With only a whiff of scandal, the truth is out. My CDs are all out of order, and this is not cricket.

So, I begin the big reorganisation. Why is a necessity. How to is very personal.

Some days, this is my life. Stop when you're bored.

To start, I like genre. I have a number of genres I break my precarious plastic towers down into - UK indie, Britpop, Shoegaze, US alt, North-West guitar tradition (UK), North-West guitar tradition (US), Belgian rock, Funk, Hip hop and so on. Labels are far from groovy, but I do need to find things. Genre helps me to search according to my mood.

Next, a sub-file. This is dependent upon genre. For instance, Hip hop I organise alphabetically, given my lack of depthy knowledge, whereas the North-West guitar tradition (UK) is best organised chronologically, from The Beatles to The Coral.

A point here about chronological filing: I have a method, and I would urge you to have one to. Consistency is they key, being eminently practical, excellent for the purpose and deeply satisfying when done correctly. For me, I'll file each artist by the point of release of their first album. Within each artist's section, albums come first, in order of release, then singles, also chronologically. I also have a penchant for grouping spin-offs and solo projects together with the original root artist, hence Black Grape's debut album, It's Great When You're Straight...Yeah (released in 1995) comes before The Stone Roses' eponymous debut (released in 1989) because Black Grape fall into The Happy Mondays section (whose first album, Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out), first saw daylight in 1987).

Oh, it's not perfect. Country-specific genres are deeply unsatisfying - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, for instance, are a US band, but couldn't sound more British if they were Scottish and called themselves The Jesus and Mary Chain. But you try filing them under UK indie, or possibly Shoegaze - I have. It feels like a token effort and threatens to destabilise the whole delicate affair, so they sit in the US alt section and try not to be a sore thumb. Next to them, Tanya Donnelly's solo work follows Belly, but would live much more comfortably in the Introspective for when I feel a little blue section, along with the Red House Painters and Low. But again, I remain a slave to consistency.

I have a few day' work ahead, people. Tweaking, shuffling, swapping, moving along - until I can at last find that balance once more. So precarious.