Tech Connect: focus@will

It’s the era of cursory distraction. It takes eons to gather enough concentration to begin work and god forbid if your work involves a computer (who am I kidding? You’re probably reading this between breaks on that dratted office PC). There’s the omnipresent Facebook, quick relief Twitter and the enticing Buzzfeed. At home, there’s always that one noisy fan or a hated doorbell to keep you away from your desk. Enter focus@will.

This neuroscience-based musical service is especially recommended for people having ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), it has as many as ten different musical offerings to aid concentration and was borne after tons of research. They have explained that our eyes and ears pick up even the minutest activity, which results in a constant tug-of-war between what we want to focus on and where the mind wanders. Apparently, the key is to invest just enough of the mind on a certain stimulus so that the rest of it can continue work effortlessly. Sixty minutes of each type of music is provided with options to customise and control energy of sound. They have received a lot of positive response from users, primarily the ones diagnosed with the disorder.

Breaking it down: Most people can give undivided attention to a task for about 100 minutes before being distracted or having to take a quick break for water or stretching. Focus@will presents original scores to prolong this period of concentration. They have put together a scientifically and artistically curated music library that helps ease into work. We take about 20 minutes to build that focus.

Many require music to go along with work or studying but what usually happens is that instead of the song playing blissfully in the background, you shift focus and inch dangerously close to breaking into a jig. With an app like this one that offers only music, no catchy beats or lyrics to bellow along to, the mind usually does not wander, while it is still a tad difficult to fathom that we require an app to do the needful. We come from a nation that boasts of shooting a moving object in the eye purely by staring at its reflection hard enough. Dronacharya must be writhing in his grave by the sheer mention of such technology. Even so, give it a shot for the fun of it. ‘Cos music’s always welcome.