Focus Techniques: Music

Being productive and focusing on the task before you is a challenge as a creative. If you are of the artistic talent you know exactly what I mean. You could be involved in a task like writing on one subject and suddenly an idea comes to you to do for your business. Before you know it, you are off on a tangent and you are soon thinking "wasn't I doing something?" If this is you, no there isn't anything wrong with you, you are a creative with all of the gifts and curses that come with it. But there are a few techniques that a number of us use to get through the day. Me, I use music to focus.

As a high school student, I just plain old sucked at math. My high school math teacher saw this and that I was constantly listening to music. Being the gifted and dedicated teacher he was, he looked into it. The result was a parent, student, teacher conference where he explained his findings and requested that my mom allow me to come to school with headphones. He found that if I played the same song repeatedly for that type of math the song would trigger my memory of the grove I was in for that study and practice. It also reduced the amount of time it would take me to get back into that frame of mind to be able to be in that mindset for solving math equations. Thanks to this math teacher I still use this practice in my every day work and enjoy the vacation post cards he continues to send me throughout the years.

With every piece I have written, including this one, I can name the song that drove my focus, inspiration and emotional trigger. As an INFJ creative I have one of those minds that needs more going on and to multitask to calm it down. Personality type does affect whether or not this technique may or may not work for you so I highly suggest finding out which one of the 16 types you may be. I'm a true Seattleite too so I have quite the eclectic musical preference on my Spotify account should you wish to check out my latest playlist for inspiration. There are other techniques but you will have to stay tuned for more on those.

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Thanks for reading!

The Scribbler