If you have your own office, then we envy you! But if you, like most others, have to share your space with other people, then you probably have to deal with a certain degree of office noise every day. Under normal circumstances, the office noise might not bother you, but on a day when you have a dozen things to do and an impossible deadline to meet, even your officemate stirring her coffee might set you off.

According to an article on TIME, there have been studies indicating that office noise affects work quality. One study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology even found that employees tend to be less productive when they’re working in a noisy environment and that they tend to give up on difficult tasks sooner than those who are working in a quiet office.

Seeing as you can’t always control office noise, are there other ways of making sure it doesn’t distract you from your work? Scroll through the gallery to find out.