I am living on the same floor with a person going to bed early (around 11pm) while I normally work till 2 am. So, I try to reduce the sound of flipping the page. Could you please give me some tricks?
I normally read the page on the page-standing as in the picture because it gives me the good angle to focus and I do not need to bend my neck too much.
Do What The Professionals Do… [a How To, and WHY]
Professional broadcasters (radio announcers, voice actors, etc.) read material from different sources such as news stories, scripts, public service announcements, and commercials printed on sheets of paper.
These sheets of 'copy' are usually placed within view in close proximity to a sensitive microphone.
Any irrelevant sounds/noise(s) generated inside the studio are minimized and any production with background noise is considered unprofessional.
Early in a successful audio announcer's training is the technique to deal with sounds of handling paper:
In practice, the voice artist grasps the uppermost dog-eared corner and the top-most page is lightly (AND SILENTLY) slid from the pile onto a secondary 'read-it' pile to the side- facing upwards to avoid handling noise.
Pros NEVER flip a page.
Only amateurs and untrained public speakers turn pages.
** This technique has the added benefit of easily continuing on to the starting point of the new page as you finish reading the top page as you slide it away.
[mini 'reading direction' tutorial… English (& LTR reading language) readers start a page at the top left corner of the text block and continue reading to the bottom right. As the reader gets near the end of the top-most page, it is pulled slowly, and slightly downward and to the right, while reading, to reveal a few lines at the top corner of the next page. Now, when the end of the text is reached, the eye can quickly jump to the beginning of the next page—without a pause—as the previous page is put with the pile of pages already read.
Rinse and repeat until the end of the narrative.]
Good luck.
If you have many pages, then bind your pages with a thick cardboard or similar material. Now while flipping to the next page, if you do it by holding the previous pages along with the outer cardboard, the noise will be much less than flipping a single page.
You can use a folder with plastic sleeves. Here, the thickness is more when compared to a single sheet of paper, so the noise produced will be less while flipping. Also as the plastic sleeves are smooth, they'd produce less noise.
I assume that getting a flat-mate who is a heavier sleeper is out of the question. (As an aside, I had a flat-mate who had once slept through a tree falling on her house near her bedroom. Yes.) I also assume that your flat-mate won't use earplugs (but they probably should consider it if they're such a light sleeper).
I find that white noise helps to cover up the minor sounds of things like rattling paper (and squeaking chairs and floorboards, the sounds of which are even harder to manage than rattling paper). Many different selections of white noise are available on Apple Music and YouTube, and I assume there's a similar selection available on other services like Spotify. There are phone and tablet apps to play white noise. You can also get Google Home and Amazon Echo to play white noise. There are also .mp3's of white noise available from numerous sources. You can buy dedicated white noise generating machines, but I would say they are not a good deal given all the other options.
I actually prefer some "pink" noise over pure white noise (e.g., ocean sounds, rain storm sounds, etc.).
It would probably be best if the white noise generator were playing in the room with the sleeper, so that the sound doesn't have a sense of direction (i.e., coming from your direction). You could play white noise in multiple different locations, say every room in the house which would enhance the lack of directionality to the sound and help cover up sounds like moving through the house.
Assuming your room of study is not the room the other person intends to sleep, collect a base line; perhaps flipping pages behind closed doors does not disturb the other.
On a silent weekend night you both are awake, close the door(s) between the two rooms, and flip pages. On the other side of the wall, is it considered as too loud on the other side of the door(s) compared to the noise from the street?
By the photo in the original question which shows what looks like a computer screen, I would be more concerned about noise by touch typing which you might engage to enter your notes into a computer. Though sliding a mat between the keyboard and the table, and selecting a less noisy/silent keyboard may reduce this potential source of noise, it equally is possible that this does not pass as loudly across the wall as you may assume.
