4 Changes to Get Your PC to Work For You!
Your computer is a tool, plain and simple. At the end of the day your computer is there to serve you. However, this being said, there are very few people who have their computer working as well as it can be. Your computer should: organize your information for you, help you achieve tasks fast and help you be more productive in your work and personal life.
These 4 changes listed below will allow you to make your computer a more useful tool to you. Best of all they are free and anyone can do it.
1. Your desktop, homepage and taskbar: If you are using Windows 7 or above then there are likely some changes you should be making to your desktop. Your desktop should be organized and efficient. If you are one of the people who like to put all programs that you use on your desktop STOP THIS. I repeat STOP. Although it seems convenient to place many programs on your desktop to allow for fast access to them, it will actually slow down your productivity and make you disorganized.
Although this may seem very basic, consider the following. If you are taking an extra 5 seconds to find a program on your cluttered desktop every time you open a program, over a years time, if you open 10 000 programs (this is a conservative number) you have wasted 50 000 seconds = 833 minutes = over 12 hours! 12 hours of time can help you accomplish a lot.
Do yourself a favor; divide your programs over your taskbar and desktop. Right click your taskbar and pin your top 5 programs that you use most frequently to it. It is easier to locate them this way. Your desktop should only consist of a few files and programs that you use often, BUT, not as often as the ones on your taskbar. Although this tip may seem easy, it will save you time and make your PC usage more streamlined.
2. Shutting Down Your Computer: How obvious does this seem to you? Now, do you shut off your computer every night? If the answer is no, DO IT. Not only will this save electricity it will help to keep your computer running much faster by ensuring the RAM is constantly being cleared. Some new software allows for RAM to be cleared on demand which is useful, however, shutting down your computer allows it to cool down, refresh all connections properly and run smoothly.
Note: Make sure to reconfigure Windows Updates so in case they are set to automatically update late at night (your computer will now be off). Unless you are very on top off your computer function and ensure that it does not get bogged down with uncleared RAM, it is recommended to shut down your computer often.
3. Get A Good Browser: Although Internet Explorer is good for some people, such as business users and people who connect with others over IE exclusively, most users can benefit from the speed increase and great features that come from a new, updated browser. For information on which browser will help make your Internet experience 100% better check out my article on the
4. Take Advantage of The Search Function: If you ever spend more than 30 seconds looking for a picture, video, document, program or anything else on your system, you are wasting a huge amount of time. I won't show any crazy time wasting numbers here again, (you got the idea above ^). Searching using the tool in the start menu located at the bottom left of the start menu window (search programs and files) is a tool which will help you save time and make your computer do the legwork of finding files instead of you. Simply type a keyword in and watch Windows bring it back to you in seconds.
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