I created a web application for people who are interested in listening to music that doesn’t distract them while working.
It has 3 categories - deep work, study and creativity (each of them has completely different tracks).
The player screen is highly customizable - you can basically remove anything you don’t like to see on the screen. From the settings you can also select the genres you want to listen to. Each genre has a different theme, which is basically a looping video (can be turned off from settings as well). If you like some tracks you can add them to favorites, so you can easily listen to them later again, but If you don’t like some tracks you can mark them as not interested (these will not be played automatically again).
The app is free to use, but if you want to have access to all the tracks and genres then there is a premium option as well. That being said, there is plenty of free content on the site, so it is not necessary to pay anything. Also, this website is privacy focused so it doesn’t track anything - most websites have at least Google Analytics installed.
If anyone likes the application I am willing to add one month premium for free - just send me a PM with your email you used to sign up on the site.
For me all music, irrespective of genres, distracts while I am working, reading, talking, posting, etc. The one and only piece of music that does not is John Cage’s masterpiece 4’ 33" no matter than arrangement is being played.
Music does not distract when I am listening to music.
Environmental noise — such as the airplane flying over head on its way to Heathrow, children going to or from school, the refuse collectors (only on Thursdays), boy racers in motorbikes or driving BMWs — is enough for me. I can filter it out.
Welcome to MPU, albeit I think it’s better to participate in the community for a bit before promoting your own thing.
I am a fan of these kinds of products, though. How do you think Listen At Work compares to other products in the space? E.g., Endel or Brain.fm? I have been liking Endel a lot lately.
I’ll have to check out Endel (and listenatwork, although I agree, maybe not the best first post.)
I’ve still got a lifetime focus@will subscription and that “ElectroBach” album they released. But at this point, there’s so much random study music on YouTube I rarely open it.
Apple don’t make a big thing about it, but there’s an ambient noise anti-distractor built into MacOS and i(Pad)OS. It’s in System Settings > Accessibility > Audio > Background Sounds and it offers six different types. (The depth of the settings may be one reason why it’s not mentioned all that much )
If I need the focus, then this is what I use. It does the basics very well – I’m sure paid apps offer more bells and whistles, but I’m personally not sure that bells and whistles are the best anti-distraction devices …. But of course, Your Kilometrage May Vary.
For ambient noise I use mynoise.net, which I love (and the guy who’s built this captures loads of sound recordings from around the world and works with other sound artists to blend stuff). There’s a lot of free content and most my faves are available for free, but since the app is awesome I do pay on an ad-hoc basis. I won’t tell you all my faves since we all like different things, but my absolute “never fails to get me focused on work” is the Medieval Library setting, which is free (you’ll find it in the Fantasy section if you want to navigate manually).
For background music, the algorithms finally convinced me to try lo-fi music, and it turns out I like that, so I mostly just search for lo-fi on Apple Music and see what turns up. This list doesn’t really focus me because I end up wondering what the song is or listening to it properly, but this lo-fi 90s grunge list on YouTube has amused me a few times now with its weird song adaptations (please don’t @ me to tell me this music is sacrilege or that there is music on here that isn’t 90s grunge. I am aware, just enjoy the weird music. And if you think a music playlist can’t offend you, listen to their version of Enter Sandman and learn that some music covers should be a crime )
You can add the background sounds to the Menu Bar – I think the way to do this is in Control Panel settings, but I’m not on the Mac at the moment, sorry.
As mentioned by @brookter , there is a way to access Background Sounds without having to drill down to Settings on the Mac every time, by adding it to the Control Center or menu bar. This Apple support page discusses how (near the bottom of the page, under “Tip”): https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchl3061cdc6/mac
You can also add it to the Control Center in iOS by adding the “Hearing” button (an icon of an ear), which makes it handy to access as well: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212775
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