Music while working?

Do you listen to music while you work?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 27 79.4%

  • No (It is distracting)

    Votes: 7 20.6%

  • No (Now allowable due to employment supervision)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    34
If I am doing repetitive chores that make my mind work like a clockwork, music further helps me ameliorate the process. Especially, as someone suggested, if I have repeatedly heard the track before - it minimizes my attention to the music and helps me improve my focus on the work in a more refined manner.

If, however, I am doing something that requires my mind to coalesce better with my work, I have to have absolute silence around me.

Even when I do listen to music it is - almost always - only trance. I can't stand vocals ruining a perfectly good song - and so most of my music is vocal-less.
 


BlogHue said:
If I am doing repetitive chores that make my mind work like a clockwork, music further helps me ameliorate the process. Especially, as someone suggested, if I have repeatedly heard the track before - it minimizes my attention to the music and helps me improve my focus on the work in a more refined manner.
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I'll do that with movies I like that I've seen several times, I'll have it playing in a small window on the second screen that I don't even watch. The dialogue doesn't distract me the way several song changes do.
 
justo_tx said:
I'll do that with movies I like that I've seen several times, I'll have it playing in a small window on the second screen that I don't even watch. The dialogue doesn't distract me the way several song changes do.
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Yes that sounds like a brilliant idea too.

But what if there are tonal changes in the movie itself? Special sound effects etc.? Won't those be equally distracting?
 
BlogHue said:
But what if there are tonal changes in the movie itself? Special sound effects etc.? Won't those be equally distracting?
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Maybe but it isn't much of an issue for me at least, and I tend toward a lot "wordy" movies: dramas, most of Scorsese's stuff, classics, dead pan comedies (Altman, Stillman, Allen).
 
justo_tx said:
Maybe but it isn't much of an issue for me at least, and I tend toward a lot "wordy" movies: dramas, most of Scorsese's stuff, classics, dead pan comedies (Altman, Stillman, Allen).
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Now that you mention it - you know what I think I'll do.

I'll try working with speeches or podcast or webinar recording I have. Especially the ones I have already heard.

Should be able to subconsciously feed my brain with info, while not giving up on work.
 
BlogHue said:
I'll try working with speeches or podcast or webinar recording I have. Especially the ones I have already heard.

Should be able to subconsciously feed my brain with info, while not giving up on work.
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For what it's worth, I tried that too. I would try listening to programming oriented pod casts while I was programming, thinking I might get some kind of subconscious/osmosis effect. Nope. I would either get nothing from the podcast and get my programming stuff done, or even worse, I would take 5x longer than normal to write the same amount of code as normal as my brain tried to take in details from the podcast or instruction video while still "flowing" code; and what I learned wasn't anywhere near as valuable as getting good code out the door. If it's a movie I've seen before it's almost like ambient noise to me, I can see it in my mind's eye but it doesn't impede anything else.
 
justo_tx said:
For what it's worth, I tried that too. I would try listening to programming oriented pod casts while I was programming, thinking I might get some kind of subconscious/osmosis effect. Nope. I would either get nothing from the podcast and get my programming stuff done, or even worse, I would take 5x longer than normal to write the same amount of code as normal as my brain tried to take in details from the podcast or instruction video while still "flowing" code; and what I learned wasn't anywhere near as valuable as getting good code out the door. If it's a movie I've seen before it's almost like ambient noise to me, I can see it in my mind's eye but it doesn't impede anything else.
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That settles it then. I'll take your word for it.

Time to try some "wordy" movies.

--

Also, for people who're considering listening to music - if you're into electronic try downloading seamless 2 hour sets done by a worthy DJ that doesn't spew trainwrecks upon trainwrecks while mixing. Or if you're into classical, there are hour long beautiful non-stop pieces.

If you try making a play list, the split second it takes for a song to change often gets your mind all inquisitive and you kind of lose your spell.
 
I listen to audio books that actually teach and motivate while I work. Music does fuck all.
 
lfm.ch nice old and new tunes when creating content, and silence for everything else+trying out white noise mentioned in another thread
 
I went to hear Michael Chabon speak. He talked about his working process. And also introduced me to Steve Reich. GOOD working music.
 
jhoffy22 said:
Spotify Premium is considered a business expense for me. I love it.
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Everything you do online, except explicitly shopping for personal items is a writeoff. I try to writeoff every fucking thing. It's always better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.
 
I love working to music. Good music helps get me motivated and keeps me going. I can always turn it down/off if it's distracting or I really need to concentrate on something, but I find I naturally tune it out when I need to.
 
Usually if i really need to concentrate on the task then music is distracting but if i need to do some grinding and boring tasks then the music is necessary to keep me from falling asleep.

Btw, epic music from Han Zimer, Zack Hemsey or Two Step From Hell ftw !
 
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