Music to Let you Concentrate
Be careful. Music engages your creative hemisphere. This doesn't matter much if what you're doing is a simple, repetitive task. But if you're trying to design or program, it might kill your ability to "think outside the box" and invent creative solutions.<p>In my case, listening to music while programming has a very pronounced effect: I will spend 30 minutes crafting a function that will do something. The function will eventually work. And then I will stop listening to music and several minutes later notice that the function was entirely unnecessary, because I can make an architectural or data structure change instead and avoid writing the function altogether. This is something I am unable to do while listening to music.<p>Once I noticed this, I started being careful: I'd listen to music while configuring routers, but not when planning and designing the changes. You get the idea.<p>So, before you start listening to music while working, I'd advise you to check if your brain works the same way (the effect might not be exactly the same for everyone).<p>These days I mostly use natural sounds (the Naturespace app for iOS is great) and good headphones to mute background noise.