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For me it's not the noise; headphones take care of that. The problem is the visual distractions. People walking to and fro. If you know one of those people, then the chances of a distraction goes up even more. I guess a future way to mitigate it would be a high res VR HMD

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This. Our desks unfortunately have to be so close as to face each other, and anytime the guy across from me is in the office I have to deal with distractions every time he wants to stretch, stand up, sit down, have a conversation with someone, etc. etc.

Now we actually have a flexible remote policy, but that's an entirely different can of worms, as I liked having a place to do deep work in that wasn't a coffee shop. My home is a bit too distracting sometimes.

Your comment is a nice example of how low-frequency distractions (A specific coworker shifting position in your field of view) can be much worse than being immersed in a high volume of distractions (strangers milling about in a coffee shop that's probably playing music, running grinders, yelling names, etc.)

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