Doing One Simple Thing On Your Computer Today Will Change Your Week

It's a little move that will take a bunch of stress away, and today is a good day to do it.  

It's not something I've ever celebrated and maybe you haven't either.  But I'm feelin' it today.

Today (October 21) is National Clean Your Virtual Desktop Day.  It sounds a little boring on the surface, but oh no.  Once our computer desktops are neat and tidy we'll feel like we're on a brand new machine and we'll wonder why we didn't do it sooner.

What should we do exactly?  We've all got a file that we copied to our Desktop in 2015 and we meant for it to be temporary at the time.  Well today is the day to get rid of it.

It gets overwhelming to think about too much maintenance, but if we can just pick one thing on this list our week will be less cluttered.

5 Ways to Clean Your Virtual Desktop Today, according to National Day Calendar

1.  Archive old files.  Looking at my Desktop right now, copies of my daughter's field trip permission slip from two years ago, and a picture of me with Foghat at the Red Dirt Music Fest a few years ago.  Essential parts of life, yes, but they're also things that have lived their purpose and would be better off hidden away in a folder elsewhere.

2.  Create short cuts. It helps the computer run faster and help us find the programs more quickly.

3.  Pin favorite apps to the start menu.  Again, it helps us find programs more quickly and gets them off the Desktop, and then we can actually see that summer vacation picture of the mountains.  Uncover the wallpaper.

4.  Name photos and put them on a thumb drive.  That Vanilla Ice pic will be happier with other images rather than on the Desktop all by itself.  It is right next to a snapshot of the program dial of my irrigation system that I must have emailed to a friend five years ago when I couldn't figure it out.  Maybe some of those Desktop pictures can be deleted.

5.  Delete unused icons. TeamViewer 11 is outdated, and that needs to move.  Some of the Intel apps that came pre-loaded on the machine that we've never clicked on can also go.

When we're done with our computers we can do some of these things on our phones too.  Because we're done with the Tinder and Bumble apps.

This whole thing is kind of like cleaning out the closet.  It takes a heap of motivation to get started, but once we're in the middle of it, it's strangely satisfying.  We're throwing out sock singletons and shoes with dog teeth marks on them after staring at them for weeks, and parting ways with shirts that we always thought we might wear but never will.  It's time to admit it.

Have a good purge.  It will feel good, especially when it's over.