In this post I wanted to talk about one the best investments that I have made over the years for both work and personal use and that is noise cancelling headphones.
I used to just use my wired headphones that I got with my phone and plug them into my laptop and I thought that they worked just fine. They did what I needed them to, I could hear what people were saying and they could hear me, also when I was listening to music they worked as you would expect headphones to. Then one day I came across noise cancelling headphone whilst looking for a new set of headphone for work, One of my colleagues had a pair so I asked them about them and decided to take the plunge and see what it was all about.
I wasn’t disappointed. The first pair that I bought were the Plantronic’s wireless headphones and my word did they make a difference. Before the pandemic I spent most if not all of my working week in the office as did most of my colleagues so it was a noisy place as we worked in an open plan office. So background noise and being able to hear other peoples conversations was the norm and something that you sort of got used to. Getting the noise cancelling headphones really made a difference as they really did block out the background noise, so you could fully focus on what was being said without having to ask people to repeat themselves. It was a bit of a game changer really.
Now since the pandemic and working from home I have taken it to another level and invested in the Apple AirPods Max. You would think why would you need to invest more in noise cancelling headphones when you are working from home and not in a busy office environment and the answer to that is FOCUS. At the start you may have had kids and your partner at home so been able to concentrate was really important.
I don’t just use my headphones for when I am on conference calls I also use them when I need to focus on getting work done. I will put on some music and set my headphones to the noise cancelling setting and that gets me in the mindset to really focus on getting some work done. It blocks out the world and although there is music in the background it doesn’t bother me if anything I am not sure I am truly listening to it.
Its not just the work environment that noise cancelling headphone are great for. I use them for when I am exercising on my Peloton again this allows me to get in the Zone and not get distracted by what is happening around me. Listening to Audiobooks and when listening to my Headspace app are the other main tines that I use the noise cancelling function. The other great thing about these headphones and most other ones is that you can turn off noise cancelling, so for instance if you are out and listening to an audiobook or music but on or by a road you can switch to the transparency mode so you can still hear what is happening in your surroundings.
So as you can see there are so many reason why you should invest in a decent set of noise cancelling headphones but for me its the benefits that I get when I am working. They have certainly helped me focus a lot more than I was able to before by just blocking out all of that noise that is in the background and can just throw you off track. So if you are thinking about getting some `I would certainly recommend you do, its certainly something I have not regretting investing in.