For the last few weeks I've been (not very scientifically) experimenting to determine if I can affect my own productivity using an electronic 'gismo' I brought. First let me say I'm not particularly good at 'context switching' - changing from one task to another. I work best if I've got a 1 or 2 hour block I can dedicate to a task. However recently I've been working on a Project that I have to fit in around the rest of my life. 50 min slots at lunch time, and 30 min slots on the train represent a significant portion of the time I have available for this project. So back to the experiment. I already had this piece of kit which I believed could mess with my brain chemistry and wanted to see if I could use it to help me get into the right frame of mind to focus on a coding task and get as much value out of a 30-50 minute block as possible. Well I've certainly proved to my own satisfaction that it works. Read more...
Right from the very first time I did any work on this task I've used this device (commonly known as an iPod) to play exactly the same music track on single track repeat over and over and over and over again.
The track is reasonably repetitive, so after the first few plays it's pretty easy to block it out from interfering with my ability to concerntrate on complex logical problems. It's pretty up-beat and so helps prevent me becoming sleepy.
I have it playing just loud enough to clear out background noise. I have made a point of never listening to this track at any other time. I've been doing this now for about 7 weeks on an almost daily basis.
Here are some things I have observed about this 'ritual':
- I get less distracted than usual, more likely to ignore incoming emails / IM's. I already knew this and it's the reason I did it in the first place. I believe this is because I'm playing a track I know well, but not necessarily just because I'm replaying the same one again and again.
- Within 1-2 minutes of starting the track I am 'straight back into the problem space'. I don't have to spend 5 or 10 minutes reaquainting myself with where I got to and what I was thinking. Very similar to turning a laptop back on after hibernate. This was the big suprise. I was replaying the same track because I liked it, and this affect just 'became apparent'.
- Trying to work on the project without the music playing is strangely difficult to begin with. I noticed this on one train journey when my iPod battery was dead. I found myself at a 'known-point' on the journey realising that I had only just figured out what I was doing and able again to move forward with the project, and yet over 10 minutes of the journey had passed. This is the reciprocal of the previous one, but really reinforced the affectiveness of the technique.
If you take a small step back from this you can start to view your iPod as a remote control for your own brain!
So is this a known phenomenon? Have there been proper studies on this? I'm interested to see more scietific views of this, but irrespective I'll be doing lots more myself.
Next thing to think about therefore is picking what track you want to associate with a given thread of work. There's bags of fun to be had finding the right track for the right occasion(s).
And what about bumping into a track by accident? One you've built a strong association with, and then you happen to hear it in a changing room or a lift? What if you'd associated it with playing your favourite First Person shoot-em-up ;)