Digital Clutter Causes Computer Confusion
How much do you rely on your computer, laptop, tablet, or smart phone? More than you may realize since they are heavily integrated into how we live day to day. The lines between work and leisure are blurred. And any of these devices have quick access to family and friends via social media.
I am old school with respect to technology. I use a desktop computer with a regular sized alpha-numeric keyboard, and a large, easy to read screen. Much like your car, it requires routine maintenance. Similarly, it will not last indefinitely, as much as we might want it to. Worse, the rapid pace of technological change quickly makes these items obsolete, or at least incompatible with the newest software for a given device.
What does that have to do with clutter? That depends on you and your preferred device. I strongly dislike the smaller screens of a smart phone, or tablet. And am less than enthusiastic about the usually compressed keyboard of a laptop. Hence my preference for my older desktop. But I allowed digital clutter to accumulate, causing unforeseen issues with my favorite device. That is, my desktop experienced Digital Clutter Confusion.
The wide variety of cloud storage options should give us the ability to work across devices when technology fails, but only if we use them. I am sorry to say that I had not kept up to date with my important files and am still dealing with the fallout for my lack of diligence.
You may have noticed a gap in blog posts for STUFFology101.com. That is my fault, and I sincerely apologize. Most of my information for the website is on my desktop. When my hard drive began to fail, I had difficulties accessing the information I needed to even login to the site. As with so many things in life, I learned the hard way to run regular backups and keep important passwords on physical paper in a safe location.
Equally important is keeping your software up to date, and ensuring your firewall, anti-virus, and/or malware programs are running and current. Self-evident I know, but random things happen in life. I have again learned the hard way that one should double check such things before you work or play on any device. Here is a handy list of computer maintenance tips you can reference to keep your device operating smoothly.
The benefit of computer or other technology problems we experience is discovering solutions that prevent them from occurring again. For me, I had time to reflect on my reliance on one specific piece of technology, my desktop. AND take a hard look at how much time I spent online working on a project or playing on social media. Too much screen time is a bad thing. More on that topic for a future post.
Luckily for me, I have recovered my important data. I have saved it to my cloud storage and a new portable external hard drive (just in case). Like physical clutter, I encourage you to take a moment TODAY to clear out those files you no longer need and lessen the digital clutter on that device. Hopefully, you learn from my mistake and avoid the inconvenience and frustration of device failure.
