In-the-Zone Music

You know how athletes have a pre-game playlist to get pumped up? I'm creating on a playlist for homework and grading papers. I'm the kind of person who can't concentrate with complete silence, but if a movie's playing, I want to watch it, and if people are talking, I want to join in. So to get work done, I pretty much have to slip on my noise-reducing headphones and lock myself in my bedroom.

Then there is the dilemma of what to play. Wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. The music dilemma comes after I've cleaned my room and made myself a snack because those are my go-to procrastination excuses.

Okay. Now, what to play? Some hip-hop and rock might get me pumped up, but it's hard to focus on my reading when I want to dance to Kanye's "Gold Digger" and most of my pump-up music is just too strong to allow me to focus on a mental task. You might think that I must resign myself to easy listening or bluegrass, but that's being too extreme. Besides, I still haven't forgotten that bluegrass killed my first ipod-- that's a blog for another time. My compromise are bands like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (suprise), the Kooks, and my newest find, Mumford & Sons.With these bands combined, I'm building my best playlist ever! Well, until next year at least.

Here's a sample:



So you might have noticed a folk vibe which is pretty close to bluegrass, but they're British so it doesn't count.

I'm also adding Bruno Mars because his song is an apartment favorite and well, I'm still a sucker for a cute love song.



Hopefully, this awesome new playlist will keep me from procrastinating or at least entertain me once I finally get to work.