What do you listen to while you work? For my day job, where I need to be able to concentrate on words, there are three types of music moods you’ll usually find me in. Most of the time I’ll be listening to some kind of indie-mellow band—songs that blend into the background without fading away completely. Bon Iver, Feist, and Fleet Foxes are a few staples.

The second “mood” is a bit more upbeat, usually for tasks that don’t require me to concentrate on words. During that portion of my day I’m more likely to listen to something like Kid Cudi or Phoenix. The final music type is for extreme concentration. If you walk into my office and hear Zoe Keating, tread lightly. I’m likely trying to get to that hyperproductive state.

When it comes to the music I listen to when cooking, my other work of sorts now that I’ve started Belinder. For this I generally choose a Pandora station like Miike Snow, Janelle Monae, or Phoenix. And of course as I’ve been making peppermint ice cream lately, I’ve been listening to the holiday stations on Pandora as well.

How do you listen? I almost never wear headphones. I prefer to listen via some kind of speaker. In my office, I have an iPod dock/alarm clock that I use. I’ll swap between my iPhone for Pandora and my iPod video (yes, it still works, but just barely) for when I want to pick an album. When I’m cooking, I generally have my iPad with me to look up recipes for comparison, so I just listen to music on that.

Do you have any favorite music websites/providers? I feel like I might be the last person on the earth (or at least among my friends) who hasn’t jumped on the Spotify bandwagon. For the meantime I’m a Pandora loyalist. I like not having to choose what to listen to and instead just let the music play. Admittedly, Pandora does get kind of stale after a bit, but usually that just means it’s time to switch stations.

Does music influence your work? I honestly can’t think of a direct correlation between music and my work. I wish I could. Maybe I’ll have to start making music inspired ice cream flavors. Now taking artist/song suggestions!

Who influences your musical taste? My musical tastes were strongly influenced by both my dad and my older sister growing up. I give them credit for the fact that I am not a top-forty listener today. If my friends when I was younger had had as much sway, I’d be hopelessly addicted to the radio. From my dad I got a strong appreciation of the rock classics, and from my sister I was introduced to alternative and then indie artists. If I could only listen to one radio station for the rest of my life, I think it would be the alternative station from Lawrence, KS, that she and I listened to in middle school and high school.

Presently, I still get a lot of music recommendations from my sister, but also from my friends now. I have a few people that keep me in good music. We have shared Dropbox folders, and every so often a new album shows up.

What song or artist best represents the work you create? Yikes, this is a tough question. I feel very presumptuous answering it. For my ice cream “work,” I’ll have to pick “I’m A Lady” by Santagold. She’s such a strong artist while still being pop-y, fun, and upbeat. It would be impossible to pick a downer of a song when you’re equating it to ice cream. It’s basically the song that I will always dance around my kitchen to when it comes on.

KRISTIN’S PLAYLIST

Indie-Mellow

Woods, Bon Iver

How Come You Never Go There?, Feist

Your Protector, Fleet Foxes

The High Road, Broken Bells

Buffalo, Mountain Man

Energize

Mr. Rager, Kid Cudi

Long Distance Call, Phoenix

I’d Rather Dance with You, Kings of Convenience

Ultimate Focus

Sun Will Set, Zoe Keating

Optimist, Zoe Keating

Seven League Boots, Zoe Keating

(Honestly, just buy both albums. They are stunning, and you won’t regret it.)

Ice Cream Central

I’m A Lady, Santagold

Sylvia, Miike Snow

Lisztomania, Phoenix  

Amy Feezor is the copy director at Real Simple magazine, she is also a freelance writer and blogs at M-Dashing about home design and decor and her obsessions with photography, artisan foods, travel, art, local restaurants, etsy.com, and organizing. This freelance life happens from her Brooklyn headquarters – a corner of her studio apartment. I thought this was a particularly appropriate ‘Inspriation’ after the last post about small spaces.

How long I’ve worked from home…and where is “home”? I have two offices: one at work-work, and one nestled in a nook within my small studio apartment. This is where I blog and work on freelance projects. I’ve been writing professionally for about ten years now, and my home office expands well beyond my desk and my Mac. It’s by my bedside within notebooks I keep handy in case I think of something while I am falling asleep (a common occurrence). It’s on my couch and my coffee table [an Eames molded plywood coffee table that was a recent purchase]. It’s in my kitchen. It’s even on the subway—I find that I do a lot of writing there (it feels strangely private…I even wrote much of this stuff on the F-train). I grew up all over the South, and don’t have an official hometown, per se. So that means that home is wherever I am at the time. Home as has been Birmingham, Nashville, London, Charlotte, Austin, and now home is Brooklyn. But it’s probably not my last home; we’ll see where the next few years take me.

What an average workday involves: Thinking quickly, writing quickly, eating quickly. Quick check-ins on email, Twitter, and my daily blog. Eating quickly again. Taking three to four meetings, in person or on conference call. Trying to find quiet moments to actually think a concept through. And reminders to myself to get up and stretch every once in a while.

Technology that inspires me? My new SLR digital camera. I can’t stop taking pictures right now, and I am really interested in how photography tells a story. As a writer, it’s a new way to adjust my eyes—to challenge myself to look beyond words and learn to rely more on the visual. It’s definitely starting to influence my work. I learned film photography back in college and have a cool metal-bodied Minolta that used to be my dad’s, but this is a whole new ballgame. I am learning more about how to control it and how it controls me. And for the record, I love my little machine so much that I’d probably make out with it if I could.

How I organize my space: My physical space is pretty organized and painfully neat. There’s not much clutter (what a disappointment; aren’t creative types supposed to be messy?). But I just can’t deal. Everything has its place with me, mostly because I’m very forgetful. Being organized helps me be less so. Also, there are folders. Many, many folders. And sometimes, they’re color-coded. My digital space largely mirrors my physical space (read: lots of colorful folders). I have a big to-do list I’ve created in Excel. I deal with bills in Quicken. And I also tend to have a bit of post-it note/Internet bookmarking problem, so I’ve been trying out Evernote.

Item on my desktop that I cannot do without: My red pen. It’s my magic editing wand. My notebook (can’t go anywhere without it). And the calendar…I’m always juggling deadlines and timelines, and need to constantly reference it. I’m still a bit old-fashioned about it, though—I like to have a paper one within reach by the desk.

What inspires me: Great storytelling, whether it’s from a book, a film, a TV series, a song, or a spot-on comedy routine. How my words look in different fonts. The designers I work with. Graffiti. Independent artists and people who post their art anonymously on the street just so it will be seen. Powerful small businesses. My camera in my hands. A big blank wall. Beautiful everyday objects. The Pacific Ocean. Other writers. Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Hampstead Heath in London. People who do things instead of just talk about them. Olive oil. Anything with butter in or on it.

Most important piece of furniture in my workspace? And what I would change about my office if I could? My desk in my workspace and my coffee table in my living space—they’ve become interchangeable, in a way. Since my studio is small, I move back and forth between the two areas to brainstorm, write, and think. They work together as my writing table, my computer holder, my place-to-find-a-pen, my library, and my dinner table. If I could change something it would be more space! A place to have a printer (mine currently lives under the bed). And a cute assistant who smells nice and has large bicep muscles (does that count?).