Morning Ramp Up.

Many people start their workday with copious amounts of coffee or other caffeinated beverages. Others go through a regimented routine involving gyms, sweat and bouts with traffic snarl ups. Some are bleary-eyed, unable to put together cohesive sentence for the first 60 or so minutes of the day. And then there’s us that need a gentle yet distinct schedule to get ourselves together for the day.

I fall into that latter category.

When I get situated at my desk for the day, with a big glass of water in one hand and my iPhone in the other, the first thing I do is put on my headphones and listen to a specific music playlist. The contents of the playlist change once in a great while, but I never shuffle the songs or listen to them out of order in anyway once I have decided on the flow of this important playlist.

Right now, my morning playlist consists of the following tracks:

“I’ll Be Around”, The Spinners
“Could It Be I’m Falling In Love”, The Spinners
“Heartbreaker”, Dionne Warwick
“Lotta Love”, Nicolette Larson
“(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher”, Rita Coolidge
“Shout To The Top”, The Style Council
“Breakout”, Swing Out Sister
“It’s A Miracle”, Barry Manilow
“It’s My Life”, Talk Talk
“Time (Clock of the Heart)”, Culture Club
“New Day For You”, Basia
“Crystal Blue Persuasion”, Tommy James and the Shondells
“Yes”, Merry Clayton
“Romantic”, Karyn White
“Save Me”, Lisa Fischer
“I Want You”, Shana

I have to admit that typing that list out just now made me realize that I have really eclectic tastes when it comes to the selection of these tracks. The inclusion of a song on this list is usually because of the musicality of the song. For example, I’m not particularly a fan of Dionne Warick’s but I do love the production that Barry Gibb used on “Heartbreaker”. Many of these tracks take my head to a specific happy place that helps motivate me for the day.

Sometimes it takes just a little thing like this to make the day exceed its potential.