Compliments of jacob.fricke via Flickr

“Many companies teeter on the edge of an information management disaster because hundreds of personal computers have been organized by individuals who weren’t taught to organize their computer any better than they were taught how to organize their filing system” (Hemphill, 1996, p. 139).

The performance and efficiency of your most valuable partner (e.g., your office computer) can be severely comprised if it contains unused programs and files that are fragmented. The computer desktop itself can become cluttered if you allow unused program “shortcuts” to litter its visible surface [an icon is a “shortcut” if it is marked with a small arrow in the bottom left corner]. To double check, hover over the icon with your mouse, right click, and choose properties. Dragging unused shortcuts to the recycle bin provides a cleaner space and a better representation of the programs that you use on a continual basis. One shortcut that I find particularly useful is MSWord. To create this shortcut, locate MSWord underneath “Programs;” upon right-clicking choose “Send to Desktop” from the menu. Turn the page…