Tip 23

Back Up

One of the biggest time-wasters, in any business, is dealing with crises that could have been anticipated. Computer failures are the prime example of what I mean. We need our laptops and tablets to do our work and run our businesses, but they’re predictably unreliable.

Here are some tips for making a dropped notebook or a crashed hard drive into a minor inconvenience instead of a major-league headache:

• Set up a system. Make sure your critical files are being backed up on a regular basis. Otherwise, you could lose months or more of work, client data, and personal information in the blink of an eye.

• Use it regularly. There are several programs that will allow you to automate your backups, updating themselves daily, weekly, or monthly. It doesn’t matter when you do it, so long as it happens at regular intervals. Some back-up companies to check out include www.carbonite.com and www.mozy.com.

• Store backups separately. If you are backing up your files on a hard drive, it’s a good idea to keep your backups in a place away from your home or office. That way, you won’t lose both in the event of fire, water damage, theft, or another catastrophe. For help with back-ups, networks, or related tech needs, check out www.cimbura.com.

Backing up your vital data only takes a few minutes, and it could save you days of effort if something happens to your hardware. If you have someone on your team taking care of these things, this might be a good time to check with them on what tools are being used to insure that your files are retrievable.

Notebooks bought in 2003 and 2004 had a failure rate of 20%, rising to 28% by year four. —Gartner Studies