- April 27, 2020
- Posted by: Patil Markarian
- Category: Blog
Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher once said, “without music, life would be a mistake.” This rings true for most of us. Music plays a significant role in each of our life events, whether painful or happy ones. Consequently music influences our mental performance and the ability to get things done. Here’s the science of how music affects our productivity, and we are the ones to decide whether to use it to our advantage or to perceive it as disadvantage.
The idea that listening to music increases the productivity of individuals is not something new. What we have to bring light on is the idea of ‘’can music improve work productivity while working remotely? And how?’’ This is what this article is all about.
It’s no secret that remote work was on rise from several years. Now, with Corona virus pandemic around the world, many more find themselves working from home. If you’re working remotely, you have to be motivated and prepare yourself to perform the same amount as that of your workplace and even more, you should invest in the tips and tools that you need in order to work effectively. Obviously, one of them is listening to music while working.
Now that all the world is under lockdown, many of employees are adjusting to work from home and trying their best to make home look like office in order to be motivated and productive. Some wake up early, get dressed and create a regular routine. However, in this situation some others face stress and lose concentration. The main key is to eliminate distractions and try to concentrate only on their regular tasks. Working from home is challenging for many employees where there are a lot of distractions such as child care, household chores, in-house entertainment options, etc… This is a reason why most people prefer to listen to music while working by eliminating outside distractions.
So, can music improve productivity while working from home?
A variety of studies have proven that music helps make repetitive tasks easier. The presence of music is more catalyst to getting the brain into ‘’the zone’’ for repeated tasks. In addition, you can listen music when doing any task that doesn’t involve a lot of brain power.
It’s beneficial when you want to escape a noisy environment when focusing on your task is really hard. For instance, if you are a mother or father and your children are making noises. So, plugging your headphones in and escaping unwanted noise helps you be more focused and productive.
Creativity is important to any job. No employee can be happy with repeating the same work routine over and over again. So taking a break to listen to your favorite music can help to be creative and more productive.
Music can also improve your mood, and consequently being happy increases efficiency and productivity. Think of it as if music is caffeine shot to the brain.
Well, the next question is: How?
The most important thing you need to do is to match the music with the task. If you are trying to do something that requires focus like writing and you are using your brain, then you need to play a classical and no lyrics music such as Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Bach or a sound of the nature or an Indian chill-out mix. When it comes to routine work like checking emails, you can listen to something upbeat and positive like pop, in order to get through it quicker and to distant routine and make the task more interesting.
Recent studies show that it’s not the music itself, but improved mood and overall wellbeing created by listening to music that results in increase in productivity.
When you should press the pause button? When you are learning something new for the first time and you need a lot of focus on what you’re learning, don’t listen to music or in the case that the lyrics of the music are distracting as well as if the music and the lyrics are new to you.
Finally, the presence of music does positively affect productivity and performance while working remotely. The employees are free to choose their comfort zone to work effectively and music can be part of it, since some companies don’t allow music in their workplace and offices. I tried to listen music while working remotely ( while writing this article) and now it’s your turn!
