Ask HN: Does listening to music keep you focused?

I have a "motivation" playlist on Spotify, the songs either have lyrics which are either motivating or non-existent. I find while coding or writing that lyrics can get in the way too so I have some playlists which are focused on purely lyric-free songs...

Usually oldschool techno/house music ... but nowdays I find myself being distracted too much by things on the screen (curse this 27" display...) so I should probably consider using blinders.

Some funk or disco (Sly and the Family Stone) in the morning to start the engines, some non-vocal groove (Medeski, Martin & Wood) throughout the day, and some energetic rock (Queen) to draw out extra juice by the end of the day.

When going gets tough, some really loud noise (Mike Patton).

When I learn something new intensively, some baroque polyphony or nothing.

Of course, the music I really care about I don't listen while I'm working.

Music in itself is distracting - especially if you love certain music and dislike doing work - then you will focus on what you love.

Music will only help you concentrate if the music is about the very thing you want to be concentrating on.

Perhaps they are listening to some variation of "SWIM SWIM SWIM".

About the olympics guys listening to music right up to climbing on blocks....

It might be that they need to maintain a particular rhythm in swimming, and they're just playing the song which happens to be or is artificially made to be that exact target ideal beat.

Might even be that there's no music in there, just the beat.

I find it helps when there are loud conversations going on. I am normally more inclined to listen to the conversations than focus on my work. Other than that, it can be distracting.

I'm quite a fan of http://musicforprogramming.net/

Depends on the kind of work. For more trivial tasks, music helps in concentration. Otherwise, it is distracting.

plusfm helps me get "into the zone"

http://www.plusfm.net/

Yep it does! No doubts about that.

Of course you should not shield yourself from healthy office talks :-D

I stay focused with pretty much anything in my ears. Sometimes I even listen to very thoughtful discussions while coding, like an interview with the maker of The Wire for instance :) It won't work for most people, but it does for me.

With this said, music is the most effective, and I am currently rocking it with the lastest album by Passion Pit called Gossamer (available on Spotify US).

I usually listen to Post Rock (e.g. Explosions in the sky) when I write code. It is mostly (99%) instrumental and that helps me avoid voices of any kind. Also, invest in really good headphones/earphones. That helps block out sound of any kind.

I tend to listen to anything with no lyrics, or at least things I can't understand like foreign music. Otherwise it is distracting.

Well, part of the reason the swimmers are wearing headphones is that they got them free: http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/branding/beats-by-dr...

Bop jazz (e.g. miles and parker, early Coltrane, Monk) really puts me in the Zone. The complexity and intricacy of the music keep my brain going even if I'm stuck on a problem, so I rarely get up from my workstation. I just lean back and close my eyes, letting the cascading melodies wash over my mind. A solo or two later and I'm back on the keyboard.

I do listen to music sometimes when programming, but it's interesting to note the study cited in DeMarco and Lister's Peopleware (IIRC) where they found programmers (in a ridiculously contrived study) who listened to music produced "less inventive" solutions than those who didn't. I've always taken that as an interesting caveat.