For many people the New Year represents an opportunity to start fresh, a chance to learn from past mistakes and move forward. The excitement of such opportunities leads to declared resolutions that can often entail elaborate plans that require constant vigilance, things like losing weight, quitting smoking, exercising more, working smarter, etc. While these resolutions are certainly admirable and made with the best intentions they can quickly become goals that are filled with frustration. This doesn’t mean that they should be abandoned but when it comes to resolutions sometimes the simplest improvements can make the biggest impact.
One area that most people struggle with is time management, there just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done. We all know that adding a few extra hours to a day isn’t possible but eliminating wasted hours is certainly within our abilities. So we just need to recognize where those lost hours are spent and find a solution. In many cases those wasted hours are sitting directly under our fingertips.
It seems odd to think that our computers can be part of the problem when the most common belief is that they have actually given us more time. Undoubtedly a healthy computer affords us the ability to be more efficient and productive, providing us with the opportunity to quickly complete a list of tasks that would have taken all day just a few years ago. That’s with a healthy computer, but with a slow computer it’s a different story.
Anybody who has ever worked on a slow computer knows that a job that could be completed in a few minutes may stretch past an hour; something that not only compromises your efficiency but causes extreme frustration as well. Slow computers often carry the same symptoms, difficulty booting up, problems accessing files, software and data, a sluggish Internet experience, issues with receiving and sending emails, etc. When all of these symptoms are encountered it becomes obvious that a slow computer can chew up a significant amount of time.
What most people fail to recognize is that all of these symptoms are part of a bigger problem, a computer disease known as fragmentation. When you want to know why your computer is taking so long to load an application or access a file it’s not because those tasks are designed to take that long, more than likely it’s because you have a heavily fragmented drive.
Fragmentation is a naturally occurring disease that attacks the manner in which your hard drive saves and stores files. Because the drive does everything it can to maintain as much free space as possible it saves files one after the next, with no room between the files. When a file is recalled, modified, and resaved it will no longer fit in its original space so the drive has to cut the excess information and save it in the next available space, this is now a fragmented file.
With no limit to how many times a file can be fragmented it is possible to have hundreds if not thousands of pieces of a single file littered across the drive. Each time that file is recalled the drive has to collect all those pieces before delivering it to your screen, a labor intensive activity for your computer. Eventually that activity becomes too intense and the drive crashes and potentially eliminating all of the files that had been saved on the drive.
It’s obvious to see how a slow computer can affect an individual’s ability to manage their time but if their resolution is to improve in that area then they must address the problems associated with fragmentation. Fortunately the answer is simple and it doesn’t require the same level of vigilance as does losing weight or exercising more, but that doesn’t make it any less important.
What every computer must have installed is defragmentation software. Just as anyone would install anti-virus software to remove or prevent a virus attack they must install defragmentation software to tackle the issues associated with fragmentation, failing to do so will unquestionably result in a slower computer and an eventual crash; neither of which are time-saving scenarios.
Companies like Diskeeper design defragmentation software to not only protect against the naturally occurring dangers posed by fragmentation but also to repair any damage that has already occurred. By defragging a hard drive the fragmented files are repaired as the pieces that belong together are joined and saved in one space. Such a simple act instantly improves the drive’s speed and because its health has been restored its life is extended.
One of the best features about defragmentation software is that once you have installed it your work is done. There are no counting calories or braving the cold weather for a jog, your resolution to improve your time management is essentially done.
When you’re outlining your resolutions for 2011 don’t forget that the biggest changes to everyday life often come from the easiest changes. Most people use their computer everyday for a variety of reasons and improving the speed, reliability and efficiency of that computer can bring you the extra hours that you so desperately want.
