Spring Cleaning

It’s time for some Spring (computer) cleaning. I’m a big fan of an organized computer– mostly because I am on my computer for the majority of my day. I’m sure most of you reading this also spend a good portion of your waking hours on your computer, which is why I recommend you take a few minutes to get some things in place. Trust me, you’ll feel better.

Start with the Dock. You may have already done this, but I recommend customizing it to your own needs. Remove programs that you don’t use often. To do this, right-click(or ctrl-click) on the program and click “Remove from Dock.” And, why not save programs to the dock that you do use often? To do this, when you have the program open, right-click on it in your dock and select “keep in dock”.

Next, go to your desktop. Do you have all kinds of files saved to it? If it is a file that you aren’t going to be using for very long, okay, leave it there and just delete it when you are done. But, if it is something you are keeping on your computer long-term, file it away. Applications go into the Applications folder, Pictures into the Picture folder, etc. Now that you can see your desktop, change the picture to something that you will enjoy looking at. You can make it something personal, or you can search the internet to find an inspiring picture. To change the Desktop background, go into your system preferences, and select Desktop and Screensaver.

Now that you have the most basic things cleaned up, move on to the folders. You can start with the “Documents” folder. You probably don’t need to do a lot if you only have a few files, but I like to create folders for larger projects or even for specific people for whom I have lot of files. Right now, if you peek into my documents folder, there are pretty basic folders like “Personal”, “Work”, “School”, “Wedding”. If you open up the work folder, there are folders for specific clients and projects. This is pretty basic, but it will help you locate files in the future and it is also great if you are running low on space, because you can quickly identify things you don’t need anymore.

Now, go into your downloads folder. This is under your username on the left side, and then click “downloads.” This is where things automatically go when you download them from the internet. If you are like me, you have all sorts of stuff in here, some of which you have no idea what it is. This is a great place to get rid of some files. And you also sometimes find some gems that you forgot about– cute pictures or useful files. Another folder that can get filled with files you forget about it is the “Mail Downloads” folder. To find this folder, go to your username again, and then click on “Library”.

The last thing that I recommend is opening up your favorite browser and organizing your bookmarks. In Firefox, you go up to the top and click “Bookmarks” and “Organize Bookmarks” and in Safari, under “Bookmarks” and “Show All Bookmarks”. For things that I use several times daily, I create folders which show up in the toolbar. Some of these folders are “Work”, “News”, “Banking”, etc. And I put folders I don’t use so often under the Bookmarks Menu– “recipes”, “games”, etc.

There is a lot more organizational things that you can do, especially within specific applications, like in Mail, but that could be a whole article in itself! Happy Spring Cleaning!

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