As the new year edges closer and closer, many people are looking to organize their lives so they can enter the new calendar year with a fresh start. It’s a time for evaluating things we’ve done and preparing our plans for a new beginning. Things here at techsytalk are no different – we’re doing a lot of planning and organizing. And, as I go through my annual routines, I thought it might be fun to share some of the techsy things I do to prepare for the new year. Here are just a few things that will help you feel like you’re ready to conquer the world!

UnRoll.Me
With just a click of a button, you can unsubscribe to any newsletters you’ve accumulated over the year. If you’re like me, you end up getting a ton of junk mail and one thing that will make you much more productive is to limit the number of email blasts you get. I suggest taking the more manual approach here. Rather than just unsubscribing from everything, sort out the emails you actually enjoy reading and find value from. If you automatically click DELETE each time you see the sender in the inbox, just remove yourself to save the hassle of ever hitting that button.

Clean Out Your Inbox
I try, try, try to keep an organized inbox. And while this gets harder as our business grows, I use my inbox like a to-do list. If I’ve already responded to an email or taken the action needed, it gets archived or filed in a folder. That way, there’s nothing in my inbox that is unnecessary. The ultimate goal is to get that inbox down to zero on a regular basis and while I may only hit zero a few times a year, I can consistently stay under 100. This downtime before the new year is the perfect opportunity to go through and organize your inbox. Archive anything you don’t immediately need. Respond to as much as you can and do what you can to enter the new year with an empty (and organized!) inbox.

BackUp!
Now this is something we should be doing on a regular basis, but since I know many of us get caught up in life and forget to take this all-important step. As you’re wrapping up your finances and projects for the year, it’s important to back up your work. I use two back up drives – something like this Seagate 2TB drive. They’re compact and easy to use. Organize all your files, back them up to not one, but TWO, hard drives so you have a back up of a backup. Also, because I’m obsessive about how fast my computer works, I delete files that I don’t need on a regular basis from my hard drives once they are backed up. If you have two copies, you should be safe to remove them from your laptop or desktop and create more hard drive space for your computer.

What else do you do to prepare for the new year?