I’ve somewhat neglected the removal of digital clutter thus far in my quest, as I’m home amongst the physical stuff for now and will be removed from it for 2+ weeks while I’m on the road.
I did take some putter-y, relaxation time to declutter my music files over the past weekend, though, and as I was combing through things, sorting and deleting, it occurred to me that there might be some utility in sharing my methods for taming the electronic hydra that is my iTunes folder. This screencast runs down a bunch of tools and tricks I’ve gathered over the years and includes stuff like
- using tags to create playlists
- the kinds of playlists (and playlist groups) I’ve found useful and fun
- setting up a master playlist so that you can let iTunes deejay your whole collection without having that pesky podcast, screaming guitar or Christmas song jump in and stomp on your audio buzz
Show me yer rig! (iTunes edition) from communicatrix on Vimeo.
Remember, if you click the little button in the bottom-right corner of the player, you can watch it in full-screen mode. And if you click through to Vimeo, you should be able to watch it in high-def, very helpful with all that teensy type. Also, I’ve enlarged the mouse pointer thingy this time, which may help with legibility.
Not strictly about decluttering, although it gets one thing off my to-do list!
Please let me know what you think in the comments!
xxx
c
OMG. I am just hoping you clean out your photo files. And that you have iPhoto. Because I am so stumped….
Great tips easily adapted to Windows Media Player– thanks! Look forward to a photo files edition (…do you ever hear your inner schoolmarm whispering ‘speak up Colleen’, ‘enunciate’ …?)
I totally stopped part way through vid to set up an ‘all but’ playlist. Yea! I listen via shuffle almost all the time, so weeding out podcasts and other junk will definitely make me happy.
The comments tip is great too. I didn’t know you could sort that way. I’m going to file that for future reference though because as a Virgo, going through & labeling my whole library could suck me in for days/weeks.
LPC – Haha. Me, too. Sigh. Only iPhoto is so iUnfriendly.
Chris – I spent two years in Toastmasters where all I heard was “slow down!” The volume thing was a one-off (I hope!). Trying to keep it down b/c I was in a shared office space. Although if you’re referring to the dreadful sound levels on my Marketing Mentor podcasts, I think the new firmware I downloaded to the Snowball mic has fixed that. Let me know if I’m wrong!
Claire – I know, right?! Best tip ever. That Merlin. He’s a mad genius. And yeah, the commenting is a huge time suckage thing. I use it as a high-level procrastination-slash-reward thing.
Absolutely fantastic. A cluttered, disorganized iTunes is the bane of my digital existence. I spend hours going through all the thousands of songs in my library trying to compile playlists. I also love, love, love the idea of an “all but” playlist. Thanks!
Please, Colleen, do not even think of going near iPhoto for any reason whatsoever other than to delete it. Having exported all your photos and tags first, if you can. To call it iUnfriendly is to grace it with praise, in my view. The bad news is that the best kid on the block, iView, got lured to the dark side and is now not nearly as well-behaved. There’s a niche there, for sure …
Allison – Merlin. The man with the “all-but” playlist. And smartlists? They will CHANGE YOUR LISTENING LIFE! Glad yer diggin’ on it.
Jeremy – I know, I know, but…
I think The BF used iView, back in the day. Really, I have no idea what I’m going to do. I get why Apple made it the way they did—idiot-proof, lowest-common-denominator programming, I guess—but it is scary how user-unfriendly it is if you want to do anything but view it on your computer or make Mac-approved products from it.
For now, I’ll probably just scan and stick in files of my own devising. Suck-o, but whaddya gonna do?
Not to divert this thread, but where then do I keep my photos? I have Adobe Photoshop Elements – do you know I can’t even open files in iPhoto from the Adobe app? I have to MOVE them into a file and THEN open them. How sucky is that? Can I just export EVERYTHING out of iPhoto into a folder somewhere? Right now iPhoto imports my photos from my camera. Oh I need to go look for Help somewhere. Aaargh. I never thought I’d say I liked a Microsoft product more. I’m an ex-Sun employee. They will find me and shoot me probably…
The Unofficial Apple Weblog also has smart playlists & how to make them:
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/10/30/5-smart-playlists-to-help-you-manage-your-itunes-library/
digginit. Yes, do more instructo-videos, please.
I liked the added touch of a moving background. . . making me wonder what the office mate is up to too. And what’s in the cup.
gotta go–and add “file itunes” to my list (completely inspired by your decluttering! compelled to comment by the video!)
Thank you! I downloaded ITunes a few month ago and have been overwhelmed by it so this video is a huge help. I jumped in and started editing my music so I can get to playlist creating. Really helpful, Colleen, thanks again.
Thank you for your FAB search engine. I wanted to tag my music before going out of town (“travel” is the tag) and needed to see this vid again to remember how to do it. THANK YOU. Both for doing the vid and for having such a robust search function on your site. XO