We built SOW out of need. Every useful app requires you to create an account, give your email, create a password, and if it involves music, you have to pick a genre, search for a track, build a playlist. Even worse, if you plan to listen to music where theres no WiFi, then you have to plan ahead and download music. All of these distractions kept us from completing our tasks. All we needed was an app made it really simple to help us focus and get work done.
So we set out to build Sound of Work. A music app designed to remove distractions and help get work done.
We wanted to remove distractions. No Logins. No Accounts. No Large Music Library. No WiFi Required.
In our research we found that listening to music on repeat is great for work, study, focus, and meditation.
Here are some of the learnings from our research:
Enjoy your work - It turns out repetition is the key. When you repeat something over and over, you tend to enjoy it more. This is what psychologists call the mere exposure effect. The repeated stimulus increase perceptual fluency, or the ease with which a stimulus is processed. This positive affect puts you into a good mood.
Complete tasks quicker - According to Dr. Lesiuk’s research, those who listened to music completed their tasks more quickly and had better ideas than those who didn’t overall.
Create new ideas - Margulis, the author of On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind, states that “Musical repetition gets us mentally imagining...” The more we listen to music on repeat, we tend to dissolve into it. Thats extremely useful for creative work, when tuning out the monkey mind is of utmost importance.
Accelerate your flow state - It helps get into a state of hyper-focus and concentration. In a flow state, the sense of self is dissolved. You become immersed in your work and nothing around you seems to exist. You become one with what you are doing and nothing can get into your way.
All of this research proved to us that we needed to build SOW. Weve taken all of our learnings and put them into SOW, for you, the Doers to keep doing.