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When you decide it's time to focus on a certain thing you may have to force yourself not to physically or mentally abandon the task at hand. It will suck, but you'll be happier when it's done and you feel like you accomplished something. Then the rest of the day or the weekend or whatever you won't obsess about the thing you didn't do and beat yourself up about it. Your mind will be more at ease and you'll be better able to enjoy life in the moment when the appropriate thing to do it enjoy the moment. Don't spend leisure time doing things that tax your body and mental resources in the same way study and work tasks do. Be active and present in the real world. For reading some people do better with a physical paper book; there are no tabs to wonder off to, and sometimes it's easier on the eyes. Whatever the format of your reading, take notes or make highlights, don't allow yourself to just passively scan without absorbing. I have a lot of issues with distractions and sound. If there is to little background noise or if there is background noise of a type that starts to engage the mind more than the task at hand, either can be an issue. Sometimes I like coffee shops because there is enough outside activity that it makes me comfortable withdrawing into my reading. Sometimes I like certain kinds of music, but most is distracting. When all else fails and every ambient conversation from coworkers in the hall or minor noises around my home cause me to constantly lose focus I like white noise like http://rain.simplynoise.com/ or http://rwww.simplynoise.com/ on a pair of headphones. It can be very difficult to make progress on large projects or difficult academic achievements as I find the mind often doesn't deal well with tasks that can't be defined in a relatable chunk. When you have to move 50 bags of soil your brain knows what to do and how to measure progress. When you have to work a cash register and help every customer who approaches for an 8 hour period and you know you'll be fired if you don't, your brain understands the constraints. These tasks also allow you to use your mind for other things while carrying out the task. When you are trying to do a small part of a large task that you can't finish in one work session and you will actually have to have your mind involved in task instead of your own thoughts or external stimuli it can be a mental battle. You have to identify an achievable action to focus on or set a certain goal that you can break out of the larger task. Examples would be like reading the next three chapters or spending five hours working on the widget design. It's important that you not let excuses about why there is some intangible road block that needs be cleared allow you to dismiss the task. If you can't proceed because of a problem then figure out the step you need to take to resolve the problem and take that step, right now. If you spend more than an hour trying to build focus into a task, just stop. It's counter productive to waste a bunch of time sitting around distracting yourself on the internet and wishing for the will and desire to manifest. That kind of behavior is exhausting to your mind and gets you nowhere. If you spend too much time thinking about having to do a task rather than doing it, it adds an artificial mental weight. As cliche' as it may be "Do or do not, there is no try."

When you decide it's time to focus on a certain thing you may have to force yourself not to physically or mentally abandon the task at hand. It will suck, but you'll be happier when it's done and you feel like you accomplished something. Then the rest of the day or the weekend or whatever you won't obsess about the thing you didn't do and beat yourself up about it. Your mind will be more at ease and you'll be better able to enjoy life in the moment when the appropriate thing to do it enjoy the moment. Don't spend leisure time doing things that tax your body and mental resources in the same way study and work tasks do. Be active and present in the real world. For reading some people do better with a physical paper book; there are no tabs to wonder off to, and sometimes it's easier on the eyes. Whatever the format of your reading, take notes or make highlights, don't allow yourself to just passively scan without absorbing. I have a lot of issues with distractions and sound. If there is to little background noise or if there is background noise of a type that starts to engage the mind more than the task at hand, either can be an issue. Sometimes I like coffee shops because there is enough outside activity that it makes me comfortable withdrawing into my reading. Sometimes I like certain kinds of music, but most is distracting. When all else fails and every ambient conversation from coworkers in the hall or minor noises around my home cause me to constantly lose focus I like white noise like http://rain.simplynoise.com/ or http://rwww.simplynoise.com/ on a pair of headphones. It can be very difficult to make progress on large projects or difficult academic achievements as I find the mind often doesn't deal well with tasks that can't be defined in a relatable chunk. When you have to move 50 bags of soil your brain knows what to do and how to measure progress. When you have to work a cash register and help every customer who approaches for an 8 hour period and you know you'll be fired if you don't, your brain understands the constraints. These tasks also allow you to use your mind for other things while carrying out the task. When you are trying to do a small part of a large task that you can't finish in one work session and you will actually have to have your mind involved in task instead of your own thoughts or external stimuli it can be a mental battle. You have to identify an achievable action to focus on or set a certain goal that you can break out of the larger task. Examples would be like reading the next three chapters or spending five hours working on the widget design. It's important that you not let excuses about why there is some intangible road block that needs be cleared allow you to dismiss the task. If you can't proceed because of a problem then figure out the step you need to take to resolve the problem and take that step, right now. If you spend more than an hour trying to build focus into a task, just stop. It's counter productive to waste a bunch of time sitting around distracting yourself on the internet and wishing for the will and desire to manifest. That kind of behavior is exhausting to your mind and gets you nowhere. If you spend too much time thinking about having to do a task rather than doing it, it adds an artificial mental weight. As cliche' as it may be "Do or do not, there is no try."

