While listening to music as you work oftentimes inspires or energizes you, there are certain moments when you need to push away certain distractions and concentrate on what you're writing or doing. But absolute silence, especially if you're working outside, is impossible (and probably not productive as well). Studies have shown that listening to comforting ambient sounds increases productivity and so there have been several websites and apps that can do this for you. One of them is beautifully called, A Soft Murmur.
It sounds like the name of an indie band or a horror movie, but it is actually an app that lets your device play background noise when you want to either block out distractions or just relax and sleep. You can mix several background sounds together and then save them to your device, giving them your own names like, "For when the sun is too hot and I want to cool down with rain sounds" or "Sounds to help me sleep when I've had too much caffeine."
Unlike other sound apps where the tracks end and then there's a gap before it restarts, this one just plays your mix on an endless loop. You can also set a timer so that the sounds will fade gently when you're finally asleep or when you targetting to finish that blog post you're writing. The Meander feature meanwhile randomly increases or decreases the volume of the sounds that you've chosen for your mix, so that the possible monotonous sound will not lull you to sleep, in cases where you need to stay awake and concentrate.
The free app version of A Soft Murmur comes with four free sounds: Rainfall, Thunder, Waves, and Wind. If you want to use the six other sounds, namely Crackling fireplace, Birdsong, Crickets, Coffee shop, Singing Bowl and White Noise, you just need to a single in-app purchase of $1.49. You can download the A Soft Murmur app from the Google Play Store.