BOO HISS. (Just kidding. I finally finished the outline, so - progress. Yay. You are my inspiration.)

Anyway, all playlists are public unless you unpublish them (you right click on them in the left sidebar and click on publish and the check mark disappears). That said, I don't think there's a right or wrong way to spotify. I have a playlist of stuff that I just listen to on rotate (it's my Ellie Goulding favorites playlist - named for Ellie and artists like her/artists she loves) and then I make playlists to listen to whilst writing specific fics.