Music for finding focus and inspiration

Trying to stay focused | Photo by Jonathan Blundell

We posed this question on Twitter this morn:

Do you listen to ambient/white noise or a particular style of music at the office to stay focused? What works best for you?

And we received a variety of answers:

whatever works. Thom Yorke and Andrew Bird pretty much always work, but I mix it up a bit. @moffou42

I’ll listen to country sometimes, but the music to really focus is the JazzMusic.com Swing & Big Band station in iTunes. @simplifide

Unfortunatley, I have to listen to Curves-approved work-out music. I draw the line at the country CD, though. @cowpunkmom

Love the variety of music from our readers!

A little surprised no one mentioned white noise — but not too surprised. Personally, the constant white noise tends to put me my nerves on the edge. However SimplyNoise.com offers a great white, pink and brown noise generator if you’re interested — and downloadable files as well.

Personally, the type of work I’m doing will often affect what music helps me stay focused.

Luckily the Internet has plenty of options when it comes to satisfying my various moods. Pandora is my personal favorite. But Last.fm is a good substitute — especially for our UK friends.

A few examples:

Creative projects in need of inspiration: My John Williams station.
Other creative projects (needing less focus): My Vitamin Strings station.
Data entry/coding and need to tune everything else out: My Muse station.
Simply relaxing and tuning out: Zendesk’s Buddha Machine, RainyMood.com or SoundSleeping — all offer a variety of ambient tunes or sounds.

Anything else out there that we might be missing? Something that helps you tune out distraction and find your inspirational muse?

keep reading...

Posted: March 16th, 2010 by Jonathan D. Blundell
Read more in: Living
ambient, focus, inspiration, music, Pandora, sounds, white noise

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