I'm tired of canned music. It's everywhere, playing constantly. In the elevator, in the bathroom, in the grocery store, in the mall, in the clothing stores, in the restaurants, played by neighbour, etc. It's unbearable in the movies -- which seem to have become music videos.

There is more often canned music playing than not, and -- maybe I'm tone deaf, I dunno -- but it just sounds like noise to me. It exhauts me, frankly. I still enjoy live music occiasionally, but if anyone asks me what's playing in my headset, I tell them the truth - brown noise -- I think they think it's a band.

Check out http://simplynoise.com/
Feed it to headphones or earphones to suit your taste. I like the rain simulation, with occasional distant thunder.

I have a pair of Shure noise isolating ear bud, then I put on a white, pink, or brown noise depending on the sound.
http://simplynoise.com/ is a free website that plays the sounds, or you can download the mp3.
It works awesome.

I'm not a fan of white noise, but at various times and moods I've found other noise types (pink and brown in particular) to be effective. I've used http://simplynoise.com/ in the past as the generator - combined with a set of good headphones, it will block out most sound.

Another alternative I use is orchestral music - specifically, no vocals. This makes it less attention grabbing. But I can't use it when I am trying to be creative/problem solving, for some reason.

as the subject says, if 'soundproof foam' existed folks building recording studios, vocal booths, practice rooms and so on would have a lot less issues!

As somebody that is also easily annoyed by noises and especially by people talking, the only things I can suggest are noise isolation headphones and a suitable source of noise (pink noise or something like raindrops, running water, etc.), the noise isolation headphones to lower the outside noise as much as possible, and the pink noise to mask it (otherwise you'd have to have the volume in your headphones way too loud).

You will find that pink noise or water noise masks voices pretty well if in tandem with the above, I sometimes even have to use isolation headphones (similar to the headphones that pit crews use on racing tracks) AND foam earplugs AND http://rain.simplynoise.com/ (with thunder disabled) to be able to concentrate in my current work environment.

I've had similar trouble. Dreadful downstairs neighbours who thought it was entirely appropriate to play loud music at all hours of the night, I could quite often hear the lyrics through the floor and windows. Brownian noise worked tremendously well but you have to remember that you're only covering the noise up, you have to be okay with noise somewhere between an industrial fan and a jet engine. (If you pretend really hard, it sounds like the ocean,) I used a modest stereo. Perhaps, if you have one laying around that can produce enough sound in the desired frequency, you can give it a test. If you require some source for background noise, I used http://simplynoise.com/ Brownian noise with oscillation.

Obviously, more variation in music makes for superior music. With this simple, uncontroversial assertion, we can prove with mathematical information theory that this is the perfect musical composer.

I use an artificial rain storm I downloaded a few years ago from http://simplynoise.com/ . I see they have a new version.

I use headphones in the office. They have developers mixed in with everyone else, phone reps, managers, everyone but sales staff. So it can get very noisy.

I tried white noise, pink noise and brown noise, (which they also have), but all hurt my ears after a while, when using headphones. I find the artificial rainstorm does not. I put it in a repeating loop and it takes care of suppressing office noise. this is especially effective when combined with noise cancelling headphones.

I find music too distracting, whether rock, classical or something else, like Phillip Glass, Sigur Ros, etc. People do not believe me when they ask what I am bouncing around to in my chair and I say Naqoyqatsi or Edgar Meyer. But the rainstorm does not distract and does allow me to concentrate.

You may find use for this:

http://www.simplynoise.com/

http://www.simplynoise.com/

Set it to brown noise and turn on oscillation, and you'll be golden. Use with good head phones. Or at least, works wonders for me when there are roadworks outside or coworkers jabbering on telephone conferences.

Have you tried listening to different genres? I recommend "minimal" or "drone".

Try The Field for example.

I find it makes excellent ignorable but pleasant background music.

If that fails, there's always white noise.

http://simplynoise.com/
Even has mp3 loops of white noise