Music is rarely heard in most traditional office settings. Of course there are many reasons for this, the most obvious being that musical tastes are subjective. Not everyone enjoys Vivaldi and some people cringe at the first notes of “Satisfaction”. Controlling the dial might become a real issue in a close office environment. One of the joys of working from home is the freedom of choice that working mostly alone allows.  Your sticky notes can be stuck to anything you want. If you are an Eskimo into heavy metal, you can keep the thermostat at 65 and the radio at 10. So home-workers can pump up the volume and keep the tunes rolling.

 

But another reason that most traditional offices don’t allow music is a deep-seated belief that music harms office productivity. While it is widely accepted that listening to music while working can increase productivity for retail and light industrial workers, music is frequently considered just one of a million distractions that may keep office workers from their tasks and is therefore verboten. Of course Muzak and other background music providing companies disagree, claiming music actually masks background noise and consequently decreases possible distractions. Here is a good article from HR Magazine that discusses some scientific findings on music and productivity.

 

So, it is certainly possible to listen to music while working at home, but is it really advisable? Obviously this is a rather personal decision. It is not always possible to judge from past performance since most teleworkers did not listen to music at their previous workspaces. How does one know if music is a hindrance or a helpmeet? Experimentation may be in order.

 

ABT (Advanced Brain Technologies, a company that “develops innovative brain training products that maximize human potential”) has released a series of recordings called Sound Health that purports to foster productivity, creativity, relaxation, etc. 

 

All of the music is classical (presumably with no vocals) and most of the selections are in major keys. The most interesting thing about their collection, however, is the beats per minute (BPM) listing on each CD. BPM seems to be the major delineating factor that ABT uses to select music for triggering and sustaining particular types of brain activity. The selections on “Concentration,” for example, are all in the tempo of 50-60 BPM. “Thinking”, “Learning,” “Relax” and  “De-Stress” songs are also all around 40-60 BPM. “Inspiration” kicks it up to 60 - 90 BPM. “Productivity” clocks in at 70-130 and “Motivation” pops out a rapid 120-140.      Making song lists or cd’s of music you like based on tempo is a good way to start experimenting with music and personal productivity. Sort daily tasks by the type of mental “mood” you think they require and make some playlists based (loosely) on ABT’s categories. (Or you can save some time, but spend some money, and buy the ABT discs.)  

 

A general rule of thumb for determining BPM is that slow songs usually have a tempo in the range of about 60-90; medium dance songs about 100-120; and faster songs about 120-160.    

 

The best way to determine song tempo is to download software such as BPM Detector Pro(light) , a very easy to use shareware program that instantly calculates the BPM of any MP3. This little gem (and others like it) makes playlist creation easy and really quite fun.   

 

In addition to general productivity music can also serve as a very effective trigger for motivation. The same set of songs played at the same time of day when certain activities are inevitable can help set the tasks in motion and keep them in motion.      The most important thing to remember about music in the home office is that you control the volume, you control the songs. You can turn it off if it is not “working” for you and you can turn it on if it is.