Six Steps to Organizing Electronic Music

It was driving me nuts. Thousands of songs stored in my computer, some also listed in iTunes, some on my iPod. But it wasn't all synced up.

I mentioned before that my music is a mess. For those not naturally organized, this may sound weird, but it’s been  bugging me. For those not naturally organized, here’s a reason that sounds more reasonable: I can’t find some of my music. In the end, organizing is all about achieving a goal.

Finally, I decided to do something about it.

So here was my step-by-step process to get there.

Step 1: Ask yourself what organized will look like. No matter what you're organizing, this is easily achieved by filling in the blanks: My __________ will be organized when __________.

So: My music collection will be organized when I have purged the thousands of useless songs I never listen to and I have everything updated with the correct band, album and song information plus album art if available.

Step 2: Begin to purge.
My fiancee and I have are music combined, so that meant this would take awhile. But we grabbed some popcorn, sat on the couch, and had fun listening to each song to make sure we knew it and wanted to keep it. Of course, if we listened to each song for 30 seconds and we have 10,000 songs (not far off) ... we’re talking DAYS! So each was a quick listen.

Tip: Be harsh. It's easy to feel nostalgic over that 90s song that played on the radio as I was first learning to drive. But how often have I really listened to it? Um, never. If I really want to listen to it again, it's out there. I can hear it on YouTube, LastFM radio and many other places. My goal for my library is not to have everything, but to have only the songs I want and love to listen to often.

Step 3: Take a break. The purging process in any room (or in my computer) is not swift. I did not do this all in one day. Trying to rush it means doing a sloppy job, so we worked for two hours and then stopped for a break. In the end, it took three different two- or three-hour sessions on three different days to complete this part of the process. 

Step 4: Label.
Because of the unique nature of mp3 music these days, I had tools at my disposal that could "scrape" the music and label it with the proper artist, album and song name along with album art. This also took awhile, but since it was automatic, I could set my computer to do so and let it go. However, if you're labeling manually, start slowly and be sure to take breaks.

Step 5: Containerize.
We sorted the music in folders on the hard drive. To get my music listen-ready, I had to delete my entire iTunes library and then add in the folders with the newly purged songs. In the end, I saved several gigabytes of space. Plus, now I know that when I click "shuffle," I'll actually be listening to a song I like. 

Step 6: Maintain.
Just like with any organizing project, the critical piece is to maintain what you have accomplished. If I add more songs to my library through the iTunes store, I know that I need to label them properly right away. I also know that as my gigabytes creep up, I need to reconsider some of the songs I never listen to anymore. Our tastes and needs for music, just like anything else, change during the years. And organization needs to keep up.