Unfortunately for me it's not that simple since I'm also very distracted by visual noise. Someone who passes by in my peripheral view can bring me out of flow as will the feeling of having someone behind my back do.
I recently was fortunate enough to have my own office for a while and I haven't been as productive since...well, since last time I had my own office some five years back. It's an awesome feeling to enter flow almost as you enter your room...
It's interesting to think back at my 15+ years long career and realize that the times when I've been most productive coincides with the times I've had my own office.
I'm the same. Can you put some pot plants to the left and right behind your screen? (more socially acceptable than other barriers) Request a second or larger monitor for your work? You can argue that it'll improve your productivity; you don't have to tell them that's because it'll block out your FOV, not because you actually want to display stuff on it…
Another thing that would help is moving to a different desk, but I'm guessing that might be a bit more difficult to negotiate.
(These days I'm self employed and work from home but that's what I did when I worked in an open-plan office. Also, if you can, come in to work before everyone else, while it's still very quiet. Usually more acceptable than coming in later than everyone else and staying later.)
The sad thing is that even if you look at it economically it doesn't make sense. Say that in order for each employee to have their own office you need 10m2 extra space per employee. Where I live, that would amount to ~2.5% of the employees salary, i.e. if a private office makes your emplyees more than 2.5% more productive you're profiting from private offices. In my experience my productivity boost when working in a private office amounts to maybe as much as 25% or more.
Oh, definitely. But then there are plenty of other ways of increasing programmer productivity which don't look like busywork so non-programmer managers won't have them. I guess try to get out of employment situations like that...
Hah, yes, sorry - I'm not encouraging cannabis growing in the office. Pretty sure that's a standard name for a houseplant in UK English, didn't make the connection with the US term at all when I was typing it.
Sounds like you need to find a way of working remote (at that company or somewhere else). I figure if much of your life is spent at work, life is too short to work somewhere you can't achieve your best.
I recently was fortunate enough to have my own office for a while and I haven't been as productive since...well, since last time I had my own office some five years back. It's an awesome feeling to enter flow almost as you enter your room...
It's interesting to think back at my 15+ years long career and realize that the times when I've been most productive coincides with the times I've had my own office.