Can we be productive designers while listening to music? At first thought, one might say “Heck no! How can listening to Justin Bieber make anyone more productive?” Alright, they may have a point there, but since Bieber isn’t my cup of tea, I can say that music does in fact make me productive. More importantly, it helps me get through the day.
Studies show that music plays a vital role in the creative process and interacts with brain centers to stimulate creativity. From my personal experience, I can vouch for this! I find that when I am listening to music, I am able to see the completed design much more quickly than without, resulting in a fast turn-around (which I think we can all agree is a point for productivity). While turning around projects with great speed is awesome, listening to music means a lot more to me than a productivity boost. I think there is something to the mental stimulation that feels medicinal, which is the primary reason I listen while I work.
Some of us listen to music to relax when we are stressed, some listen to music for sheer ambient noise, some listen to get pumped up. I do a bit of all of these. I listen to many different types of music (ah, the classic ‘eclectic’ phrase). My choice will usually depend on what type of mood I am in, or more importantly, what type of mood I need to be in.
If I am gearing up for a long day of programming or layout, I tend to engage in ambient, layered music with upbeat and modern drum samples (such as Aether or Tycho). If I had a rough meeting with a client, I turn to what I call “comfort tunes,” or better known as “anchors”. These “anchors” bring me back to a great time in my life and can pull me out of a moment of low self-esteem (I almost always go to Nobou Uematsu’s piano-driven masterpiece, “To Zanarkand”). In the case of dragging in the morning, nothing kicks my brain into gear like the powerful lyrics and fortissimo instrumentation of rock band Thrice.
I am fortunate enough to work at a place where I have the freedom to listen to music while I work (in headphones of course, can you imagine the sonic mess from all of our computer speakers? Justin Bieber from one corner, Thrice in another!). This (in my case) helps mitigate the stress of a fast-paced agency. As designers, we create our own systems to mitigate our stress. Some of us go for a walk outside, some of us push the next button on our iPod.
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