✅ Your Year-End Tech Checklist: 6 Simple Things to Do Before January

Frank Bravo 0:08
Hi, I'm Frank Bravo, and welcome to your Tech Makeover, the podcast that gives you tips and tricks to help you simplify and get more out of the technology in your life. Today, we're talking about things you should do at the end of the year. The end of the year is a great time to look at all your tech in your life, and make sure you're on a path to get the most out of it for the new year. When I look at my own technology, there are six things that I do to make sure that they're in order. As the calendar changes from one year to the next. Some of these things are pretty simple and others require a little planning, but they're all good. End of your maintenance, and now's a great time to think about that. The first thing that I would suggest you do is you look at your backups. You've heard me say it time and time again. There's nothing worse than losing all your data. So make sure your backup plan is sound. A good backup solution is three, two, one. That's three copies of your data on two different storage medias, like hard drives or DVDs. And one of those not being in the same place where you are. So what does that really mean? If you're making a backup both locally and in a cloud, you're pretty safe. There's three copies of your file the original, the backup, and your cloud version. If you want to know more about backing up your data, look for a podcast episode on that. I did one a little while back. I go into way more depth about what makes a good backup. Additionally, if you're not backing up your phone or tablet, now's a great time to start. It's usually easy to do, and for most backup solutions, it's a set it and forget it. That's true both from the phone and from your computer. This way you know that you're always protected. Next, you should look at your software and make sure that it's up to date. It's a pain to keep all your devices up to date, but it's so important to do so and now is a great time to check on that. Doing software updates allow companies to provide the software and make sure that you have all your bugs and all the malware that it knows is out there, fixed up for your programs. This goes for both operating systems like your Mac or Windows OS, as well as software that you run on your machine. That might be your browsers even. You do need to be careful, though, that any update doesn't cause a conflict with other software on your devices, so you may just want to double check before you hit that update button. Making a backup of my financial data is another thing that I do. At the end of the year, beyond making sure I have a good backup, I always take a snapshot of the files in my financial software at the end of the year. This way, if something happens with the data, I can always go back to that from the previous breakpoint at the end of the year. Most programs, including quick in QuickBooks and Money Dance, all have ways within the software to create that snapshot that you can then archive someplace else to be safe. Another task I recommend is organizing your email. For most people, this means going through your email inbox and deleting any email messages that you don't need anymore, or the very least, moving them out of the inbox and into folders. Since I strive to be a zero inbox person, for me this means making sure that my folder structure is sound and it makes sense. I delete folders that I don't need anymore and reorganize them so that it's easy to find what I'm looking for. I have a whole episode dedicated into how I keep my inbox empty, so if you're interested, you should look in the podcast and find that one and check it out. Some things I try to do all the time, but take extra care at the end of the year, is organizing my computer files along the same lines as your email. The end of the year is a great time to organize your digital files. This may mean filing or removing files from your computer's desktop, deleting files from your documents folder, going through your downloads folder, and getting rid of things you don't need there, or even doing something as simple as emptying the trash or recycling bin on the computer. Yeah, that's actually a thing. You'd be amazed at how many people don't know that. For me, since I use Dropbox, Google Drive, box, iCloud drive, and I have my own local file storage system, I house all sorts of personal client and data files on these things, and it's a great time to make sure that I have the right files in the correct places. This also includes archiving files that I may not need anymore, as well as moving off files that I'm not going to need in the new year, or at least not anytime soon. Finally, you may want to look at cleaning up your contacts. Way too many people have one set of contacts on their phones, another set on their computer, and if they're using like a web based program like Gmail, they may have a whole different set in their email contacts. Nothing is worse than trying to attempt to contact someone and not be able to find the right number or email address. There are ways to sync these contacts across all the different systems I just described, and if you have all your contacts in one place, you'll have way easier time to keep things organized. If you haven't done this, it's worth time investing to do it. And if for no other reason to make sure your contacts are complete and backed up in one place. So that was six. Those are six things that I do at the end of every year to make sure that I'm prepared for the new year. But if you run a business, there's also one thing that I mentioned to those people, and that is to make sure the information that you have online about your business is correct. If you're a business of any size, it's a great time to make sure that your website is up to date, that the current information that you want to present is there. And for instance, like if you're referring to something as new on your website that has been there for months or years, obviously that doesn't look really good. It's also a really good time to make sure that your online listings like Google Places, Yelp, Next Door, Facebook Marketplace are all showing the right information. Do they have the right address? The times, the contact information? There are programs available to organize these listings for you as well, if you don't want to do them by yourself. But it's really easy just to kind of get a look and make sure that everything is up to date. In all honesty, you know, these are all things that you can do any time of year. But having a checklist at the end of the year is a great way to reinforce old habits, or to start new ones. So do you have a plan for your end of year and how do you follow it? Let me know what you're doing. And as always, if you have ideas or topics you'd like me to cover, please feel free to contact me via email to Frank at your Tech Make Overcome. That's it for now. Thanks for listening to your tech makeover. If you haven't already, make sure you follow the Facebook page at facebook.com Tech Makeover. That's where I'll break down this and other episodes. And before I go, I wanted to remind you to subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast platform so you don't miss an episode. You can also check out your tech makeover, or you can see more information about each episode. If you'd like to find out more about me, please visit Bravo! It's until next time, I'm Frank Bravo, and this has been your tech makeover.