Unless you live under a rock, you must have heard of the band Pink Floyd. If you haven’t, go take a second to Google them. In my opinion, they are one of the best rock bands of all time. They are so good I listen to them daily. Yes daily. Their music has become part of my work flow for a typical day.
In another post, I outlined what a “typical” work day looks’ like for me. This past summer (2021) I spent updating Shark Tank Blog and I discovered something weird but cool. I always listened to music while writing and working on my blogs, but I found when I listen to Pink Floyd, I write better, suffer from less writer’s block, and get more done.
Maybe it’s the 1970’s stoner groove of their music, maybe it’s the sonic nature of their work, maybe it’s that David Gilmore is an awesome guitarist – I’ don’t know what it is. Something about their music triggers the dopamine in my brain and gets my mind and fingers firing in unison on the keyboard. The uptick in productivity while listening to their music is a palpable and measurable thing.
My Daily Line-Up of Pink Floyd
When I start my work day – usually about 9 AM, I take care of administrative stuff -emails, updating plugins, paying bills and other stuff. While I’m doing that, I roll Echoes Live at Pompeii. It’s about 25 minutes long and that’s usually enough time to take care of business. Next, I do a little research on companies I’ll be writing about. For this, I listen to Dark Side of the Moon. I rotate between the studio version and several other live versions. This one is my favorite.
When it’s time to get down to writing, Wish You Were Here goes on, then Animals followed by The Wall. I always listen to the studio versions of Wish You Were Here and Animals. For the Wall, I sometimes listen to the studio album, but I really like Roger Waters’ live production at the Berlin Wall in 1990. This usually gets me through most of my work day – about 2 PM. Some days, I quit for the day. If I have more to do, I’ll find one of the many quality live concerts available and then I’m done for the day. After hours, I don’t listen to Pink Floyd.