There are all kinds of distractions to be aware of in order to minimize just how much of a disruption they are to your productivity.
There is also another way that you can think of dealing with them.
The first is to not really care about what others think about you. It really shouldn’t matter what someone thinks of what you do or who or how you are. If you feel you’re a good person and your family and closest friends concur, who are strangers to undermine how positive you are about yourself as you go through each day?
Dismissing this kind of noise takes mental discipline. If someone acts like a jerk towards you, just remember that they are going to die, too. We all are. Make the most of your time and don’t let toxic people bother you. People who are rude to you are not worth remembering beyond the time they were actually rude to you.
If they would only just remember that they, like you, only have so many minutes to enjoy in this life, they would probably not waste their precious time on anything other than things they are passionate about.
And I know what that last sentence makes you think: Some people are passionate about being morons. What to do about intentional morons? Again, if they are not intelligent enough to behave other than badly, than your smartest bet is to completely minimize, if not eliminate entirely, the time you spend with them.
There is something that I like to call good noise.
Good noise has many forms but the one most common to me is the sound of my dogs barking. They like to run with the neighbor dogs alongside the fence that is shared by both households. They bark at each other. They’re having fun.
Some people freak out about barking dogs but happily that is what dogs do. Most of the time the bouts of barking are over within 10 minutes as they are just having short bursts of fun. It’s like kids playing in the backyard except without the screaming that kids do.
Screaming kids are sort of neutral to me. They can easily trend to bad noise, however, when their parents allow it to continue beyond a reasonable amount of time.
Working in complete silence
I don’t have writer friends with soundproof walls. While the thought of complete silence when writing sometimes has it allure, I think at this stage of my life and career I would probably become dependent on the complete silence.
This would not be such a good thing. It’s like someone who goes to sleep with a certain orthopedic pillow each night and then suddenly the puppy gets a hold of it and chews it to shreds. The person has to sleep with a regular pillow now until they can order another specialty pillow. And they don’t sleep very well in the interim.
Would I be able to write well or at all if I write for months in silence without any sounds other than my breathing (before resuming a life writing with the sounds of the real world)?
Isolation has temporary merits as to meaningful and lasting productivity.
If you learn to control the noise no matter the environs, the average levels of quality output as a person as well as in what you do can most likely trend upward.
Believe in yourself.
Don’t let anyone bring you down.
Your conscious memory and theirs most certainly have expiration dates.