3.8 percent.
Let me repeat that.
3.8 percent.
That is the current amount of free space available on my 500 GB hard drive right now. It’s so bad I’m almost ashamed to admit it.
Photoshop is running mind-blowingly slow and randomly throwing out program errors at me. My photos are in a state of disarray. Forget about running more than a few programs at a time. I’ll be here all day watching the spinning beach ball of doom go round and round and round.
My poor compy is fat and bloated and in need of some major slimming and trimming.
Which can only mean one thing…
It’s time for the 2nd Annual Great Computer Spring Clean-a-thon!
If you were around at the end of March last year, the Great Computer Spring Clean-a-thon is my week long celebration devoted to whipping my computer back into tip-top shape. A spring cleaning for the technology world if you will and of course you’re invited to play along!
Starting today, Monday, March 19th and going until Monday, March 26th, my blog will be all organizing, all the time. This year I’m taking things even bigger than last, so in addition to sharing updates of my organizing progress through out the week, there will also be a daily post here on the blog devoted to organizing your computer. Some of the topics on the agenda: finding your organizing style, Aperture vs Lightroom, how to back up all your hard work, and more.
My Spring Clean-a-thon Goals for the 2012
So what are my goals for the week?
Here are my Computer Spring Clean-a-thon goals:
1) Clean out my Downloads, Documents and Current Projects folders. I set these up last year and have mostly kept them updated so they should only need a little work.
2) Reorganize my NettioDesigns folder. This folder is a hot mess right now. And not in a template-y goodness kind of way.
3) Get started organizing my photos in Aperture. This is a major major task and definitely not one I will complete this week but I am going to get started on it and see what I can get done. Started is better than nothing, right?
Join in the Fun!
So how can you play along? It’s easy! All you have to do is share your goal for the Great Computer Spring Clean-a-thon in the comments section of this blog post. It can be as small as clearing out your Downloads folder or email inbox or as big as organizing your scrap supplies. The only rule is it has to be computer related – this ain’t no ordinary spring cleaning week!
If you’re seeing this post after Monday, March 19th, feel free to jump in at any time but remember you only have until Monday, March 26th to complete your task so be sure to keep that in mind!
At the end of the week next Monday, March 26th, there will be another post where you will be able to share your final result. There may even be some prizes involved! Of course if you want to keep us updated on your progress during the week, feel free to post updates to the NettioDesigns Facebook Page or use the hashtag #cleanathon on Twitter.
Ok, ready to whip those digital scrapbooking machines into shape? Let’s do this!
I am looking at my hard drive right now and thinking – I need to play along! But something tells me I won’t, because until Monday next week wouldn’t be enough time! haha 🙂
You can always do something small! Starting is better than nothing. 🙂
You’re right. I should start somewhere. I’ll give you an update when I do 🙂
Woohoo, looking forward to it!
I’m in – my goals are to clean my email inbox, backup my current projects, restart my organizing rhythm for my photos and digi supplies, and update my blog with my progress!
http://createdbyheather.blogspot.com/2012/03/spring-cleaningtechy-style.html
Thanks for the push!
Woohoo, those are some great goals! Love the idea of getting into an organizing rhythm, I could definitely use some better organizing habits for sure!
I’M ALL IN – This is something I really need to do!!! I am going to start by organizing my 2011 photos! What A MESS!
Woohoo, so excited to have you on board Anna!
I’m joining! I wish I had time to do my pictures…but I have to start packing this week. So, I’m going to clean out my downloads folder, re-do my “unused digi products” folder and run a back up. That’s actually still a decent amount of work. I need to go and get to work! 🙂
Pictures or packing, hmm tough choice there, LOL! Those are some great goals though!
Woohooo! I’m totally in!! I’ve already started by backing up some files so I was able to delete about an extra 50GB from my laptop harddrive! Goals for this week would be to organize new scrapping supplies (not that much) and ready some 2000+ layouts to be print-ready (AK!). For the latter, I’d like to at least put a significant dent…maybe 100 layouts? LOL It’ll be my first time to batch-process, so part of this is learning how to do it!
Ooo, 50GB that’s amazing! I was hoping I would discover something like that but I realized I did that all last year so all that’s really left is to tackle the photos, haha. 2000 layouts though, yikes! The batch tool will definitely be your friend!
Oh! I completely forgot to mention that I’d like to do my yearly purge of scrapping supplies as well! Time to (gulp) be merciless!
