Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Member-only story

Music for Productivity and Focus

Beat the obsession, take back control, and use music to focus rather than distract

Niklas Göke
Published in
15 min readNov 3, 2017

--

If you’re listening to music right now, please, press pause.The following is a musical without sound in three acts.Act I:   The Fight That Turned Into A War
Act II: Compulsive Listening On The Rise
Act III: Give Up Power, Take Back Control

On 17th of September 2016, I canceled my Spotify Premium subscription.
I wasn’t unhappy or couldn’t afford it any longer. I had been a raving customer for over three years. I wasn’t even sure why I did it at the time, but now I know:

I needed to stop using Spotify to save myself.

In August 1994, a CD of Sting’s album Ten Summoner’s Tales became the first ever purchase made on the internet, for $12.48 plus shipping. I can’t decide which part of that sentence is the hardest to believe today: that we had to ship music once, that it cost extra, or that anyone would pay $12.48 for a single album.

And yet, those things felt normal not that long ago. I’m only 26, but I still remember doing all of them. I would save some cash, go to a website and order CDs from my favorite bands. I had a clunky Discman, a space hogging CD rack, a big pair of headphones and a drawer full…

--

--

Better Humans
Better Humans

Published in Better Humans

Better Humans is one of the largest and oldest Medium’s publications on self-improvement and personal development. Our goal is to bring you the world’s most helpful writing on human potential.

Niklas Göke
Niklas Göke

Written by Niklas Göke

I write for dreamers, doers, and unbroken optimists. Read my daily blog here: https://nik.art/

Responses (13)

What are your thoughts?