For several years I used cheap earbud headphones. I don't much mind about audio quality, and they are somewhat noise cancelling. A year or two ago I bought the [Wirecutter top pick headphones](https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-noise-cancelling-headphones/), the Bose 700 NC. To my surprise, they were much better than expected and easily worth the cost. Main benefits: - Very good noise cancelling actually does help me focus at least 2x better in various potentially distracting locations (e.g. cafes, trains). - I now strongly associate wearing the headphones with doing focussed work, so I often put them on to help myself get in that mindset, even in quiet environments, and it seems to help a bunch. - The built-in directional microphone is good, so I can easily do phone calls, including in somewhat noisy places. - Wearing big headphones is a good signal to other people that I don't want to be interrupted. Smaller very nice details, specific to the Bose 700: - I can pair and connect the headphones to my laptop and smartphone at the same time, and they usually do a good job of automatically switching between depending on which one is outputting sound. - The touch sensitive gesture controls (volume and play/pause) on the right ear cap are very handy. - They look nice. Minor reservations about the Bose 700: - It always says "[Device name] connected" and "[Device name disconnected]" when something. - Mitigate this by changing the bluetooth names of your devices to something very short. - The power on and power off sounds are strangely too loud. This bothered me initially but now I'm used to it. - They look a bit fancy so presumably increase your chances of getting mugged. ![[Pasted image 20220714081836.png]]