As tinges of orange & brown appear on the trees, the nights are drawing in & there is a distinct chill in the evening air; Autumn is most definitely on it’s way.

This time of year is when we prepare for the winter months of shorter daylight hours & with it our business practices can need reviewing in preparation for the next year ahead.

Our digital world is a vastly controlling force in our lives & our businesses. Therefore, how any times a day do you think the average adult checks their digital devices? 20? 30 times a day? On average & dependant on which report you read, the average working adult checks their devices between 80 – 100 times a day, & in one report it was indicated we can ‘touch’ our devices up to 10,000 times a day! How on earth do we find the time in our busy lives to do this & what exactly are we checking?

Social media plays a huge part in a lot of people’s lives & many find they cannot turn away when their phone makes the tell-tale ‘Ping!’ & feel compelled to check. When did we become so reliant on the information held literally in our hands & why does it often times control us? The barrage of information we receive on a daily basis is overwhelming.

When you look back to when the ‘information superhighway’ was launched in the early 1990’s, the amount of information available was limited & limiting.

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn & Twitter these were still science fiction, pipe dreams for young programmers. Only in the last decade have we seen a vast difference in the way we socially connect & this change has filtered through to how the employment sector functions too.

Skype, email, face-time, Tweets, Instagram posts, Facebook & LinkedIn connections, these are all platforms which are commonly used by individuals & business owners alike to promote & inform. With this immense amount of data being processed, there has to be a by product & this is where we come unstuck. Downloads, emails, documents all need to be stored somewhere. Whether on a hard drive or the cloud, we create a digital footprint every time we share information & for businesses particularly, keeping this logged, tracked & tidy, is a constant battle.

With this in mind, how can Virtually Smart Ltd help you remove, reclaim & restore your data?

Where is your data stored?

Do you store your data on a hard drive? Cloud? or is it clogging up the memory of your laptop/palm pad? If you find you spend several minutes at a time trying to locate a file, but cannot remember which storage facility you filed that all too important document/invoice/quote under, you probably need some help getting organised.

The first action point here would be to limit the places you store data. If you can allocate one area which is easily accessible at all times, you will find you are locating documents with ease. Thousands of hours a year are wasted by employees & employers alike, trawling through unnamed folders on various platforms. If you are able, create one focal point & if you have several employees, give them read only access to vital data.

Are all your files in one folder?

Efficient working means being able to locate information immediately. Creating separate folders for documents or data, means you can gain access with the minimum of time wasted. In addition, carefully named folders mean you can search quickly & efficiently for the information you need.

Downloads. Are you storing unnecessary data?

Every time you download something, it leaves a trail. Unless you set up a system for these to be deleted once read, it will continue to clog up your ‘Downloads’ folder. Once you have downloaded a document or piece of information, if you need to keep it, file it immediately & delete the trail from your device. This applies to mobile phones, as well as laptops, etc.

Do you have a mailbox for your company bulging at the seams with spam & unwanted junk mail?

When you set up your business, blog, advice page you thought having a mail box connected would be a great way for you to filter & gather information. Little did you know, that the dreaded ‘spam’ & ‘junk mail’ would find it’s way past your mail providers filters & sneak into your inbox. Virtually Smart Ltd offer as part of their Office Rescue packages, inbox monitoring, filtering & filing to keep your information easily accessible, clear of clutter & create a more effective working environment for you.

Tidy inbox, tidy mind.

Having a tidy device can help remove some of the toxic input we can all assimilate through the bombardment of information we receive every day. While you are at work, you really shouldn’t be checking your phone as not only are you being paid to work, it is a natural distraction.

However, if your device is an intrinsic part of your occupation, try & set yourself some boundaries to only check it once every two hours perhaps & then limit yourself to what has to be actioned in the now & asterisk or star what can wait until later.

Give your mind & soul a break & try to reconnect beyond the screen. Take a breath of fresh air now & then, look out the window & allow yourself to reboot, not just your laptop.