Ask HN: Do you listen to anything while working? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you listen to anything while working?

24 pointsuejfiweun27 comments

I have found that music (and sound in general) can be a very powerful tool to help focus. But it goes both ways. Listening to the right, repetitive song or noises can help me achieve my focused "flow state" much faster. Conversely, listening to new music, music with lyrics, or any irregular noises will destroy my concentration pretty fast.

For me, I think it comes down to isolating myself from unexpected stimuli while trying to focus. Listening to a video game song on loop, relatively loudly to block out external noise, is something that has worked well for me.

However, everybody is different. Do you listen to music / white noise / etc while working? If so, what's your go-to?

View on HN

It depends on what I'm doing. If I'm reading/studying and trying to mostly absorb material, I usually listen to either synthwave (and related: darkwave, horrowave, retrowave, whatever you want to call it), or classical.

If I'm writing code or doing something active like that, the above applies, but add heavy metal to the list of things I might be listening to. But if I'm listening to metal it's almost always only bands and songs that I'm extremely familiar with (eg, have listened to a given song hundreds or thousands of times in my life) as those are less likely to be distracting to me, as opposed to something new where I feel obligated to really pay attention to the music.

One other option is I will sometimes put on a movie that I've watched many, many, many times (eg, The Matrix, Hackers, Antitrust, Tron:Legacy, The Social Network, Rad, Vision Quest, etc) minimize the viewer window and just have the audio in my headphones.

Very rarely I might go with some sort of basically "white noise" track like

"Howling snowstorm and crackling fire" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=volQGswo3dg

"Cyberpunk city sounds" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5zX1eRKEDM&

"Twin Peaks Double R Diner" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npVellnR6D8

"Coffee shop" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMAPTo7RVCo (unless I'm actually sitting in a real-life coffee shop, which I quite often am)

etc.

brain.fm

I don't know if the sounds generated are actually helping or not (could totally be a placebo), however it's a seamless way to enter flow state, I've found. I've been using it for ~4 years now, and it very very rarely fails to deliver.

I'm a brain.fm fan too. It blocks out the internal monologue and, like you say, is surprisingly effective at entering a flow state. I'm a fan of free jazz and I've found it has a similar dissonant effect. Ornette Coleman is a great place to start.

I’m listening to long asmr videos which have non-intrusive repeating sounds which I personally like. No voice, no fast changes. It helps masking the office ambience (a separate room which still may be a bit noisy) and my irregular tinnitus. Music usually interferes too much, unless it’s “deep space” psytrance or non-aggressive liquid/dnb/jungle sets on low volume. The result is better with well-known tracks, but some new sounds still do. Then there are atmospheric videos like fallout 4 glowing sea ambience (and similar on that channel).

Also, I don’t mind playing two or more videos simultaneously by mixing different types, e.g. (ambience, asmr, music) in some volume combination. It helps not only to mask the environment, but with proper lighting may also take you to a completely different place.

If I am doing something that requires a lot of thought (like designing a solution or trying to figure out an algorithm for something tricky) or absorbing something new (like learning a new codebase or a finding my way around a new api) then I prefer to work in complete silence as any music/podcast or anything will be distracting for me.

If I am working on something mechanical where I know exactly what I need to do and it's only a matter of getting from point a to point b (like writing code in a familiar domain that I know like the back of my hand or writing tests) then I can listen to music or podcasts (although only podcasts that I am ok with missing large chunks off as I tend to zone out of podcasts if I am listening to them while working).

I basically have to constantly rotate through new music, once I get used to songs I start being able to predict them and they take up mental energy. Doubly so if they have lyrics.

I've found SiIvagunner works well for this, they release like ~10 new song mashups a day and maybe half of them are good. Just load up some random youtube playlist consisting of thousands of songs and I won't recognize a single one of them.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ecwl3FTG66jIKA9JRDtmg

Hah, I'm the opposite. I listen to music that I'm very familiar with because I already know what's coming next. New music distracts me more because I end up paying attention to it to see if I like it, etc.

I can't listen to anything. I need silence.

But I can't have silence, so I get as close as possible by using a noise generator, and a set of earphones that really do block out external noises.

Same here with regards to needing silence. But I actually need silence.

I can't stand music when I need to concentrate or do any work really, even if it's "just" reading over a bug report, triaging it etc. The only time I might use music is when there's a long enough repetitive task where I would just get bored while doing it otherwise. There's not many of those tasks or at least not long enough that spending time finding music for it would be a good use of time. I can probably count on my fingers how many times I've done this.

Even white noise is something that I can't stand. I might be able to drown out various types of white noise (like I forgot about the noise from the mini split heater while typing the above paragraph. But as I started thinking about what to write about white noise, both the mini split white noise and the fridge running noise came crashing into my mind and annoyed me.

I really like frosty winter, where I can have the fireplace on and turn off the blower. If the fridge is off, that's as close to a perfect moment as I can get to noise wise at home. You hear the cracking of the fireplace but not much else.

