Spring has sprung in Raleigh, NC and it is time to clean and de-clutter our Triangle homes. One cluttered area that we often overlook, is our digital home. Our digital lives need to be de-cluttered and managed as much as our personal homes in order to stay organized and efficient! Taking time to clean and care for our digital devices can also prolong life saving you time and money in the end. Here are some great tips on organizing your computers, mobile devices and online activities!
- Create organized folders for the main aspects of your life or business. Create subfolders within these to stay organized and to make searching easy. Don’t let them fill up your inbox! Seeing that you have 2000 emails in your inbox (regardless if they are read or not) is a negative psychological weight that can be prevented.
- Delete your junk mail every day!
Social Media
- Facebook: Delete any junk on your newsfeed. Review your privacy settings and review your photos. Perhaps the college photos are not so funny after 5 years!
- Pinterest: Organize your boards and delete any you do not use.
- Instagram: Delete anyone who clogs your feed! Update your profile
- Twitter: Clean up your “follow” list and update any profile information.
- LinkedIn: Update profile information, awards, promotions, experience. Take a few moments to endorse your peers as well.
Web Browser
- Organize your bookmarks. Look through your links and determine which ones you will visit again. Another great tool to keep tabs of a website you might want to visit again is Pinterest. Create a new board labeled Sites of Interest and pin the pages to it. You are not clogging up your favorites bar and you are storing the pins in a handy, visual place!
- Clear your history, cookies and any old temporary files that might be slowing your system down. Find directions here.
Documents
- Start by deleting documents, photos etc. on your desktop. We get so busy with the task at hand it is easy to keep things on our desktops that we will eventually forget.
- Go into your documents drive and create folders to save any loose documents in. Trash the documents you will never look at again! When finished, be sure to empty your digital recycle bin.
Digital Photos
- We often rely on online sites like Facebook, Snapfish, Shutterfly and Tumbler to hold our lives’ memories. These companies are just as prone to security breaches as anyone else. Upload your photos to cloud based programs like Trovebox or Dropbox. Back them up periodically on an external hard drive to be extra safe.
Programs
- Delete the programs you no longer need or use. They are only taking up precious computer real estate and oftentimes update without you knowing it resulting in more taken space! Find directions here.
Passwords
- Update your passwords regularly to protect your privacy and avoid identity theft. Review sites security and privacy policies frequently to stay up to date on changes ie) Facebook. Try to avoid using the same password for every site.
Hardware, Tablets and Phones
- Take the time to disinfect and clean your phones, tablets, keyboards etc. Use device friendly cleaner you can buy at the store.
- Use a can of compressed air to get crumbs and dirt out of your keyboard, mouse and CPU.
- It is possible to clean the inside of your computer but if you are not experienced with this we recommend a local professional.
Visit LindaCraft.com for a list of local, home care providers that we have had wonderful experiences with! Don’t forget to check out Facebook page throughout the month of March for Spring Cleaning giveaways! We will also have our annual Spring Cleaning Shred Party on Saturday, March 29 from 10-2. Clear out your file cabinets and bring your boxes of paper to be shredded right before your eyes!
For your home buying and home selling needs, Linda Craft & Team REALTORS is your Triangle area expert. Call us today for a free consultation.