I use music to shield from distracting noise in the surrounding local environment, and as tool to get into flow. I find movie and game soundtracks work well as

I use music to shield from distracting noise in the surrounding local environment, and as tool to get into flow. I find movie and game soundtracks work well as the music is made to add theme, pace and emotion to a story without distracting from it by drawing attention to itself. Looping one song repeated sometimes helps. Slow thematic songs seem to work best for planning and building up a mental vision to execute against, followed by something with a fast epic driving pace to execute against the built up vision. It can make work feel quite epic when it works! I can't do podcast and books while working unless doing extremely menial tasks - the kind that I cut out of my routine or find some way to automate.