HVAC at the office? Immensely annoying! Especially if trying to actually concentrate. My mind will easily wander to and concentrate on the HVAC humm.

When the heater/fridge turn off, I can actually feel like a weight is lifted off my ears.

100 gecs hits the balance of white noise and music for me.

Video Game OSTs. They are designed to be non-distracting! No lyrics. Depending on what I'm doing and my mood, it can go from something heavy like the Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal OST to something much softer like Bastion OST or Red Dead Redemption OST. I also highly recommend Skullgirls OST.

I listen to Radio Paradise or Groove Salad, mostly on low volume, usually on a speaker across the room from me (in my own office).

Just low enough to burble audibly and tune in if there's a song I want to pay attention to, and quiet enough to provide whatever white noise my brain requires for flow state stuff.

I've tried all the other things... and I don't really use albums or playlists because there's always something to contend with and invite the process of making choices. For me, it's best to either go "eclectic rock is working", and if it's not then "let's hear something more electronic".

Not having to think harder about it works well for me.

Yes I do. I mostly go with classical music or absolute silence (I only hear my mechanical keyboard mx blue switches sound) when coding. For tasks that involves creativity I noticed that I can get into a flow-state if I listen some aspirational/motivational hip-hop songs (I try to skip the ones that gives you bad vibes btw).

To avoid having YouTube website open while working and to maximize productivity, I use ytpodcast[0] to convert the youtube videos to podcast and add them to a listen later playlist and finally I listen them later on Apple podcast app on MacOS or iPhone.

[0] https://ytpodcast.com

Albums I know really well. I’ll occasionally pick up a beat or a fill, but mostly it’s a comfortable and predictable journey that allows me to zone it out.

Yes, new music makes me try to listen to it to decide if I like it or not. My go to is Yes's "Tales from Topographic Oceans". Peak progressive rock, a double album, four sides, four songs.

I love di.fm. If I find I'm too high energy I'll switch to some chill music (Future Garage, Liquid Trap), if I'm low energy I'll switch to high energy music (usually their Liquid Dnb station).

If I really gotta get down to business, then it's one of their Liquid DnB mix shows. The high energy, repetitive songs that flow into each other really help.

Sometimes I'll even listen to music while on a call just to help myself focus lol

cheers for https://www.di.fm/

I use the 'chillout' station via di.fm for most of my work.. good beats, 96% no words for hours usually. It'll sometimes throw a tune that annoys and I'll click over to the 'melodic progressive' (99% no words and a bit more upbeat usually) channel for a bit.

I pay for commercial free and get access to the other site with all the mainstream genres as well.

Nice in that can switch to 'trance', vocal trance, or similar upbeat station for cleaning / cooking and others for total chill like ambient when needed.

Enjoy it via the desktop computer and phone app.

Nice that it uses way less bandwidth than youtube, loved them since they were 'digitally imported' - now wondering if it's them I used few times with winamp way back in the day.

Still great and used almost every day. This may be my most value per dollar purchase every year.

I find something percussive works for boring parts (compilation). That ranges from drum beats to game music to Metallica. It's like marching, just keeps me moving forward.

For parts where I have to think, I listen to nothing.

Sometimes I'm just not in the mood, and the heavy metal helps a lot with that. I can't really listen to it while coding, so I might just open a whole music video and see if it snaps me awake.

I have noticed that in my 40-hour work week, I do about 10-15 hours of intense work which requires all my attention. For the remainder, the work is not that demanding, and I can afford to do other stuff as well. In this case, I have something going on in the background - Spotify, Youtube, Netflix (Seinfeld is a godsend), whatever keeps the juices flowing.

If it's boring CRUD, then I explore new music on Spotify such as chillstep, ambient, house, classical, jazz, among other things. Sometimes I also listen to podcasts or update myself on finacial markets.

If the task gets more complicated, I drop the podcast/financial market thing. If it gets even more complicated, I stop the music.

I generally listen to ambient music of all kinds while working. There's an artist on YouTube who has a really good handle on Dune ambient soundscapes (spacewave cosmic relaxation) that I've been listening to lately. Sometimes I'll listen to Hans Zimmer, but these derivatives are pretty damn good!

I go through phases where I try to listen to either instrumental music, or something with vocals, or even brain.fm. Every time I always think it's going well, but then I just slowly phase out of bothering to turn the music on. Seems like the best default state for me is silence.

I used to listen to a lot of electronic music like minimal, but in the last few months I just put on noise cancelling headphones and listen to silence (or a faint noise in the headphones). I can focus so much better when it is absolutely quiet.

Sometimes podcasts and interviews. Sometimes I am so engrossed in work I don’t remember what I heard in the last 20 minutes but I think it still works for emotional modulation.

Techno works well for me. I struggle with voices and spoken word but repetitive beats work just fine.

Electronic or classic, but definitely not anything with lyrics as I get distracted.

currently James Blake

Reply on news.ycombinator.com