3 hobbies that can improve your work performance | The Next Web

"Playing the drums or doing CrossFit can seem like activities that would never help you with coding, app development, or any other tech-related pursuit. In fact, these actually sound like perfect ways to blow your free time and prevent you from improving your work performance." inform Irma Hunkeler, works for BlueGlass.co.uk, a digital marketing agency. 

Photo: Darius Soodmand

But the truth is that having hobbies outside of work really can make you a far more productive worker.

According to a San Francisco State University study, led by organizational psychologist Kevin Eschleman, hobbies increase your work productivity up to 30 percent, versus those who don’t have a regular hobby.

Of course, not all free-time pursuits are created equally. So let’s look at a few hobbies that can really accelerate your work results.

Learn an instrument
Picking up an instrument all of a sudden may conjure up images of someone in a midlife crisis who’s trying to start a garage band. However, learning music can provide a number of benefits for your mind and even increase your IQ.

According to psychologist Lutz Jäncke, who led musical research at the University of Zurich, learning to play an instrument increases one’s IQ by an average of seven points, in both adults and children.

“We found that even in people over the age of 65 after four or five months of playing an instrument for an hour a week, there were strong changes in the brain.” said Jäncke. “The parts of the brain that control hearing, memory, and the part that controls the hands among others, all become more active.”

Dubbed the Mozart Effect, music can provide the following work-boosting benefits for you:

• Reduces errors
• Improves memory
• Recruits both sides of your brain for more creativity
• Reduces the amount of time it takes to learn new tasks
• Provides a calming and stress-relieving effect

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Source: The Next Web