The 6 best music playlists to boost your productivity

Alupea
5 min readApr 28, 2022

A great deal of discussion has centered around music and productivity in the digital age. Media outlets have shared their favorite playlists for enhancing productivity. We’ve found the best playlists for focusing and being productive.

spotify productivity playlists

1. White noise playlist

An experiment carried out by Yamaguchi University found that “when undertaking intellectual activities that require memory or arithmetic skills, noise is often associated with an increased sense of ‘annoyance,’ resulting in a decline in performance.” Meaning, less productivity.

No matter where you are working, whether it’s in a noisy office or remotely, it can be difficult to focus when there are other people talking around you. You can block out these distractions with neutral, non-verbal background sounds, such as white noise. Maybe a playlist that includes the hum of an electric fan, the din of a restaurant, or even laundry machines.

Yes, just in case you were wondering. The following playlist has them all:

White noise playlist spotify

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWUZ5bk6qqDSy

2. Happy songs

Stressed out by deadlines? Struggling to get your email in order after taking some time off? Not having enough productivity to function? There are times when listening to a “feel good” playlist is the best remedy for productivity loss — the kind that makes you use your pen as a pantomimed microphone.

Science has proven, however, that music stimulates the same part of the brain as delicious food and other physical pleasures. For example, McGill University researchers found that participants didn’t react as positively to the tunes they normally enjoy when they received the drug naltrexone, which blocks opioid production.

What are the results? As soon as we hear our favorite playlist, these chemicals are naturally produced by our brain and body, increasing productivity in a significant way.

Although the definition of “feel good” varies from person to person, Spotify playlists with those keywords often turn up. Take this playlist for instance:

Feel Good Playlist Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWVinJBuv0P4z

3. Classical music

The “Mozart effect” has been cited as one of the most prominent studies related to music and productivity, in which experts concluded listening to a Mozart playlist even for a short period every day can help improve creative problem-solving skills.

Several Cal-Irvine students were divided into three groups during the study, which was conducted by Gordon Shaw, Frances Rauscher, and Katherine Ky. One group listened to Mozart while the other listened to a relaxation playlist and the third group remained silent for 10 minutes during the study.

Following the listening activity, all 36 students took the same IQ test. This showed that students in the Mozart playlist group averaged an increase of eight or nine points over those in the other groups.

Since then, the “Mozart Effect” has been hotly debated, but many researchers have continued to examine the mental benefits of learning and listening to classical music. In one recent study, for example, elementary school-aged children participating in music composition were better at reading comprehension than control group students.

Is classical music something you might enjoy? Have a listen to this classical-inspired playlist to find out:

Piano Playlist Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0P2Y8n4hZbAL3lRlAJ8itL

4. Video game soundtracks

The first thing is understanding what type of music motivates vs. distracts you when listening to a video game soundtrack.

The focus required for playing a video game can be quite challenging. It is common for players to advance to the next level by avoiding traps, avoiding obstacles, and discovering secret tools. Due to this, video game music selections tend to be strategic, with recent soundtracks more likely to reflect epic, inspiring cinematic scores rather than just basic sound effects. A really interesting and even nostalgic playlist!

In spite of mixed results from studies, it seems that gamers can benefit from playing with the volume up by enhancing performance.

For instance, Siu-Lan Tan and her colleagues John Baxa and Matt Spackman found that when participants played the video game Twilight Princess (Legend of Zelda), they performed worse when they switched off music and sound effects.

Are you curious to try it out? Here’s a playlist to get you started:

Video Game PLaylist Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/47zbuMu4UTnrIV0oV1EZfj

5. Nature sounds

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America has published psychophysical studies and sound-field analyses that suggest listening to “natural” sounds can increase cognitive functioning, concentrate better, and feel more satisfied.

Imagine a playlist with sounds such as waves crashing, birds chirping, and streams trickling.

It would explain why a growing number of consumer-facing brands are introducing ambient noise features to help listeners focus or relax. Similarly, Spotify’s nature playlists, like this calming one, might have been inspired by this concept:

Spotify Playlist Nature Noise

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWUKPeBypcpcP

6. Songs that pump you up

A group of Kellogg School of Management faculty members, including Derek Rucker, Loran Nordgren, Li Huang, and Adam Galinsky, observed that many athletes arrived at the stadium wearing headphones and listening to different playlists, so they set out to answer the question: Does listening to the right type of music help us feel more powerful or in control?

The group of researchers, therefore, began measuring how music influences motivation and behavior back in a study in 2014. Several songs were played in a lab for participants, and their feelings of power, dominance, and determination were rated on a scale of one to seven based on what they heard. Among the winners were Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” 2 Unlimited’s “Get Ready for This,” and 50 Cent’s “In Da Club.”

Participants were then asked to listen to the playlist and indicate whether they wanted to go first or second in a debate after hearing the music. Interestingly, listeners of the high-power playlist offered to go first nearly twice as often as listeners of the less powerful playlist.

What can we learn from this? The same way professional athletes might listen to empowering music before taking the field to adopt a powerful state of mind, you may also do the same when you want to feel empowered or powerful at certain times in your life.

This playlist will empower you before your next presentation, interview, or salary review:

Beast Mode Spotify Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX76Wlfdnj7AP

So when you need to get the right feeling for working, exercising, preparing for an interview, or another situation, just select one of our playlists listed before and enjoy!

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Alupea

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