I need to do this as well. I’m not sure I’m up to the task just yet 🙂
I think my main goal this time around will be to finish up putting keywords on my photos in iPhoto. I have a really good system there, and most of them are done, but I have a few batches of photos that never got tagged, and I need to get to them so that I’ll be all organized and ready to switch to Aperture. 🙂 Maybe if I can get it all done, I’ll be able to convince hubby that it’s time to make the Aperture purchase. 🙂 Thanks for the kick in the pants, Lynnette!
Ooo good goal! My big goal is to tackle my photos this week and I’m definitely hoping I can get to at least starting the key wording phase. Kind of daunting given the number of photos I have but I know it’ll be so worth it!
I’m joining in!!
My goal is to get all of my digi-scrap folders organized in the same way. It has been bugging me recently that I don’t have a succinct system in place. I’m going to decide on a system that works for me and implement it for all folders. Hopefully I’ll do some purging as I work as well.
Thanks for the inspiration!!
Ooo yes, I did that at one point and I love having them all the same now. Makes it so much easier!
I’ve been thinking about this since you posted a teaser last week! Mine is such a mess I’m not even scrapping!
My goals:
*Clean out gmail (thanks for the idea Heather K!)
*back up, back up, back up!
*Devise a system for scrapped layouts that have not been printed, and do it!
*Start using lightroom to organize and journal on photos, get the whole family involved!
Woohoo, great goals! My gmail always needs cleaning out but well, I’m avoiding it, haha.
I’m in! I need to clean out my gmail. Currently it’s at 78% full! My goal is to bring it down to 50%! I also need to purge out bad photos that I haven’t deleted. It’s also time for deleting 6 yrs old kits! Thanks for inspiration! I’ll be looking forward to your post on Aperture. I’m on the fence about buying it.
Oh wow, that’s pretty full! And yes, delete those 6 yr old kits – the designers would probably WANT you to! LOL!
I’ve deleted over 15000 emails and that gave me 3% more room! lol More than half of them were from Flylady! lol I have her emails filters in its own folder.. out of sight, out of mind.. but still taking up the space! I guess it’s time to delete all DST related emails! 😉
Deleted some old kits last night! Only kept some good alphas and few good papers. Bought Aperture last night. I’m ready to start organizing my photos with it. But not sure where to start!
Woohoo, way to go! Although LOL about them being from Flylady. I only get the daily digest now because she’s crazy with those emails! Ooo and yay, for buying Aperture! We can organize our photos in it together, haha.
I want to organize my 2011 pics to scrap so I can see what I have left…which also means organize my 2011 layouts…and I should probably back up too! I am in!
Woohoo, those are some great goals Sarah!
Great idea Lynette, I need this push in the back! I’m pretty consistent at organizing and tagging my scrapbookstuff but I desperately need to purge in my photos folder and, ideally, tag them as well.
My goals:
* clean out my inbox and Downloads folder
* delete bad, blurred, duplicate photos and ditch the many NEF files I’ve been holding on to.
* get started with tagging my photos
Yeah my computer is overflowing with RAW files, it’s bad, haha. It’s just so much easier for me to delete scrap stuff than photos!
Oh yikes, this week came far too soon. My goals this year are all in preparation of our big PCS that is upcoming:
1. Get all of the Italy photos tagged, sorted, and into their photobook.
2. PRINT all of my Italy layouts, even if I hate them at this point, because a printed hated layout is better than no layout.
3. Organize all the GA photos and get at least the first year uploaded for their photobook.
4. Purge 15 GB from my scrap folder. It’s there somewhere, I just have to find it.
5. BACKUP. Start my online backup by the end of the week, so I can stop being paranoid about toting my EHD everywhere with me.
That’s doable, right?
LOL, I would love to say that’s doable but I think I’m going to go with “lofty” haha. But better to aim high than not to aim at all? I had wanted to get something done with all our Korea photos before our last PCS but uh, that didn’t happen, haha. Maybe before our next one? LOL!
Honestly, I’ll be happy if I can at least get all the Italy photos tagged. I did the first year of four last night, and half the battle was having to add the keywords. now that they are in there, it should go faster.
I’ve been meaning to clean out my laptop too! Keeping my fingers crossed I can do it all in a week! 😀
You can do it!
I am so ready for this! I just redid my whole desktop, so now I need to organize everything right to begin with. I want to learn to organize my photos in Lightroom, and then clean out my scrap supplies. 🙂 I just dumped a bunch of TIFF files that I have been saving for “just in case” of my completed scrap pages, but decided they were taking up way too much space, sooo… I want to keep clearing out the unnecessary files! We can do this right?!?
We can so do this…one click of the delete button at a time, haha.
Uh, totally need to. Totally should have months ago. Totally feel Pinterest and Twitter sounds like the perfect way to procrastinate! LOL!
