I believe I was the last one in the civilized world to get an iPod, but it’s better late than never. When I got my 4gb iPod mini I was immediately faced with a conundrum: the 5gb of music on my computer would certainly not fit.

Apple’s solution was to randomly cram all the songs it could onto the iPod without reason. This was hardly acceptable, so I devised a solution to put only the songs I wanted to hear on the iPod. You probably have songs you, for some inexplicable reason, keep but do not listen to. I did too, so here’s how I got only the best songs on the iPod and left the deadbeats on the lappy.

• Go to File > New Playlist and make a playlist called Just say no or whatever you like
• Go to File > New Smart Playlist and create a playlist called iPod Tunes
• Create one rule: PLAYLIST / IS NOT / JUST SAY NO
• Go to the iPod Tunes playlist and drag all the songs you do not want on your ipod to Just say no
• Plug in your iPod
• Right-click (or ctrl-click) on the iPod icon in the left column and go to iPod options
• Select automatically update selected playlists only then put a check mark by the playlist iPod Tunes

Once you update your iPod, only the songs you want to hear will be on it.