[Raphmedia]

I have invested in a quality pair of earbuds that double as foam earplugs.

This passive sound isolation means I can set some music at low volume and be completely isolated from the outside world.

Active isolation is rubbish because it lets voices through.

Here is what I use : Shure SE215 - https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/shure/se215#compar...

I consider that with those, I can work as well as I can alone at home. Otherwise, I also suffer from a very noisy office with constant laughter, anecdotes, movie and TV show reviews, people reading emails out loud to team mates etc. and can't ever enter the flow.

I am also a big fan of using fake babble noise to mask surrounding chatter. After about 5 minutes, the brain ignores all of it including the real chatter that is around you. Namely this https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/babbleNoiseGenerator.php or this https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/cafeRestaurantNoiseGenerat....

[stringyham]

Thank you for the headphones recommendation. Exactly what I was looking for.