Letters from the Home Office Vol. 13 - “Music to Work By”

I got the standing desk and so far it’s great, especially if I don’t wear shoes. Now I have nothing to impact my productivity… except all the noise around me.

A 2012 article in the New York Times (by Amisha Padnani, August 11, 2012) suggests that music can help workers focus. I tried this for a couple of days. At first I got the exact opposite results. I would hear a song and stop what I was doing to play along with my guitar. So I put the guitar in another room. Then I found myself tapping to the beat.

I was about to turn the music off when I read the entire article. They made two important points. First, instrumental music is best, and second, you only need to listen for a little while as little as fifteen minutes to a half hour, to regain focus on your work. I switched to classical and it worked really well. I still have a problem waiting for a piece to finish before I answer the phone, but that’ll come eventually.