Cue Up a Water Conservation Playlist

Most Americans could stand to use less water, whether they live in the drought-stricken West or not. Taking shorter showers is one easy way to do that. According to a 2014 Indiana University study, cutting shower time down to 5 minutes (from the average 8.2 minutes) would reduce your household’s indoor water use by about 8 percent. Now the digital radio service Pandora is helping people make this change with a playlist that doubles as a shower timer.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California recently partnered with Pandora to curate a “Water Lover’s Station” featuring more than 100 rain- and water-themed tracks, from Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain” and TLC’s “Waterfalls” to Prince’s “Purple Rain” and Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” (They also made a Spanish-language water-saving playlist for Univision’s Uforia streaming music platform.) Each track is under five minutes long, so simply tune in, take advantage of your bathroom acoustics, and step out of the shower before the song ends.