Choose Your Background Noise

A lot of people have something going on in the background in order to keep them motivated while they write: this can be a favorite TV show, some of their favorite music, or even a podcast. Whatever it is, it's just something to make sure that there is some sort of noise; we don't do well where there's complete silence. This is probably a mixture of being a social animal where we need the sound of voices and that primordial fear that strikes when the forest goes quiet and you know a predator is heading your way. 

The bottom line is that we need some sort of background sound to help keep us focused and motivated.

Unfortunately, sometimes we'll get a little too interested in whatever we're watching or listening. We've all done it: Your favorite song comes on the radio, and all of a sudden you're in karaoke mode. While this is really embarrassing if you're in a coffee shop and it's just something everybody does, you need to keep in mind that if you're doing this way too often, then it may be time to look for a different noise in the background. 

(Okay, sometimes there probably something else distracting you and you're using the sound as an excuse to get distracted. If that's the case then it may be time to debate stepping away from the writing until you deal with the distraction. But that's beyond the scope of our current discussion.) 

Basically, you need to monitor your background noise, and make sure that it's not affecting your work. Whatever you're listening to should be helping keep you focused, not creating a distraction. If it is creating a distraction, then it's time to debate changing your background noise. Either stop listening to podcasts, go to something instrumental, or even switch genres.You may even want to consider creating a playlist that you can easily switch out songs, or using a number of different playlists. 

(I personally have a number of different playlists as well as rely on Youtube's mixes based on my favorites. The playlists include one that's a wake-up mix consisting of songs with a strong, fast beat to wake me up, another of inspirational songs to keep me motivated, and the rest is based on Youtube tracking my listening. This gives me a wide variety of music to pull from and thus give me something to listen to while not being a distraction.)

Regardless of what you listen to, be it music, news, or podcasts, just make sure that it's something that allows you to keep working. Nothing is worse than finding yet another distraction, and if that happens you need to kill it as quickly as possible. But...when you find that really great background noise it can be truly awesome to see the words appear on the screen as quickly as you think them, making your work go faster, keeping you focused, and making sure that you keep productive.