I make it a person mission to write every day of the work week- it’s the only way I can justify to myself the fact that I don’t have a real, grown up job.  (Despite his reassurance, I still worry sometimes that Kevin might resent me for this freedom.  Luckily, he’s amazingly supportive.)

Some days writing is easier than others.  Even if you love what you’re doing there will be days where you just don’t want to do it, right?  To help keep myself on track I’ve taken to putting on giant headphones and listening to music while I work.  However, what music keeps me motivated seems to change from day to day.  Sometimes I’ll work seamlessly for hours to Disney soundtracks, only to be thoroughly distracted by the familiar lyrics the next day.  Other times I’ll listen to soundtracks that don’t have words for the inspiring emotions they evoke, but eventually find them not distracting enough because they don’t have lyrics.

At first I dealt with the problem by making playlist after playlist in iTunes.  It got to a point where they stopped having proper names because I couldn’t define exactly what I wanted from them anymore.  I started off listening to ‘Wrock’ (that’s wizard rock, or music based on Harry Potter, for those of you who don’t know) and ‘Wordless Soundtracks’ and ended up with ‘On-the-Go’ 1, 2, and 3.  It was ridiculous.

That’s why I was so excited when I discovered the website 8tracks.

I’m not entirely sure how I found it- I think a friend might have shared a playlist on a social media site- but it was the highlight of my day.  You just put a word describing what you’re looking for into the search bar and it pulls up dozens of playlists that have been tagged with that descriptor.  If you want to narrow it down still further, you can.

Despite being a millennial I’m not nearly as tech-savvy as I ought to be, so I don’t use half of the website’s functions.  I do know that once you have a profile you can like playlists, favorite songs, and build collections of playlists.  (If you really like a song, they’ll tell you where you buy it.)  Since all the playlists are made by users I assume you can make and upload your own as well but I haven’t tried that out.  Yet.

There are a few restrictions- you can’t listen to a playlist in the same order, you can’t skip more than three songs an hour- but since they have no bearing on my usage I’m not bothered by them.  As a whole, I think this website is amazing.

Anyone out there have another tip for how to keep your mind on track?  Are any of you on 8tracks?  If so, let’s be friends- I’m BesstheKraken!