It used to be that workspaces were filled with notebooks, binders, cards, piles of folders, and papers. Now, it’s far more likely that your computer is full of clutter. You may not notice immediately, but as soon as you look for something and can’t find it, the clutter is obvious. Don’t worry! Cleaning up digital clutter isn’t as hard as you think.
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Start with Email
How many email lists are you on? Do you even want to be on them all? Check out Leave me alone to quickly remove yourself from email subscriptions. The app scans your inbox and uses access to metadata but never reads the contents of your emails. Having less in your inbox will make checking emails less time-consuming. In addition, you’ll be able to respond to urgent messages more quickly and easily find what you need.
Digital File Storage
Music, photos, and important files such as tax information take up a lot of space on most computers. At a basic level, these should be organized into folders (and subfolders.) But to clean up and manage your digital clutter, you need to get down and dirty with file names. Use something that makes them easy to find at a later date, such as VISA_May_2018 or recipe_moms_chicken_soup.
Have a Backup
IT pros know that if something doesn’t exist independently in at least two places, it doesn’t exist. Even the best digital devices fail at some point. Without a backup, you’re in danger of losing all your digital files within them.
There are two basic options for backups: cloud services and physical drives. With cloud services, you can log in from anywhere, making it easy to work from a temporary location or computer if necessary. Look at Dropbox, Apple, Google, Amazon, MediaFire, FlipDrive for cloud storage. Be aware, however, that if you sync photos or music and then delete them from your hard drive, they will also be removed from your cloud storage. Don’t panic, though. Most digital music vendors make it easy for you to re-download the song(s) you’ve paid for, so there’s no need to back them up.
Physical drives can be an excellent option for sensitive data – anything you don’t want out on the web.
Take charge of your digital clutter today with these simple steps.
