Are you aware that listening to music can increase productivity at work? On the other hand, does listening to music have disadvantages? Even in the worst prisons in the world, inmates can benefit from listening to music. There is scientific evidence that listening to music can increase productivity at work. However, there are other fundamentals benefits that come along too.
Fundamental benefits of music
- Sometimes it can happen that the motivation on Monday morning or when the weather is good outside and you have to sit in the office all day, not at its maximum. Music can help and be motivating.
- Repetitive work can become very boring and this boredom also increases the susceptibility to errors due to a lack of concentration. Here, too, music can be an advantage.
- If you are sitting in a very large office, it can also be relaxing to hear something other than messy talk and ringing phones on your headphones.
- Music not only calms you down and makes you happier, but it also inspires you. Perhaps with a little music, you can come up with new solutions to a problem more quickly.
Disadvantages of listening to music at work
- If you use headphones so as not to disturb others, this clearly signals that you don’t want to be disturbed, which can be confusing for colleagues.
- Damage to the ears can also be problematic with headphones in the long term, but of course, this also depends on how loud you are listening to music.
- Listening to music that you don’t even want to hear can have the opposite effect and reduce productivity.
- If you are learning new things or if you have to memorize the slides for a presentation, music can also be disturbing.
Ideas for implementation
One idea would be that you don’t listen to music through headphones and thus isolate yourself from your work colleagues, but rather that you agree on one or more genres in an office and thus play the music in the room.
The music should not be played too loudly so that conversations in the office are possible without any problems. Everyone in the office should also be able to turn the music down at any time if the music bothers them in certain situations or if it is too loud during a phone call or the like.