Problems with Productivity Music Playlists
For years, I've had a bit of a love-hate relationship when it comes to productivity music, what is the best for my needs and what's gonna help me focus on the work at hand. And I've always struggled with the concept of canned productivity playlists because they change abruptly.
And if you're not paying for those services, often you'll be interrupted with ads. Well, I found something that not only is going to minimize those disruptions, but it's been scientifically proven to help you stay focused.
So in today's video, I wanna share with you those results and see how they've improved my productivity over the last two weeks. Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen in here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.
And for a number of years, I've experimented when it comes to productivity music and music and soundscapes to help me be more focused. And number one, I learned that anything with vocals, anything with lyrics distracts me.
And that's not uncommon for many of us when there is someone who is singing or who has lyrics as a part of their music. It can really detract you from what you're trying to focus on and what you're trying to accomplish.
But as I've experimented with other playlists, whether that's on Spotify or Apple Music or really anywhere where you may find music, I found what was jarring is that just after a nice soundscape, something that has made me ultra focused and zero in on the task at hand.
If it switched to a new song with a completely different beats per minute or a completely different feel, suddenly my attention would be on the music and not on the work that I was trying to accomplish.
How Endel Works and Why It's Different
Well, I have discovered something that not only is not jarring, in fact, it's almost seamless, but it will actually listen to me whether I want it to listen to my surroundings, whether I want it to tap into my local weather, my energy level, and to other smart devices that I may own.
Or if I just want to tell it the type of work that I'm working on. So I wanna introduce you to Endel, I'm gonna show you how the app works and how it's been scientifically proven to help you focus on the tasks at hand.
Okay, so here I am within my smartphone and on the very top row, you'll see I have an app called Endel, gonna open that up and here we are, and I've already got something set up called Morning Energy Rise.
And the great thing about this, is that Endel is actually going to learn from my needs including some of my surroundings. Now we're gonna get to the music in just a moment, I can hit the play button here at any time.
And I'm actually in the first mode, which is called relax. So the tone of this music, the sounds are gonna be a little more down tempo perhaps not much percussion at all but the one that I'm using the most is F for? You guessed it, F for focus.
And that's gonna give me the energy that I need at this time of day to focus on my most important work. And even the visuals are very, very entertaining.
I must admit that I was actually taken aback at first that I can actually see the visuals such as this as a part of my day, but something just a little more entertaining, I found that it brought me back to the app more often than not.
Let me just press pause on this. We're gonna come back to some of the more detailed soundscapes in a moment.
Endel Settings and Features
But at the very top, you can see it's actually using an average heart rate to help me get into that focused mode. So this is not just pulling things from out of the sky. There is a lot of research that is going into customizing these soundscapes.
If I click tap for details, you can see that just like our circadian rhythm, as when we have the most energy and the least energy throughout the day, Endel is actually learning and making use of that.
So instead of just hitting play on a standard playlist which is just gonna start that music and finish that music whenever it pleases or whenever it was written, Endel is actually gonna be learning from me and taking things down and up as I need.
And you can see a bit of the schedule here, rise until 10:53. It's gonna peak in roughly 28 minutes. And then it's gonna start to fade in roughly an hour.
But down below here, you can see some of the real-time inputs, which I've allowed Endel to use to help guide my soundscape. So what I'm using right here is my local weather.
So you can see now that it is roughly 10:30, the sun is up in the sky, I'm getting some full natural light. It's even taking a look at some of the weather as well, right? Is there a cloud coverage? Is it a rainy day or is it bright and sunny?
But you don't have to stop there, down below, you can see that you can allow Endel to tap into other pieces of important information including your Google Fit data, body sensor data or even motion data.
So even if you just throw your phone, for example into your pocket, as you go about your day, you can use this as you're wearing your earbuds, depending if you're doing other activities in and around the house.
But let's go back to the main screen here and show you some of the other simple functions to help you stay more focused as a part of your day.
Specific Soundscapes Based on Activity
If you don't want it to just use the custom inputs which I've just shown you, you can also pick specific activities. And there's no surprise that deep work is the first one in this list.
Now we have several others to choose from including meditation, a power nap, maybe reading or a workout, et cetera. But deep work is definitely one that I've been using most frequently.
When I select deep work, the next step here is just to choose a duration. So maybe I want to select the next 25 minutes to focus in on a very important task on my computer, I can select the duration and then just hit start.
And now it's time to go. Now it's time to focus in on maybe 25 minutes of email or maybe 25 minutes of scanning, reviewing, and responding to a very important report.
Whatever that task may be, I can have this timer working in the background and just focusing in on that task at hand. The other ones I think of using music and using an app such as Endel.
Even if you do work from home, as opposed to a noisy office, chances are is that you have other distractions that are going on around you as well, right?
You may have a spouse who is trying to work in the other room. You may have pets or small children who distract you from time to time as well.
Endel can be a great way of having that type of music to help you focus in on what's most important.
The Science Behind Endel Sounds & Flow
Now, I've already told you how Endel has increased my focus as I've been using the app over the last several weeks, but you don't have to take my word for it.
In fact, science is starting to prove how Endel is helping you to increase your focus more than a standard playlist. And this graph really stood out to me here.
Here you can see how a static or traditional playlist can affect our focus and don't get me wrong, there may be times or peaks as a part of that playlist where that music is helping you to focus.
But I think the main issue here is that most playlists are just a random collection of songs or soundscapes. It really doesn't know what you are doing or the time of day or listening for other inputs versus Endel, which can keep your focus that much higher above this line as it's listening to you and just how fluid it is.
In fact, as I was using the app, I was so pleased that there were no abrupt starts or stops. Even if I changed my mood or changed my selection, it was all seamless as it flowed into the next soundscape.
Now, it can be really challenging to give you a sample of the music and the variety of sounds on Endel, why? Because your needs are going to be different than mine.
And it's all about customization, but if you'd like to take out Endel for a test drive and see how it can help you increase your focus, I encourage you to click the link in the description below.
Thank you so much for watching today's video. I hope you give it a thumbs up and subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel.
Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
