The Tab guide to study music

Saving your sorry asses

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Let’s first debunk some myths.

Some believe that what will get you through exam term is a revision schedule, one that foresees all the useful work you’ll do in every waking hour of your productive days. Preferably with colour-coding, or elaborate smiley-faced post-its.

If you are one of the people who believe that “time-management” is the key to exam term and can’t stop going on about it, I suggest that you get a tattoo of a massive excel spread sheet on your back. This is 100% fake news.

Others will tell you it’s exercise. Sentiments like “rowing clears the mind” or “there is nothing like a blissful morning run along the surreptitiously gorgeous banks of the river cam to make me focus on the tough but rewarding day of work ahead” will lure you into signing up for union Zumba and before you know it you’re cursing nineties Columbian exercise moves for causing your bum to ache every time you try to climb stairs. DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS HATEFUL PROPAGANDA.

What will actually reward you, support you and tenderly nurse you through exams? Lots and lots of good music. The best playlists, suited for any work mood, at any workplace. Digging deep into revision is actually enjoyable if you’ve got good music on your side. So here are three study playlists to make sure you’re having a ball even in the depths of study.

1. Afternoon library session

Focus: 6

Procrastination potential: 4

You sit in the library on a drizzly afternoon as this mix of sweet jazz, classical and r&b engulfs you. You wistfully sigh and take in that you are in a mecca of education, surrounded by knowledge. Knowledge! The coffee-stained pages of your book on the puritanical symbolism of wedding cakes (shoutout anthropology) have never smelt sweeter than with Ben Webster floating through your headphones.

2. Late night coffee fuelled cram

Focus: 27 (the lady that practices Feng Shui on Kings Parade on Ritalin)

Procrastination potential: -11 (airplane mode)

It’s 11 pm and you literally have to understand everything there is to know about gravity before your 9am tomorrow. Your eyes are drooping and your bed looms behind you like a tantalising devil on your shoulder. You eat three tea-spoons of raw Nescafé powder and in an epiphany you realise that the only thing that can save you now is some deep electronica to get you rhythmically typing at a post-human pace.

 3. Sun-speckled outdoor note-reviewing

Focus level: 1.6 (goldfish)

Procrastination potential: 11 (May week impersonator)

You were on your way to the library but the sun came out and somehow you were teleported to a grassy area and a beer was magically conjured in your hand. Procrastovision is a well-known study/denial tactic, no shame in that. The below tunes are not advisable unless you want to be lured into a punt.

Consider your revision sorted.