They’re building a neighborhood behind our house.

More than a hundred new homes.

Every day, from 7 a.m. until dark, there are trucks backing up, saws cutting, hammers, engines, voices, machines scraping earth into something someone will eventually call home.

It’s loud.

Except, after a while, it isn’t.

The first few days, you hear everything.

Then the brain does what the brain does.

It edits.

It protects.

It files the noise under normal and moves on.

People who live near airports know this.

So do people near train tracks.

But, so do people who work in companies with bad meetings, confusing priorities, mediocre products, and cultures that quietly reward the wrong things.

At first, the noise bothers us.

Then we adapt by drowning it all out.

And that can be problematic.

Because not all noise should be ignored.

Sometimes, noise is a signal that something is broken.

But humans are brilliant at getting used to things.

We get used to:

• slow websites.
• buggy experiences.
• unclear instructions.
• interruptions.
• useless meetings.
• customers being confused.
• or teams being misaligned.

We often get used to the things that used to bother us.

The opportunity for us all is to selectively start noticing the noise again.

To go through the product ourselves, like a customer.

To ask if that regular meeting is really needed.

To interview the customer who hasn’t learned our shortcuts.

And to listen to the new employee who still finds everything confusing.

Drowning out the noise can be helpful at times.

But selectively listening is how we improve.