Working With Music
Yes to all of the above - but there’s another unlikely aid that new research says can help boost your productivity and make you happier while you’ve got your nose to the grindstone: Music.
I very nearly can not work withOUT music. If I need any focus at all to do what I’m doing, then music is absolutely the key to getting it done.
The explanation I’ve settled on for now is that the familiarity of pattern drowns out the unpredictability of constant chaotic noise and sort of “equalizes the environment” for lack of even the most slightly reasonable term, such that I can actually focus on the task at hand.
It reminds me somewhat of an article I read last night on Boredom and attention and how it’s affected by low-volume noise (such as a low TV on in the next room.) You hear it, but you don’t hear that you hear it and your brain is still processing all that stimuli while you’re trying to focus on something else. This necessarily disengages you from the task at hand.
Hell, sounds right to me.
For me, having Buddha Bar on my headphones throughout the day (it can just as easily be Tribe Called Quest, Imogen Heap, Rob Zombie, Joe Satriani or Concrete Blonde as well) provides something of a carrier wave I can use to actually do work in the midst of.
You know, or, like, write a redundant blog post because I can’t focus on the boring task at hand. But DAMN Yves La Rock jams.
Tags: UCCU