LP Driven Development

LP as in Long Play record. Usually 45-50 min long.

Sometimes you need a bit of focus. At any given moment there are so many things you could be doing. But to do something well you need to commit to one of those ideas, give it your full focus and stick with it for a period of time.

At this point usually you get recommended Pomodoro. Get a kitchen clock in a shapte of a tomato. Wind it up to 45 mins. Let it tick away. During this time, have full focus on the task. Once the timer rings, stop working and have 15 mins of rest. Rinse and repeat.

Pomodoro never really worked for me. It always felt very artificial. Why should I listen to a tomato? I’m a talented human being and a tomato timer surely knows less than I do.

I also like to listen to music while working.

A standard length of a musical album has been historically dictated by the capacity of an LP vinyl record. And there are plenty of LP records out there. It is quite grounded, you can hold a piece of music in your hands and see the analog grooves etched into a record. Having a physical record does make me appreciate it more, than streaming the very same record from a cloud CDN into a phone.

The problem was - it is way too much hassle to play records while dayworking. A minimal decent record playing setup would usually include a levelled table, a calibrated player, a good phono amplifier, a pair of wired headphones. You find time to warm up your tube based pre-amp, dust off the record, sit in a nice chair and enjoy a bit of hi-fi. None of this really works in a hectic environment of a daily job when you need the least amount of hassle to put on some music, and do some real work.

But then I found myself a portable table top record player. Originally created for the Walkman era, in the same bright colors - compact, but with a good build and sound quality. Enter the Audio Technica Sound Burger.

(not a paid post, i swear)

Still fully analog sound - with analog line out. I do use a portable headphone amp with it, and my trusty pair of Bose headphones that still offer a wired connection. Is this hi-fi? Barely. Do I love it? Absolutely.

One side of an LP record will play for 20-25 mins, which is usually more than enough to gain focus on a task. Flip to another side, and I can keep going for another 25 mins - or as long as this record goes. It also acts as a hourglass - you can glance at a record and quickly see how much time is spend, and low long is left. Nothing motivates you like a looming (micro-)deadline.

Any other record player would do too - but ideally you want to be able to see the needle position, and also to flip the record without too much interruption. There are, of course, fully automated players that would do all of this for you.

And yes, fair enough - this is good for home office, but what about the office-office? Sure - Sound Burger is small and light enough to bring it with you to the real office. Imagine the look of your colleagues, when you put it on your table and start spinning some records. Honestly, bringing records might be the largest logictical problem - but not a particularly huge one.

I’ve got to admit, despite everything that goes on in the world, we still happen to live in a timeline when companies are releasing brand new vinyl record players - and most of them are awesome. Now, let’s bring back public libraries with massive collections of records that you can borrow.