This afternoon a colleague entered my office, saw me tapping away on my keyboard, heard a voice yapping out of my computer, and stopped and mouthed an apology for interrupting whatever it was I was doing.
I disabused her, explaining that it was just a peer company’s earnings call I was trying to listen to while composing an unrelated document. And since it had been going on for over an hour and I couldn’t recall one thing that had been said, she seriously had nothing to apologize for.
“I don’t know why I bother to try to listen to anything while I’m working,” I told her. “They could have dropped a nuclear bomb on the conference call and I wouldn’t have noticed.”
Fast forward a few hours. Having gotten a frantic “the kitten is stuck in the couch!” call from home, followed by a sheepish “he’s out” call as I drove, I am now in my home office, reviewing a transcript of the conference call I didn’t listen to earlier in the day. I am working intently. No, really!
Except now I hear the background sounds. Birds. Lots of them. From both windows, but primarily the one to my left, the one facing the garden. Singing, chirping, tweeting, squawking. It’s not distracting, I’m working at my normal pace. But I am…aware. And I’m happy.
I wonder how our brains work to filter noises and other sensory input that don’t contribute to our wellbeing, or at least to the completion of the task at hand. I wonder if I could achieve the same effect with a nature CD, or if my brain would equate fake nature sounds with a droning CEO. I wonder how much higher office employee satisfaction would be if we all had the ability to open a window on a nice day. I wonder what all those birds are yammering about.
The View from the Porch 