Listening to music at work is a great way to get into a productive rhythm. It can affect your mood and focus – or a whole team’s. What does that have to do with a phone? Some wireless VoIP conference phones (like our Mitel S720 Bluetooth conference speaker) can actually be used to play music over Bluetooth when you’re not using it to hold calls with your colleagues. That means when you’re done with a productive conference call, you can keep the productivity humming with some choice tunes. Read on to find out how to get the most of out this little-known productivity hack.

How Does Music Affect Productivity?

Music is a great way to add energy to your office space. Music evokes feelings of happiness, which leads to focus and productivity. This feeling can help repetitive tasks feel less monotonous. According to an article on Business News Daily:

“Music can have a dopaminergic effect on the brain, meaning it creates dopamine…Dopamine is what stimulates the prefrontal cortex, which is the center of the brain responsible for planning, organizing, inhibition control and attention.”

You don’t often hear wireless VoIP conference phones and music mentioned in the same sentence. But that changes when you introduce the right wireless conference phone speaker. When you’re not on conference calls, you can use a Bluetooth speaker (like the Mitel S720) to play music while you work and to be more productive. Productivity and focus produce work that’s worth sharing when you’re conferencing.

Using Music To Keep Your Office Grooving

A busy day at the office can be tough to get through smoothly. To stay focused and productive, you must be able to balance your mood. Productivity can be thrown off balance if you don’t take control. Listening to music is a great way to balance your mood. As your mood changes, the music you listen to should change as well.

“When learning new information, music without lyrics is preferable to lyrical music. However, if we complete this task at work and need to switch to a more repetitive, well-known task, we may benefit emotionally and productively from listening to music with lyrics.” — Mission.org

Making sure your team is happy, focused, and productive is important for any business. Music can help you optimize these factors. Curated playlists are a great way to boost productivity among your team.

• Upbeat music with a cup of coffee is a great way to wake up in the morning
• Midday chillout music to help get you in a productive groove
• Wash away afternoon grogginess with dance music you can move around to

Staying On Beat All-Day

Your day (and your team’s day) is filled with a mix of tasks. You may be developing web content in the morning and crunching numbers in the afternoon. Think of your brain as a computer. No matter how powerful, both take time to load and update between tasks. Music is a great tool to use when transitioning from one task to another, which some experts call context switching. While you must take time to readjust when switching tasks, it’s important not to lose focus. Music can help keep your brain active and ready to take on the next task.

“Teresa Lesuik released a study from the University of Windsor, Canada that examined 56 developers working at a Canadian software company. The findings showed that positive affect and quality of work were at their lowest when music wasn’t present in the working environment and that tasks generally took longer.”— Anchor small business advisors

Context switching is a term that was first used to refer to the time it takes a computer to switch from one process to another. Computers must load memory maps and update data when switching process’. Our brains function in a similar fashion, which is why people have started using context switching to describe the effect of changing tasks on people’s brains. Each task we do requires a different set of skills and way of thinking. Readjusting your focus on a new task can take some time.

Location In The Office

With music, everybody prefers different types. Each department executes different kinds of tasks. Different departments also have people with different personalities, which will probably affect what type of music they prefer to listen to. That means the location of the speaker in the office can change what music makes the most sense to play. For example:

• A sales department may prefer energetic music to get them hyped up
• An accounting department may favor calm music that helps them focus on details
• A creative department may thrive on off-beat music that helps inspire them

This works for individuals as well as teams. A change of setting is sometimes necessary while working. Moving to a new spot in the office can help you to get focused again when you feel a drop in your productivity. Don’t worry—our Bluetooth conference speaker is wireless and can go wherever you do.

Which Music: Location/Region

The music your employees enjoy can vary as much on your office demographic and regional location as it does on department or type of task. On platforms like Spotify, curated playlists are geared towards getting you focused and productive. Playlists like these are made with an assortment of tunes with different moods. No matter your preference, these playlists help to keep your productive groove going.

People listen to all different types of music around the world. It’s a universal language that we all can appreciate and benefit from. Curious to see what is popular in your region or want to explore what is listened to around the world? Check out this interactive map that includes playlists from cities across the globe!

That’s A Wrap

Music isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you hear Bluetooth conference speaker. What comes to mind is a powerful productivity tool for collaboration. But you can defy the expected and hack your personal and team productivity by using the dynamic ability of our conference speaker by playing music on it when you’re not using it for conferencing.

Music is a great way to increase productivity in the workplace when used properly. And when you’re not using your wireless Bluetooth speaker to groove through your task list, you can use it to talk with customers, team members and vendors to get real work done with fantastic sound quality.

This article was first published by Mitel.