I’ll follow along with your posts, maybe I will be inspired enough to actually get off the couch myself. 🙂
LOL, you should jump in! Maybe commit to 5 minutes a day? That’s not so bad, right? I find organizing is the same as exercising for me. SO hard to get motivated to start but it’s never as bad as I think and I usually am happy I did it afterward.
Ok, so about a month later, I can proudly say that I purged my digi stash and backed the whole computer up to two different EHDs. LOL, a week was totally not realistic for me. But hey, thanks for the kick in the butt! 🙂
Ooo yay, that’s awesome! Way to go! And yeah, I never figure a week is reasonable but it’s a good jumping off point!
My goal will be to make a folder image for every folder on my Mac. yay for img2icns to help me do that! Of course along the way I’ll probably delete some stuff, but for right now I’m most interested in easily seeing what is in each folder!
Ooo good goal Julie! And yes, since learning about img2icns, it’s made that process so much faster for me! I have all my folders done and it is SO worth it to be able to see everything!
I would love to do as much as you do Lynette – but i feel i may only get my desktop cleaned up……my DH keeps dumping stuff there and i can’t see my gorgeous backgrounds…..waaahhh!
I know a desktop cleanup is achievable! Good luck with your cleanup – hope your computer is cheering and running smoothly and fast for you! xx kel
Hey now, no reason to feel bad, that’s a great goal! I to have ended up with my desktop covered in files and it tends to drive me a little crazy so I feel your pain. Although usually I just group everything into a new folder so it’s all pretty again. It’s like the digital version of hiding things under your bed, haha.
I sooooo need this again this year! I’m actually away from home this week because my sister just got married. In preparation, I’ve been working on a cd of pictures to bring my mom, who has been wanting more pictures from us than I’ve been blogging. It took me two months to sort through things to hopefully not give her too many. Yeah, just over a year of sorted out and converted to jpg photos was still over 6 gigs.
See, I’m both enjoying learning photography as well as a moments memory keeper, so I have a lot of pictures of small things my kids do. This project has greatly inspired my initial purge of pictures. I really need to take the time to find my photo flow, so that I can keep my poor mother more updated within my kids.
So, even though I will probably only have Monday to work on this, I think my goal will be to move all of our video files out of my photos folder. Now that I can shoot HD they are ridiculous, and make my photos folder seem more bloated than it actually is. Beyond that, I also want to go through my desktop folders and download folder to clear them up. I have so much to do with my photos and digi scrap folders, but I hope to have things in a better place by the end of April.
Thanks for the inspiration! Maybe while I’ve just got email I can work on clearing that out.
Oh yes, I feel your pain about organizing photos for family! I’m terrible about sending them stuff, mostly because I feel bad about sending so many but I don’t always have time to go through them all. And yes, video is a total space hog. Those are some great goals though!
What a great challenge. I plan to finish moving all my digital supplies to my EHD, Backup all pictures to EHD, and do a computer backup. I can do this!
Awesome! Backing everything up is a great goal!
I am in. I just deleted a bunch of stuff, but I would like to get all of the ribbons, buttons, and flowers in my kits tagged and organized.
Woohoo, so excited to have you join in Corey!
I just found this and am going to join in anyway. Better late than never. I recently added my EHD to Carbonite and so I am going to unzip all of the files that I have just put into the correct folder and left unopened. I am determined to use my EHD for all of my graphic storage and when it is completely backed-up to start getting stuff off of my “C” drive so that it will work more smoothly. I hope to be able to complete this task by the end of the time allowed.
So excited you’re joining in Ami and no worries, you are absolutely right on time! Those are some great goals!
THANKS so much for this! I’ve backed up my old EHD and a new one (the old one is about to go kaput and so to be proactive I copied everything to the new one). I’ve deleted 32GB of photos, kits that don’t suit my style anymore and other documents. Now I’m trying to tag photos for 15 min/day (LOM) for the week and further organize my digi stash. 🙂
Woohoo, way to go! *virtual high-five*
It’s Wednesday and I am only catching up with Monday emails now. But no more lamenting I am going to start on purging some of my “just because photos” which actually have no meaning. Also backup computer files.
Sounds like a good plan! Those just because photos can sneakily take up a lot of space! I know that all too well…haha
Just saw this via Stacy Julian’s FB page & I love/need this!! My Gmail is ridiculous so I’m going to tackle that first. I will also get all my pics from last fall-present organized. Thanks for the inspiration to tackle this stuff!!
Ooo Gmail is a tough one. Right now mine is in pretty good shape but there have been times when it’s been bad, bad, bad. So glad you stopped by this little site of mine! 🙂