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Comment by erikb | Hacker News Reader

Headphones are a great idea for some people. I for myself work best in silence. Even if there is music playing it disturbs my concetration. Maybe I am especially weak at focussing, but I think to some degree this is true to everybody who listens to music while working.

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I've used earplugs but haven't so much since I got a pair of Bose QC 15 noise-cancelling headphones. They work wonders for blocking out background conversation.

For moderate levels and when I am in a relaxed state to begin with, I can leave the destructive interference feature off. The insulation all by itself is very effective. If the noise is really annoying (or if I'm anxious or tired or something) I can turn on the noise-cancellation. It can feel a little awkward at first and I have a vague sense that it might not be good for my ears, but essentially all external distractions just fade into the background. To interrupt me you basically have to walk up and tap on my desk.

I disagree. For certain tasks, certain types of music, ideally albums I have heard many times before, help me to relax and stay focussed. For others, I cannot concentrate with music.

I find it quite a disadvantage in my current office that when I need to do something detailed in a rigorous way I do not get to wear headphones.

>ideally albums I have heard many times before

I find this to be true also.

Additionally, I've noticed that during the planning stage music is less helpful/possibly distracting. However, once I've more or less decided what to do and am focused more on implementation music can help me focus.

Music is distracting when you need to be creative, because your creative brain is effectively distracted by the music. I read about a study[1] recently that presented a programming problem to two groups; one group listened to music while they solved it and the other group had silence. While each group performed acceptably with regards to creating a solution that conformed to the spec, the music-listening group neglected to notice that a series of transformations in the problem spec turned out to result in no changes whatsoever. The group working in silence was able to make the connection and came up with a more efficient program.

[1] Sorry, can't find the source. Will update if I find it.

Pretty sure that study was mentioned in Peopleware, but didn't include a citation reference.

I believe you are correct.

I don't disagree with your point, but the 'study' is essentially an anecdote about two incidents, in which the difference could just as easily be about the group members involved; I think one cannot draw significant conclusions from it, as described.

I understand your point and I think for most people that works. Not all people are the same, though.

I agree. I've had better results listening to white noise.

White noise hurt my ears, but I found pink noise working great and not disturbing. I could listen to it for an hour; at one point my imagination starts treating it as a sound of sea waves on a beach.

Yes, I like nature sounding noises like beach or wind.

http://simplynoise.com/ has decent brown noise.

Try getting some Sennheisers, and playing http://www.simplynoise.com/ - after awhile, you're no longer aware of the noise, but you can't hear anything else, either.

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