Music for writing, with a sprint timer
Focus
25:00
Then a 5 min break
Open in Spotify to follow the playlist. Not logged in? The player plays 30-second previews.
Nova Focus Plus: Nova Sounds' full catalogue inside the timer, no Spotify needed. Coming soon. Join the waitlist
The short version
Why 25/5, with café
The short answer: writing is language work, so music with lyrics competes with it most. Wordless ambient music or café murmur at low volume works for many writers, and short timed sprints help you get a draft down before you start editing.
Short sprints make it easier to start a blank page and stop you polishing one sentence for an hour. Draft in 25-minute sprints; edit in 50-minute blocks.
What to play
Nova Sounds playlists on Spotify. The first one is also under the timer above.
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First pick · about 28 min
Ambient
No words and very little melody, so there is nothing to compete with the sentence you are forming. Slow pieces with piano, strings and drones; skip the darker tracks if they change your mood.
Open in Spotify
Draft and edit in different sessions
- Sprint to draft. Start the 25/5 timer with café sound or the Ambient playlist. Write without deleting; mark gaps with [TK] and keep going.
- Break away from the text. In the 5-minute break, do not reread. Stretch or refill your drink.
- Edit later, in longer blocks. Switch to the 50/10 timer and lower the sound or turn it off: editing is closer to reading, where background sound interferes most.
Why café sound?
Some writers like the murmur of a café. In one set of five experiments, moderate ambient noise of about 70 dB improved performance on creative tasks compared with a quieter 50 dB, while loud noise of 85 dB hurt it (Mehta, Zhu & Cheema 2012). The tasks were lab creativity tests, not writing a chapter, so treat it as a reason to experiment, not a rule. Keep headphone volume moderate.
What the research says
Evidence note: a review of 154 experiments found background music mostly has no effect, with harm more likely on language and memory tasks and with lyrics (Cheah et al. 2022). Lyrics and intelligible speech are the most disruptive background for reading (Vasilev et al. 2018), which is why editing works best in quiet.
Related
All activitiesQuestions
About focus for writing. Missing something? Write to contact@novasouds.se.
Music without words: ambient, soft piano, or steady noise such as rain or café murmur. Lyrics compete with the sentences you are writing.
For some people. A set of lab studies found moderate ambient noise helped creative tasks compared with quiet, while loud noise hurt. Try one sprint with café sound and one without.
Twenty-five minutes is a common sprint. If you often stop mid-sentence at the chime, switch the 25/5 timer to its 30/5 option or try 50/10.
Sources
- Mehta, Zhu & Cheema (2012), Is noise always bad? Exploring the effects of ambient noise on creative cognition, Journal of Consumer Research (abstract)
- Cheah et al. (2022), Background music and cognitive task performance: a systematic review, Music & Science
- Vasilev, Kirkby & Angele (2018), Auditory distraction during reading: a Bayesian meta-analysis