Turn Off The Noise

I like to have some kind of background noise when I write. Sometimes it's music. Sometimes it's the television. I usually have the problem that writing without some kind of noise is really distracting. Either I pick up all the ambient noise of everything around me or the quietness is deafening and I start obsessing over how quiet it is. It's like, when I choose the sound that I will be hearing, I care about it less, so I can focus on the writing.

Of course, no plan is without problems. The worst comes with the TV. Every time it is on, I start paying attention to it. If there is a stupid show on, I have to change the channel. When commercials come on, I have to mute it. When it's a show I actually like, I start paying attention to it. Suddenly hours have passed and I've gotten no work done. Music is nowhere near as time-sucking, mostly because there isn't any dialogue I'm listening to. But even still, when a song has a catchy theme or lyric, I stop paying attention to my writing and focus on that song.

Ultimately, when you write, you either have to remove all distractions or temper your focus to be undistractable. Since the latter option is way difficult, I choose the former. I find that finding the right balance of noise to drown out distractions while not also calling attention to itself is less work and less difficult.

Of course, since every person is different, neither of these may be useful. You may be somebody who prefers the TV or you could love being out in the world and hearing a million sounds at once. If that is true and you know it, congratulations, you obviously aren't having problems with concentration.