Programming and Music - Chapter 4 -Focus

Staying focused on something, anything, is becoming harder and harder. There’s tons of articles and studies that demonstrate that but, more important, any of us can experience lack of focus in everyday life caused by constant interruptions, notifications, calls, images, sounds, alerts … you name it.

Besides, as per my personal perception, focus is something that can be defined as a mix of ability and habit. I mean, you’ve got to know how to get into it, but that’s not enough; you also have to get used to it. You have to have in your brain muscular memory trained to do so.

And we’re back (not totally unexpected) to the main topic of this series of articles: yes, programming and music can improve your focus capacity in everyday life because both of them just imply focusing.

Programming: As soon as you start coding your program, as simple as it may be, you will find that it is very simple to get lost between the lines, or to lose the thread. When you start a new argument, let’s say a function that retrieve data from another part, processes it and return an output that need to be routed elsewhere in the code, it’s very easy to make syntax mistakes. You may easily get lost in the code because you may frequently have to switch between files, or distant sections in the same file, scrolling hundreds of rows.

Well that’s what is forcing you to stay in focus. And the more you write code, for work or music or just for fun to learn new things, the more you will train your ability to stay focused. It will become an habit, nearly a lifestyle at some point.

Music: Needless to say … Do you this you can you study or compose music if your mind is traveling elsewhere? No way. But, you know, in this case there’s an important difference from coding. Music is more entertaining, even in the study phase. So your brain kind of spontaneously “close other channels” and focuses on music, maybe also because it’s more of a full body experience. More different areas of the brain are involved; you may also be standing, not sitting in front of a monitor. You may have both hands and feet through a brainstorm of coordination so in many case the brain simply has no room for distraction.

It's another way to train the ability of staying focused on a single thing, a single topic, a single thread.

And then, one day, when you will find under pressure at work, tired at late evening with something your boss want you to complete no matter how, you will thank the day you studied music because will wear you headphones, listen for 5 minutes of your favorite music, free your mind and then focus on your task, and complete it. And you will achieve that because music study will have trained you to stay focused for a long time.

Again, music and programming have, among tons of others, this other great aspect in common. They both have the positive side effect to keep your focusing capability continuously efficient. That’s why music and/or coding should be part of your life, no matter what you do for living.

This, and way more than this, is part of my “Live coding for Data Sonification” Masterclass