SPRING CLEAN: Digital Cleaning for Computers


During Spring you probably clean out your room, bathroom, office etc. But you probably forget one of the most used things in your life... Your Computer and other technological devices. Here are some steps to get your computer fresh and clutter free to help you improve productivity. 


1. Clean your Hardware
You can do this first, or even last but you need to probably clean your laptop or desktop computer. Dusk gets into the keys, the screen can become not as shiny as it once was. Remove dust and loose particulars I use Q-tips and a mix of tea tree and water to clean my keys, the inbetween, the surface on my laptop and around - even my track pad. 

To clean your screen, get a microfibre cloth and make a mix of half distilled water and half white vinegar and apply product onto cloth. Don't press too hard onto the monitor when wiping. (Please also ensure your computer is off

2. Clean Up Your Desktop 
Remove any program shortcuts on your desktop you don't use regularly, any loose files should be put in a folder away to sort out later. Change up the wallpaper if you wish, and organise folders and programs to your liking.

3. The Real Cleaning
Go into your admin folder (or the main folder you have sub-folders such as Pictures, Music, Downloads) and one by one go through these folders and delete anything you don't use, need or want. If something is out of place, find or make a spot that it belongs to. For example, pictures from a holiday in Hawaii 2012 should probably be in a folder named under that. Any old files you don't reach for ever but don't want to delete should be put in external storage e.g. external hard drive, USB etc. 

4. Uninstall Spam/Unwanted Programs 
Go onto your Control Panel and find any programs that were installed onto your computer by accident (if you downloaded something else) or what you don't want anymore. If you are worried there is hidden adware in your computer but you cannot find it, download an Anti-Malware Software. Malwarebytes is my favourite and always finds potential threats.

5. Update
Now that you have probably gotten some free space after deleting files, update any software or operating systems. 

6. Back it Up
Now that you have fresh, organised files in your computer to ensure that nothing gets lost forever due to accidental or deliberate threats back up all your pictures, music, documents onto an external hard drive or on cloud storage. This is great so in the unfortunate event that your whole computer is wiped, it is not so hard to rebuild. It is best to do this every month or so, depending on how frequently you add more or update content. 

7. Final Throw Out 
If your computer hasn't already asked your during this process, please empty your recycling bin and throw away your unwanted files forever. 

Hopefully this was helpful, maybe motivated you to do more work on your computer and maybe even improve the performance of your computer in processing as you have removed unnecessary files. 


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