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It’s the last day in the month. There are plenty of activities to do. You need to reconcile the checkbook with the bank statement. It’s time to pay for the rent and mortgage. You also need to mow the lawn each month. If your computer is important equipment in your job you need to provide spare time to clean it up.

Just do the following tips to make your work stays productive next month:

1. Vacuum the desktop. As you installed new softwares, new icons are appearing on your desktop and some people tend to put copied files from USB flash drive to the desktop. Create a special folder in desktop to put all your important icons and files in it. A clean desktop will make your computer start faster and it feels good when you see a clean desktop each morning.
2. Manage your finished project data. If your job is a project-oriented type, there should be a few completed projects this month. Make sure you have archived the completed projects based on project name, month and year in special folders. It is likely that you can re-use some old project files like spreadsheet files for current project, which will enhance your productivity.
3. Get rid of spyware. Spyware — is a little naughty spy who reports your activities and even perhaps send secret information like your passwords to someone else – it is a scourge in internet realm. Spyware is first created by evil marketers who want to track your activities and preferences. So if you search a lot of sites on golfing, they would send you junk emails on golf clubs offers. Download free version of ad-aware from Lavasoft, it’s the best free spyware killer available. Don’t forget to update it, when you want to use it again next month.
4. Check the startup files: This is actually only for advanced user. When you installed new software, sometimes they start small utilities every time the computer is turned on, many are useless and will slow down your computer. For example programs that you rarely use like Nero CD/DVD burning software start a process called NeroCheck that can safely be disabled. If you are not sure, you can ask the IT staff to check your startup files. But if you are curious to see them go to Start>Run, then type msconfig , and then choose the Startup tab.
5. Hard drive defragmenting. As you create, copy, move and delete files, these files would be spread all over the hard drive space. Your important files can be cut into 5 fragments or more and spread randomly all over your hard drive. This is called as discombobulated data. (that’s not a health term — that’s a valid computer term, trust me). With this kind of mess, it would take more time for your computer to play puzzle in arranging the files you wand to load. With defragmentation, not only your computer will become faster, in a event of hard drive failure it would be easier to recover files that are neatly stored after defragmentation. So, when it’s time for lunch, close all applications, go to Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter. But if you have large hard drives with a lot of files in it, defragment it before you go home, turn off the monitor and let your PC turned on. It’s worth it.

Now it’s time to take your paycheck and you have a tidier computer. Feeling great already?