October thread: What do you listen to while working?

Sounds, music or silence + submit your questions for November's mini-mastermind

While I’m writing this post, a skein of geese flies overhead, calling to each other as their formation traces across the sky. That sound is one of my favourite sounds of late Autumn and Winter, and I always look up when I hear them.

Like today, I often listen to nothing in particular while I’m working—or rather, the world provides the background noise of silence, birds and the occasional helicopter flying out from the nearby hospital.

When I’m doing accounts, I do usually like some music in the background: something calm and uplifting (like asking Spotify to play me the song radio for Guts’ “Peaceful Life”).

When I’m doing a stretch of writing, especially when I need more focus, I turn to a trusted, old favourite: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Perhaps a bit of an odd choice, but I wrote much of my PhD-dissertation to this piece of music and it now creates something of a Pavlov-response in my brain.

So tell me: what do you listen to as you’re working? Do you prefer silence, or the sounds of birds, nature or the city around you? Are you a connoisseur of white, grey, pink noise? Is there a particular piece of music that inspires you? Or does working in your business create its own sound, like your brush on canvas or the pottery wheel turning?

Do give us all (an aural) peek into your business this month: what do you listen to while you’re working?

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Submit your questions for November’s mini-mastermind

I loved the questions you asked for September’s mini-mastermind—and the answers that you all gave each other. It’s this kind of community that I started this Substack for. 💌

In late November I’ll be answering more of your business questions. Feel free to ask me anything: from growing a newsletter to the foundations of your business, from pivoting and adding new products or services to making your business more sustainable for you.

I’ve got space to answer two more questions—feel free to ask them in the comments to this post, or to submit them (anonymously if you want) through the form linked below the paywall.