Need to put some music on and get some work done?
While upbeat, 80’s pop music is always my favorite to clean the house to, working is a different story – hard to focus on creating a great logo while trying to not sing along to “Come On Eileen”.
So, what are the best genres to work to? Well according to telegraph.co.uk, it depends on what you’re working on. In a study conducting by Mindlab International on behalf of MusicWorks, here’s what you should listen to at work.
Classical Music – if your works involves numbers or attention to detail
Workers were better at solving mathematical problems when listening to classical music, which improved accuracy by 12% compared to listening to no music at all. Classical music was also the best genre for general accuracy and spell-checking, the study found.
Pop Music – if your work involves data entry or working to deadlines
Participants listening to pop music completed data entry tasks 58% faster than when listening to no music at all. Pop was also found to be the best music genre for spell-checking quickly, and, alongside dance music, produced the fastest overall performance for getting work done. It cut mistakes by 14%, compared to not listening to music.
Ambient Music – if your work involves solving equations
Famously described by the musician Brian Eno as needing to be “as ignorable as it is interesting”, ambient music led to the highest level of accuracy for respondents completing tasks involving equations.
Dance Music – if your work involves proof-reading and problem solving
This genre resulted in the highest overall accuracy and fastest performance across a range for work tasks. Participants listening to dance music produced more accurate results in spell-checking, solving equations and tackling tricky mathematical word problems, increased proof-reading speed by 20% and were able to complete abstract reasoning tasks more quickly.
Myself, I’ve hit at least all of them, seriously you should see my Spotify account… :\ Right now, I’ve been listening to classical music. Not that slow, baroque stuff that makes you want to fall asleep, but ballets. If you’re looking for something that is somewhat upbeat and has movement to it to keep you working, I suggest checking out Sergei Prokofiev, who wrote the music to original Cinderella and Romeo & Juliet ballets, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who wrote The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, and Swan Lake.
What do you listen to when you’re working? Sound off in the comment section below!
