Observed on the second Monday in February, the 14th this year, National Clean Out Your Computer Day promotes taking time out of your day to do some basic housekeeping on your computer.

Use things like thumb drives to safely store those precious photographs. I encourage you to also create a rescue drive on a separate thumb drive. This will allow you to fix and reinstall windows if something goes wrong.

We all say I won’t need this…. Let me tell you a story. We bought a new PC for my husbands office. His had just gotten to old to handle the new things out there. So Windows 10 Pro came pre-installed. Everything worked great until it didn’t. We could not authenticate our windows software. It came with the code for it but, Microsoft would not accept it.

After a really long period of working with tech support, it turns out Windows was installed wrong and was missing key setup files. I asked for the didk to reinstall windows and of course, no one does that anymore. So I had to use my laptop and download a rescue disk to USB thumb drive.

Happily, once I reinstalled everything it all works great. Even though it was a product I just bought, the company made a mistake on just that one item. I was given the option to ship my new PC off somewhere so they could fix it, but as I said it’s a new computer. So that rescue is now labeled and put up in case it’s needed in the future.

This is why I advise having backups and keeping things like photos, documents, music and movie collections in a safe back up. Do it often to make sure your important data can be accessed.

All computers need regular organizing and clean up. This includes the removal of old files and clutter. We tend to save emails, documents, and photos on our hard drive when other media can store it for us. Often, we keep duplicates we don’t need, too. Old programs also create havoc, too. Makes sure you are using the latest versions of programs and operating systems, too. 

Over time, files and programs that are unused on your PC clog the memory and cause confusion during retrieval and use of other data. They may also slow down your computer. 

Explore More….

• Cyber Security Day
• Data Privacy Day
• Free and Open Source Software Month
• Clean Your Virtual Desktop Day
• National WebMistress Day
• National Techies Day
• Day of the Programmer
• Computer Security Day
• National Clean Out Your Computer Day
• Computer Security Day
• National Flash Drive Day
• World Password Day
• National IT Professionals Day

NATIONAL CLEAN OUT YOUR COMPUTER DAY HISTORY

In 2000, the Institute for Business Technology first promoted National Clean Out Your Computer Day.

HOW TO OBSERVE #CleanOutYourComputerDay

Take a look at your files and programs on your computers. If you work in an office, encourage your peers to do the same. Share tips and tricks to efficient computer clean up. 

• Organize your files and folders.
• Review your emails and delete any that are no longer needed.
• Delete junk files.
• Remove duplicate files.
• Delete old files and programs not being used.
• Update the programs you do use.

Use #CleanOutYourComputerDay to post on social media.

These Cream Cheese Brownies will reward you for your hard work.