop.  I asked on Facebook and around the office and these are what people recommended:

Beats, by Dre

Monster Turbine In-Ear Speakers

Shure SE530 Sound Isolating Earphone 

Soon, one of these earphone, headset, in-ear, noise canceling, high performance, productivity boosting gadgets will be in my workshifting tool bag.  I like to work with and around people in a collaborative environment, but I need to tune out when I have to dig in and get work done without interruption.

I don't think Beats by Dre will discourage my daughters from pouncing on me at full speed, but hey, I never said I didn't want to be pounced on.

How do you tune out distractions at your workshifting spot?


Photo Credit: Andres Rueda