Q/A Friday: Spring Clean Your Digital Life

Q: The first quarter of 2012 is officially over and it's time for some spring cleaning! What are five things I must do to get my digital cleanse rolling?

Image via Frecuencia/SXC

A: Ah, spring! A time for tulips, sunshine, and yes- spring cleaning. FYI, these five tips are good during any season, and if you follow them every few months you'll reap the benefits all year long!

	1. Make sure your Plan B actually exists.  If you do not have a back-up solution in place, stop reading right this second and sign up with Carbonite. $59 will get you a year's worth of unlimited offsite backup for one computer, with pricing available for additional computers or to simultaneously backup to an external hard drive. Use code "LEO" (or click here) to get two free months courtesy of The Tech Guy, Leo Laporte. Hot tip! Carbonite comes with a host of handy mobile apps and a web interface, allowing access to your documents virtually anywhere.
	2. Purge your email. In theory, this is something we should do more than every couple months, but practically speaking, it doesn't always happen. Take the time to clean out your inbox at least every quarter to help you tie up any loose ends, remove unnecessary e-clutter, and destress yourself. Don't want to receive newsletters or promotional emails any more? Use that "unsubscribe" option or check out Unroll.Me. Hot tip! Take advantage of the tools in your email client to sweep emails to the trash bin or a folder easily. In Outlook, this could look like sorting by recipient. In Gmail, this could look like searching using the "From:" command. See a full list of advanced Gmail search functions here.
Image via jscreationzs	3. Categorize your social networks. You've probably collected some new friends or follows over the last few months. If you don't already make use of Facebook Friend Lists or Twitter Lists, this is an excellent time to start. Once these lists are in place, they are easy to maintain. Hot tip! These tools enable you to sort through the social media noise and quickly get to the people, pages, and tastemakers that matter most. Use them to connect with those closest to your, keep tabs on trends, and streamline social media in the unique way that pertains to you.
	4. Password protect. Sure, you have passwords for your banking website and social networks, but what happens if someone grabs your phone or laptop? To get instructions to set a password for your device, Google "set password [device]". Hot tip! Install and setup an app like Where's My Droid or Find My iPhone to help you recover a lost phone quickly.
	5. Detail your devices. Even though you work and play in the cloud, your physical devices can still use a little TLC. Arm yourself with canned air, lint-free cloths, screen cleaner and a little bit of elbow grease. If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty, I've heard great things about Cyber Clean Electronics Cleaning Putty.

BOTTOM LINE: There are a million things that you could do to streamline your digital life depending on the services and tools you use. Take on this list every three months and dedicate yourself to one additional project per month, like digitizing your paper documents or organizing your photos. Need some inspiration? Check out Geek Sugar's 31 Days of Spring Cleaning Board on Pinterest.