Working More Creatively and Productively with the Right Amount of Noise

“The Web site, which is free, plays an ambient coffee shop soundtrack that, according to researchers, helps people concentrate.”

I have to admit that the site, Coffitivity, has pretty good ambient coffee shop sounds! The Times reports that a certain level of ambient noises — coffee shop hustle and bustle, a television playing in a room — helps increase creativity because having it be quiet makes you too focused, which “can prevent you from thinking in the abstract.”

The founders of Coffitivity started the site after discovering that they were much more productive working from a coffee shop than they were in their “subdued and sterile office,” and that simply having the ambient sounds helped them out a ton. The site has been popular — Seoul, Korea is the city with the highest number of users, followed by New York, London, L.A., and Chicago respectively.

Personally, I put on my headphones and have music on when I’m doing something that doesn’t require a lot of thinking — searching for images for a blog post, for example — but when I’m editing or writing a story, silence and the focus that comes with it, is my best friend.

Photo: Neo_II

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