Hello, me. It's been a while

Yea this is a good one but it can be so hard. Seems obvious that constant information streaming outside of silencing your own thoughts also makes the moments where you do have to sit in silence lower quality.

I recently listened to the Hammock Driven Development talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc) and it raises the very interesting point that it's not really the concious mind that makes big breakthroughs on hard problems, it's mainly the subconcious mind synthesizing information. It seems obvious to me that constantly intaking information will ruin this synthesization.

Sadly for some reason our brain loves filling the silence with junk...

I’m the same, I think better in silence. It’s the only way I can really hear my own thoughts and let them run without being interrupted by music or conversation. That’s also one of the reasons I prefer working from home to working in an office.

But music as instrumentals, yes ? Words are very distracting.

I’m not able to do my work with music, or even noise-canceling headphones. I’ve tried, and it doesn’t work.

I know that I’m unusual, in that sense, but there you have it.

I do listen to music, on my morning walks, though. That’s the only time, during the day, when I do.

It's probably a function of how your brain works whether or not you prefer music or silence. For me, a middle-aged man with ADHD, my brain is constantly wandering off to some other thought that isn't what's in front of me. That's not wholly under my control (though stimulant medication does help reduce the effect). BUT... if I have headphones on and am listening to something (wordless music usually works best, but music with words in a language I don't speak is often just as good), then that gives me some partial control over my brain wandering off. Because when my brain wanders off in the middle of a coding session, it usually will wander off into suddenly paying a bit closer attention to the music I was listening to. And then, since that's not something that requires the verbal-processing part of my brain which is the primary part I use for programming, that part of the brain "gets bored" and looks for something to do, sees the code on my screen, and goes "ooh, that's something interesting" and my attention is back where I wanted it to be in the first place.

ADHD, I've often said, is mis-named. It's not attention deficit, it's uncontrollable attention. Although there are many factors that go into the thing labeled ADHD, a large part of it is usually that the "control center" of the brain (the part that controls "executive function", deciding what to do next and so on) is underpowered compared to most people. (Which, I'm told, is why stimulant medication often has the seemingly-paradoxical effect of "calming down" hyperactive kids: because it helps stimulate the executive-function part of the brain, thereby giving them more control over their own thought processes. Certainly that's how it works for me, though as a middle-aged man I'm no longer hyperactive the way I was when I was a boy). So I manage my ADHD brain in two ways: one, I take medication that gives me more ability to control my attention (though not as much as a non-ADHD person usually has), and two, I play tricks on myself. I know that when my attention wanders, it'll usually wander off to something within the range of my immediate senses: my line of sight, or something I'm hearing. So I give myself things that will catch my attention but not hold it for very long... and wordless music is one of the ones that works best for me.

So really, it all depends on how your particular brain functions.