Music is the driving force behind the human experience. Everywhere you go, shopping malls, grocery stores, and even in elevators, you hear music. Everyone and their dog have an iPod. In fact, even some folks in their eighties can be seen now-a-days with one attached to their ears. It should not come as a surprise, then, that music is a useful tool to increase productivity while you work.
Listening to music is one of the quickest ways for you to get your groove on. There are a number of ways to utilize music to heighten the production while you are working.
Music Centers Your Thoughts
Music in the background can stop you from daydreaming. The beat of the music, keeps your subconscious mind on track from outside distractions. The sound of a siren or horn honking can distract you and slow you down, if you have a creative job. A steady rhythm can keep your mind grounded.
A perfect example of this is night club staff. They have to deal with remembering drink orders, who ordered what drink, and handling money, all with loud music blaring. However, it comes quite naturally. You will notice them walking while bopping to the beat. This consistency assists with their focus and memory.
Music Can Keep You Calm and Increase Creativity
Sometimes you are hyper and/or stressed about a project, and find it hard to stay still. Music can help keep you calm and open up your creative side. It is almost impossible to think clearly when you are stressed. Music sets your mind at ease, making your creative side easier to access.
Music Alters Your Disposition
No matter how bad you feel, listening to a song can cheer you up. Music can also aggravate you, depending on how you react to it. Not all people like all musical genres. Thankfully, there are many to choose from. Certain songs can surface different feelings. A love song can make you sad; an opera song can make you feel intense. You can alter the music to match whatever type of project you are working on.
Music Energizes You
Music stimulates your brain. It is impossible to listen to music and feel “brain dead”.
There are different genres of music that have different effects for different people. While some like relaxing music to energize them, others, find it makes them want to take a nap. Music can over stimulate you too, which can be a problem. In this case, you need to take a break or change songs. The point is to listen to music to increase your productivity, not shut it down.
Music can also bring life to your projects. If you do a lot of presentations or design websites, music can add flare. Something with a strong beat, not loud, or that would be irritating, gets viewers more into what you have to say. Think about when you go to stores that have really upbeat music playing and how it makes you feel.
Music creates an abundance of methods to increase productivity. It centers you while increasing creativity. It can literally change how you feel in seconds. It can energize you and if you’re in your sweet spot, you feel energized and ready to go. Who needs coffee when you have your beat on?
That’s a pretty good list you have there and one that we wholeheartedly agree with – the one thing that we have found is that for certain tasks such as when you are working with words (reading, writing, designing text delivery etc) instrumental music seems to be preferable. It makes sense not to have your language centers distracted by the story in the song when you’re trying to focus on the story in front of you.
We have a number of different playlists streaming free over on http://music2work2.com that might help you out.
Best wishes,
Andrew