My 5 Top Tips on How Music and Sound Can Help You to be More Productive
Music, and sound in general, can be one of the most powerful tools to increase your productivity. It can help you to focus, to overcome procrastination and to get into the flow. Here are my 5 top tips and tricks on how I use sound to boost my productivity.
1. Music to change your mood - Turn around a lost day
We connect deeply on an emotional level with music. Maybe there's a song you heard during your first kiss, or a hit single that represents a great summer from your teenage years. These songs transport you directly into a state of reminiscence and happiness.
You can use this power to turn a "bad" day around. We all have days when it seems impossible to find energy to get anything done. Motivation hits a low point and we can't even get started. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and all the other distractions just seem more attractive.
Turn your day around by listening to music that makes you happy!
While sometimes relaxing and making a fresh start the next day is a good option (just make sure you really do relax), most of the time it makes sense to turn your day around by simply listening to a few of your "feel-good" songs. Let them put you in a state of happiness. You'll immediately feel your energy coming back and inspiration returning. If your work situation allows it, get up and dance and sing along. Get completely immersed and fully enjoy the moment. This has helped me turn around countless days. Try it, and if it doesn't work for you, you should definitely consider taking a break.
Tip: Create a playlist of your "feel-good" songs in your preferred music app so you have them ready whenever you need them.
2. Music to keep you going – Just to do a little bit more
Energetic music can help you to increase your energy level. Upbeat music lets you feel more awake, more vigorous. It can help you get out of a small low. For example, after a heavy lunch or when you did not sleep well the night before. Also, the last hours of your working day might need some additional boost to get you through them.
Of course, what kind of energetic music you will use will depend on your taste. Some like heavy metal, others prefer classical music, yet others feel invigorated listening to Skrillex or other types of electronic music. I use house music like Sebastien Benett or Steve Aoki to keep me going. I often use that type of music later in the day when I am already tired. I convince myself to start a last Pomodoro, which is a 25-minute time slot to focus on one task, switch on my energy songs, and I am able to push through.
Tip: If you like a specific DJ/DJane, look for his/her podcast. Most of them have one that they update regularly.
Tip: Make a habit of closing your (working) day with just one extra Pomodoro while listening to some great music. If you do that, you will work over 100 hours more a year. Imagine what you could achieve with that extra amount of time.
3. Music to focus – Keeping you in the flow
Sometimes it is not the energy that is missing, but rather the focus. The task at hand could be complicated, and you need to be very concentrated to get it done. In the context of academia, this could be writing a paper or a proposal, planning, or brainstorming about project ideas. Music can help you a lot to focus and to get into "the flow". Moreover, it can help you to stay in this state longer. This is especially needed if you have a distracting environment that you can't control, for example, if you share your workspace with a lot of other people.
The important part here is that the music gets rid of the environmental noise and distractions but does not distract you. Therefore, songs with lyrics are typically not a good choice, nor are catchy songs.
Soma FM – Awesome music for free
For my go-to music, I listen to Soma FM,, which offers a set of over 30 free, unique online radio channels. They are listener-supported, commercial-free, and broadcast from San Francisco. According to their homepage, all music is hand-picked by award-winning DJs and music directors, and you can definitely tell.
Their approach and music categories are truly unique. My most favourite ones are "Groove Salad", "Lush", "Secret Agent" and "Deep Space One". Especially, the last one is great for longer writing sessions. Almost all of the songs in there are without lyrics.
You can listen to it for free through the webpage, or the corresponding free Mac or the iPhone application.
There are some ways to support Soma FM as well. If you listen to them on a regular basis, please consider to donate to keep them on air.
4. No music at all – The power of noise
There exists some really interesting research (see Journal of Consumer Research) that demonstrates that noise can be helpful to get your creative juices flowing. It shows that not only a lot of noise, but also complete silence can be bad, as it gets the brain into a state of alarm, since this is not normal either. There seems to be a sweet spot, where the brain does not get distracted nor alarmed. That's why coffee shops with a constant murmur in the background seem to be a great place to getting things done. However, there are also ways to get the same ambient in a more controlled fashion at home, at your office, or when you are traveling.
Coffitivity
There is a wonderful tool called Coffitivity. I use it quiet a lot. They provide you with a variety of different, real-world background murmurs. You can hear people talking, but it is unintelligible. They called them, for example, "Morning Murmur" or "Lunchtime Lounge".
You can go to their webpage and use the service for free. If you choose one of the scenarios it will loop through the recording in a smooth way so that you don't notice when they start over again. I use it all the time for brainstorming and writing sessions.
Defonic and Hipstersound
Two other options similar to Coffitivity are Defonic and Hipstersound. Both allow you to mix different sounds like rain, wind, and many others - of course there is also an option for your coffee shop sound. Make sure you check out the menu on the left side of Hipstersound and that you scroll down in Defonic to see all your option. Play around and find your favorite mix.
If you want to see more so-called ambient noise generators you should checkout my blog post Ambient Noise Generators.
Extra fun tip 1: Checkout Purrli, which generates the southing sound of a purring cat.
Extra fun tip 2: Checkout Horrorli, which provides you for scary sounds. I don’t judge. Use if it makes your more productive.
5 Music to relax – Recharging your batteries
Part of being productive is also about being able to relax between your work sessions. Music can help you with that as well. There are thousands of videos on YouTube with all kinds of relaxing sounds, ranging from whale songs to the soothing sound of a creek.
On your iOS device, you can listen to YouTube with the screen turned off:
Play the YouTube video in your Safari web browser
Turn off the screen (button on top)
Press the home button
Press the play button on the lock screen
Turn off the screen again
If your headphones are plugged in, you can press the play button directly on your remote instead of going to the lock screen. This saves battery, and most of these relaxing sound videos on YouTube only have a static image anyway.
Sometimes I need to relax completely, meaning I have to take a nap (e.g., after lunch). For this, I use a great iOS application called Power Nap. It comes with a range of sounds you can choose from to ease into sleep. It also uses the built-in accelerometer to measure the depth of your relaxation. This enables the application to wake you up before you fall into too deep a sleep, thus preventing you from feeling groggy when you get up from your siesta.
More resources
Check out my blog post on Ambient Noise Generators.
Apple Music, Spotify, and other similar services have lots of predefined playlists for focus
Share your tricks for focusing with music in the comments section! What are your favourite music podcasts or radio channels? What are your secret sound applications?
