Computer Cleanup 2.0

There are good, common sense reasons for you to organize your computer into a lean, hard-working business machine:

• Day-to-day maintenance means annual tasks such as tax preparation are more thorough and less complex.
• Regular filing of important client contacts means vital information is never more than a few clicks away.
• When it comes time to access online information, you’ll thank yourself time and time again if you’ve taken the extra effort to organize your Internet bookmarks.

While each business or individual is the best judge of what’s important to keep – and how long to keep it – start with the general rule of thumb: If you haven’t accessed a file in more than six months, it may be time for the electronic trash can. But there are some documents and items you might want to consider keeping for the long haul. That list, say the experts at Microsoft, includes tax-related information, project-related files, some of your favorite digital images, plans from the past you can use for the future, important e-mails, and customer-contact information.

If you have the good sense to organize your files – either on your computer or on some sort of backup utility – you also need to come up with some sort of system that will make it reasonably easy to open the items when you need them. Here is an 8-step program from How To Do Just About Everything (www.ehow.com):

1. Start with one folder as a “root” folder for all documents.
2. Create sub-folders for various categories of documents: client contacts, business databases, Web pages, etc.
3. Within the sub-folders, create as many additional sub-folders as you need to keep material well organized. For instance, you might create sub-folders labeled “Contacts,” “Letters,” and “Surveys.”
4. Once you have your file architecture in place, make sure you change the “save to” location to the proper folder when you close a document.
5. If your computer has an automatic backup program, change the backup destination to your root folder. If you do need to find a duplicate copy of a lost document, you won’t have to search your entire hard drive to find a particular item.
6. Include a “Web Downloads” folder in your root folder for Internet downloads. Change the default “save” location on your Web browser to your root folder.
7. Create sub-folders under Web Downloads for image files, shareware programs, sound files, or upgrades.
8. Install new programs into the Windows “Program Files” folder (for Mac users, use the “Applications” folder). And don’t move previously installed program directories around to organize your hard drive. When it’s time to update the programs, your operating system needs to search in familiar places.

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