Spring cleaning? Don’t forget your PC

used with permission from HP Technology at Work

With the hint of spring in the air, your energy level is up and so is your productivity. You’re on a roll at work and suddenly—it starts freezing. And we’re not talking about the weather.

PC users have at least one thing in common—we’ve all experienced the distracting error messages, load time lagging, buzzing and whirring that alert us to double-check our backup system just in case the dreaded “blue screen of death” appears. While these signs don’t necessarily mean your PC is going to quit on you anytime soon, they are symptoms of a straining hard drive and an overworked machine.

But it is spring after all… why not extend your spring cleaning regimen to include your PC as well? Follow these simple tips to organize your files, purge unnecessary data and back up important information so your PC is working efficiently and smoothly—and so are you.

Hoard no more

Just because you don’t have old newspapers piling up in your living room doesn’t mean you’re good at letting things go. Remember those photos you downloaded last year or that game that you never play anymore? Those are still on your PC if you haven’t deleted them, and they’re using up valuable space.

Go through all of your programs and files and delete (or back up before deleting) the ones you don’t need or use anymore. Remember, deleting a program from your desktop does not mean it was deleted from your computer—make sure you go through the Start menu to uninstall each of the programs that you want to get rid of. And if you accidentally remove something you need, all of the recent versions of Windows have System Restore, which allows you to restore your PC back to an earlier time to retrieve the deleted information.

Get organized

Now that all of those unnecessary programs and files are out of the way, it’s time to organize the ones you still have. Organizing your files will speed up your productivity by helping you find what you need a lot faster.

Instead of going through all of your folders one by one, it may be faster to get help from an app or program like DropIt, Cyber-D’s Autodelete, or any of the HP document management solutions. Not only will these programs help you get organized in the first place, but they will help you stay that way by automatically sorting files and programs as you save them.

While you’re at it, you might also want to use spring cleaning time to get rid of unnecessary paper files by archiving them to digital files.

Back it all up

Everyone knows how important it is to back up your data, but it’s easy to get lazy about it. While you’re organizing your files, it’s a good idea to check and make sure that all of your important information can be recovered in the unfortunate event that your hard drive crashes.

The volume of data accumulated by most businesses can be overwhelming, making it hard to know what you should bother to back up on your PC. It’s a time-consuming process, but you have to take the time to prioritize the types of files you have and assess which ones you couldn’t run your business without—namely financial documents, contacts, and confidential information.

After you decide what to back up, the next decision is how. Your options include cloud storage, an external hard drive or HP SimpleSave, which backs up everything on your PC every five minutes. No matter which method you use, be sure to schedule backing up your data on a regular basis.

Make it a habit

Just as you should practice spring cleaning once a year, the process of purging, organizing and backing up data on your PC should also be a regular occurrence. The longer you put it off, the more you’ll pay for it later. Stay on top of your organization and your PC will thank you by working better and lasting longer.