New Year's resolutions are all about self-improvement. People want to exercise more, eat healthier, learn a new hobby, and spend less money. But what about your digital life? We spend so much of our time connected to devices, yet we do little to streamline our tech lifestyle.
Here are ten tech resolutions for the new year.
1. Organize Your Computer Desktop
Attempting to work with a cluttered computer desktop is like attempting to work on a messy desk—it's unproductive and distracting. You can't find anything quickly, and the amount of "stuff" in the background gets overwhelming.
If your desktop is littered with app icons, program shortcuts, Word documents, and picture files, it's time to do a desktop purge. You can work toward complete minimalism and hide all desktop icons, or you can use a labeled sorting bin system.
2. Use a Password Manager
You should never use the same, easy-to-guess password for all your websites, especially in 2017. Tech experts recommend you create unique passwords for every site—passwords that use a long, complicated mix of numbers, symbols, and both lowercase and uppercase letters. It would be impossible to remember different passwords for every site you use, so you should also consider using a password manager to generate, store, and update passwords.
3. Back Up Your Data Multiple Ways
Our devices contain irreplaceable data, from vacation photos to work files. Although data loss is a widespread issue, far too many users still ignore backup maintenance. Follow the 3-2-1 rule when performing a backup: back up three copies of your data in two different formats with one copy off-site (like in Cloud storage). This practice ensures your data will be protected from any kind of accident or computer malfunction, from a hard drive crash to a house fire.
4. Buy a Digital Assistant
Artificial intelligence-powered smart units have become a must-have tech item—Amazon's Echo sold out before Christmas. Other AI-enabled, voice-controlled gadgets such as Google Home Controller and Samsung SmartThings are also being praised for their functional roles in a connected home. These smart hubs respond to voice commands and perform various tasks like playing music, checking weather, sharing news briefs, creating lists, ordering items online, and controlling other smart home features. And because the devices are connected to the internet, the manufacturers are constantly updating the AI skills. In an era where our lives are connected to our devices, AI gadgets are a helpful way to streamline tasks.
5. Beef Up Smart Home Security
In addition to making your home smarter, you can also make it safer. With more homeowners taking security into their own hands, home security systems have become increasingly accessible. Start off small with a standalone security camera, or invest in full-fledged professional monitoring to protect your home.
If you want to go all-in with your home tech, the top security companies offer additional perks like doorbell-activated cameras and the ability to pair security systems with smart home hubs such as the Amazon Echo and Samsung SmartThings.
6. Clear Out Your Inbox
You're likely dealing with inbox overload—an email account so bloated you're wasting your time sifting through old emails and missing the new ones. Take part in the Inbox Zero trend: your inbox becomes a to-do list that you take care of as soon as you get a new email, from paying your electric bill to responding to your mom's request for a picture. Then, once you have taken care of the email, delete it.
If email subscriptions are crowding your inbox, Unroll.Me is a convenient layer to add to your email server. The free service syncs to your inbox and all your subscriptions. Rather than making you click on each subscription individually to be redirected to the company's unsubscribe page, Unroll.Me does the work for you with an easy unsubscribe button.
7. Take a Break from Your Devices
The average American spends hours a day on electronics. Long sedentary periods make our muscles weak, tight, and imbalanced, and that much screen time is bad for our eyes, too—65% of Americans experience digital eye strain, like blurred vision, headaches, and neck or back pain.
Though this issue is common in an office space, even at home, it can be easy to fall into the smart device black hole where you sit on the couch and scroll through your phone or tablet for hours. Make sure you take a break every hour or two to get up and walk around. You can also use a browser extension to remind you to glance away from your screen regularly.
8. Disinfect Your Gadgets
The dirtiest item in your home isn't your toilet or kitchen sink—it's your most-used tech device. Consider these disgusting details: keyboards are 20,000 times dirtier than a toilet seat, and 16% of cellphones have fecal matter on them.
Although some old-fashioned bleach would surely kill off any lingering bacteria, your expensive electronics require gentle handling. You want to clean your tech gadgets regularly with a damp cloth and soap. If you'd like more disinfecting power, wipe it down with a cotton ball and some isopropyl alcohol. You can also buy specialized electronic cleaning cloths, contact spray, or ultraviolet light cleaners.
9. Add Tech to Your Car
Unless you're rolling around in a brand new, high-tech car, your car is lacking some features that would make driving more comfortable.
• Cellphone mount. Mounts that attach to your windshield or dashboard to hold your phone make driving with a device truly hands-free. California recently passed a law that makes it illegal to use a phone in the car if the phone isn't attached to a mount. More states are expected to follow suit.
• Bluetooth stereo. Bluetooth capability is a highlight when you're driving, and it's a feature you'll never want to give up once you experience it. Buy a set of Bluetooth speakers for your car. Your phone syncs wirelessly to the stereo so you can speak to callers, operate music, and scan traffic conditions.
10. Clean Up Your Google Search Results
Are you guilty of Googling your name? Then you've likely seen some embarrassing or unflattering results. Though you can't make your entire web presence disappear, there are steps you can take to clean up your Google search results and create a better public image.
1. Delete old social media posts. When your name is searched, Google will retrieve all the profile images set to your social media accounts, even if you have them set to private. It will also pull photos and posts from accounts you never deactivated, like an old Tumblr page or blog. You can easily log in to these sites and delete them or at least change the privacy setting so your photos and posts won't pop up in a Google search feed.
2. Opt out of sharing your info with data brokers. Data brokers—sites like Whitepages, PeopleSmart, and Intelius—use public records and personal information you put on social media accounts to create an online profile for you. This information can then be accessed by anyone for free or a paid fee. There are opt-out forms you can fill out for major data brokers to remove your private info.
3. Remove outdated search data. Though old info may be deleted off a website—your listing on a past employer's web page, your comments on a now-defunct blog, childish pictures on a decade-old college site—it may still show up in search results via a page description or cached results. If you want to get rid of it permanently, you can send a removal request to Google.
Use these tips to improve your tech life in 2017. What are your tech resolutions for the new year? Any techie goals you're hoping to master? pe