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A soundtrack for writing papers

Through force of habit, a particular set of Goo Goo Dolls albums has become my paper-writing music. It was by chance at first: tunes I was familiar with and could mostly ignore while working on a final draft freshman year. I happened to listen to those couple albums on repeat for a good six or seven hours. I was fairly productive.

Later that year, utterly unfocused and unproductively poking at another paper, feeling entirely unmotivated to synthesize information and string useful arguments out of the sets of research articles I had collected, I remembered that music. I decided to give it a try — perhaps, I thought, if I gave myself the right soundtrack, I’d get something done. (I was running out of other homework to do, anyway.) And hey. It worked.

I continue to pick the same albums when it comes time to resolutely sit down and pound out pages of words. I have to wonder how much is a placebo effect: I think the songs will help focus my attention on writing a good paper, so I listen to the songs and focus better. (Perhaps I shouldn’t think about that too much just in case the effect disappears when I do.) Do recall what I’ve said previously about the importance expectations!

Perhaps I could, if I tried, decide that “okay, now it’s work-on-paper time” and then crack down and work. But the motivational kick from the music — “this is working music, so if I’m listening to it, I should be working” — keeps me going.

Given that I’m certainly motivated to keep my productivity-enhancing paper-writing albums solidly in the category of music that’ll make my homework happen, perhaps I don’t need to worry about the effect slipping. Part of my productivity may be a result of not wanting to prove that it’s mostly a placebo!

And a question for you

Do you have similar soundtracks? Particular songs you use for warm-ups before a sports game, albums for homework, tracks you save for the last sprint at the gym? I’m curious, so do share.

I used to write papers in a very linear fashion.

I remember a paper for my intro cog sci class freshmen year, struggling to compose a decent introductory paragraph. I despaired over my first sentence. Transitions between themes, arguments, and discussions of evidence caused me agony. Even if I had all my research lined up, I couldn’t write a later part because I hadn’t written the part before it yet! A paper was a series of logical steps: How could I possibly know how best to start a paragraph without knowledge of the sentence prior?

My style has changed dramatically. Now, I write bits and pieces. If I know I’ll be including a paragraph summarizing the work of a particular researcher, great, I can write that and have it ready when I need it. I construct bare-bones outlines, filling in details where I think they’ll fit, making notes to myself of what need fleshing out and which sections are ready to go. Text gets moved around. Cut-paste. If I don’t know how I’m supporting a particular argument yet, I can move on to what I do know and come back to the troublesome bit later. What I write doesn’t have to be perfect the first time through.

I don’t think know whether my new method saves me time. But I certainly feel more productive: I’m typing, even if I revise previously written paragraphs more frequently. Not expecting my writing to be perfect at the outset means I get more written down, which gives me more material to work with in my later revisions. I’m not staring at the screen, hesitantly trying out possible phrases, becoming the best friend of my “delete” key.

The blinking cursor at the top of a blank page is no longer my perpetual nemesis.