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When you think of clutter at church, you may think of a storage closet that needs rearranging, a file cabinet that needs organizing, or a resource room that could use a scrubbing. But did you ever think of attacking the mess that accumulates in your computer?

Digital debris results from duplicate files, outdated programs, and lack of organization in your computer system. To remedy this situation, many corporations set aside one day a year for "Clean Your Computer Day." On that day, employees dress in jeans and T-shirts as if they'll be cleaning out file cabinets and shelves. Then they turn on their computers and start scrubbing.

With the proliferation of church-management software, word processing, and desktop publishing, churches can also benefit from a computer cleanup day. Whether you have a single computer or a network, you should keep those resources tidy. Here are a few ideas to spring clean your computer.

Rally the Troops
Computer cleaning works best if everyone is involved, so set aside a day when things are likely to be slow. Generate excitement by sending out a memo attached to a trash bag or whiskbroom. Encourage staff to wear cleanup clothes. And be sure to invite volunteers and part-time staffers who regularly use your computers.

Make a Duty Roster
Each person should clean up his or her own work area. In addition to cleaning out individual hard drives, everyone should review network resources. Many churches have a file or directory that is designated as a holding tank for shared documents. Participants save files to this location, but few people return to delete files that are no longer of value. Some are wary of doing that due to misinformation.

Example: A church upgraded its software program. Shortly into the process, a staff member called me at home, expressing concern that the upgrade would destroy important church data. I asked where he had gotten this information and learned that it originated from a memo that had been written five years before. The memo described a bug in the software that had long since been corrected. The information, which was no longer relevant, caused seven staff members to needlessly waste a day in converting to a better program.

In addition to purging old files in their computers, staff members should clean programs that they use most. Example: People who write the church newsletter should sort through their desktop publishing programs and get rid of extraneous clip-art files. And the person in charge of membership records should delete the files of people who have left the church.

Start Cleaning
Here are some suggestions for deep-cleaning your computers:

Question back files . Ask if your church really needs to keep online all the information associated with the church's 25th anniversary or past newsletters. If not, those files should be deleted or transferred to backup disks for future reference.

Back up seasonal files , such as those used for vacation Bible school. All backups should be clearly identified and dated. If your church has a pile of unmarked or mismarked diskettes, review the disks to see if they're worth preserving. Then label them and properly file them.

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