We’ve all been told the traditional advice on elevating productivity at work: don’t multi-task, minimize interruptions, say no to meetings, specify self-imposed deadlines, etc.
But what about the modification of environmental sound? Can boosting work productivity really be as simple as playing certain types of sounds or music?
It turns out that both nature sounds and music have been found to have positive effects at work.
Let’s begin with nature sounds.
Nature Sounds
The Acoustical Society of America presented findings showing that employees can get more done and feel more positive at work when nature sounds are playing in the background.
The study consisted of three sessions in the same room, where researchers had participants complete tests while listening to a variety of soundscapes. Each session had a unique type of sound playing in the background, as follows:
- First session: office sounds muffled by white noise
- Second session: office sounds muffled by nature sounds
- Third session: office sounds with no masking noise
The results? The staff performed better on the tests when listening to nature sounds and also felt more positive about the setting and the task.
The nature sounds were also much preferred over the white noise even though white noise provided a comparable masking effect.
Here’s a playlist of peaceful nature sounds for you to experiment with yourself.
Music
If nature sounds are not your thing, research from the University of Windsor shows that listening to music can have comparable positive effects on work productivity.
They discovered that listening to music at work improves mood and decreases anxiety, which brings about an emotional state conducive to enhanced creative problem solving.
Participants that listened to music described better moods, created higher quality work, and invested less time on each task.
Granted, the study was confined to information technology professionals, but there’s reason to think the effect is more widespread.
What type of music was revealed to have the largest effect? It turns out that the genre is less important than the positive emotional reaction it evokes in the listener.
Which means the difference between classical music and heavy metal is insignificant provided that the music enhances your mood.
Did you know that a variety of hearing aid models enable you to stream music straight to the hearing aids from your phone or mp3 player?
If you have hearing loss, or are contemplating an upgrade, ask us about the latest technology you could use to start boosting productivity at work.