by Joan Hall

Created on: July 31, 2009

I was a teenager when I first heard the song "Fixing a Hole" by the Beatles. I remember being puzzled by the lyric that said "I'm filling the cracks that ran through the door, and kept my mind from wandering, where it will go". Why would a crack stop someone's mind from wandering? Wouldn't it seem that a crack in the door would be an invitation to the mind to wander out of the room and far away?

I'm still not sure what Paul McCartney meant when he wrote those words, but what I've learned about myself is that in situations where there is inadequate mental stimulation, my mind will wander light-years away all by itself. If something present a serious mental challenge, I can focus on it to the exclusion of everything else. But with more lightweight stimuli, I'll start thinking about everything under the sun and completely forget what I was supposed to be involved in.

That's where the "cracks in the door" help me. The crack in the door is that one additional stimulus that engages my mind enough to keep me in the here-and-now. The crack stops my mind from wandering.

If I'm trying to focus on auditory stimuli, I need something to engage my eyes so that I don't start looking around the room and get drawn away. That's why I play Solitaire while I listen to podcasts and during boring phone calls.

If I'm supposed to focus on something visual, I need to engage my ears so that I don't starting talking to myself about things that are far more interesting than the task at hand. The solution that works for me is listening to music while I work. Now, if the work is really challenging I don't need the music. When I have to design a new spreadsheet, that engrosses me and I won't lose my focus. But when that's finished and it comes time to enter the data into the spreadsheets, I desperately need the music (Hooray for Pandora!). I look for music that will please me without getting me too emotionally involved. I have a classical station and a bluegrass/Celtic station on Pandora. As I type endless rows of numbers, instead of my mind getting pulled all the way out to, "What else should I be doing to foster my son's interest in math? Maybe I should try . . .", it only goes as far as, "Gee, Alison Krauss sure does have a pretty voice!"

The gospel station doesn't work for me because I start thinking about which of the songs I've performed with my choir and how well they handled them, which songs I haven't taught to my choir, but now that I think about it maybe I should, etc.

So, for me, music during work is extremely helpful, if it's the right kind of work assignment, and the right kind of music.

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