Spring Clean Your Computer

A great way to take care of digital debris

by Jennifer A. Schuchmann

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Digital debris results from duplicate files, outdated programs, and lack of organization in your computer system.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.

Simplify or consolidate codes. If your church-management system allows you to track many details about your members and their activities, you may have accumulated a lot of information that could be condensed. Example: If you have coded deacons whose terms have expired as "Deacon 93," "Deacon 94," and "Deacon 95," you could condense those into one code: "Former Deacon." Many software packages allow you to globally change one code to another or automatically delete unused codes.

Ask everyone for help in streamlining codes. Print a list of codes and circulate it with a note asking staff members to initial the codes they use. Then delete uninitialed codes. While you're at it, delete unused accounts in your general ledger and names of people who are no longer church prospects. Archive pledges, contributions, or attendance histories of previous years.

PC Shine Rumor has it that a lady whose keyboard began to stick decided to clean the thing by dunking it into her bathtub. She cleaned it to death, of course. While most of us know better than to immerse a keyboard in water, we may be guilty of lesser crimes, such as eating a cookie or cracker while working on a computer. Or splashing coffee or a Coke onto the keyboard. A major spill will require professional help—maybe even a new keyboard—but you can do surface cleaning yourself. Here are some suggestions: Blow the Dust Off Dust can collect around moving parts in your computer, slowing them down, causing intermittent failure, overheating the system, or even ruining a disk drive. According to some professionals, as much as 70 percent of all read-and-write errors in a computer may be caused by dust. Use a can of compressed air (approximately $6) to blow dust off the internal parts of your computer. Do this about every six months. Clean the Drives Kits for cleaning disk drives all basically work the same way. You put cleaning solution onto a disk and push it into a drive, where it rotates and cleans the drive. While researching this article, I found a combination CD-ROM and 3.5-inch-disk-drive cleaning kit at Wal-Mart for less than $8. A kit to clean up to 50 individual CDs is available for the same price. Wash the Keys and Mouse Germs, makeup, and body oil accumulate here faster than on any other part of your computer. Use antistatic cloths to wipe off surface debris. A minivac (found at computer speciality stores) can suck up crumbs that have fallen onto your keyboard. For about $10, you can get a kit that tells you how to remove and clean the track ball as well as the inside of your mouse. Polish the Monitor Every time you touch your computer screen, you smear it. An accumulation of smudges can cause eyestrain. Use nonsmearing, antistatic wipes to clean your monitor. A personal note: I wasn't convinced that a dirty monitor could cause eyestrain, so I experimented by cleaning half of my monitor. When I saw the difference it made, I realized the $5.87 I spent for 18 pads was a bargain!

Create a form listing the vitals of every computer, such as hardware, software, and needed upgrades. Include correct serial numbers and registration information. Check software licenses to see if your equipment is still under warranty.

Look for hidden debris. When staff members leave or change jobs, check out their computers. Their system of filing documents may not be useful to anyone else on staff. See what can be deleted or transferred.

Check your system for duplicate files. Occasionally network files get copied onto individual computers. If one of the files is updated, the old becomes useless. Eliminate outdated files and encourage employees not to keep redundant files on their computers.

Check for multiple versions of software. When upgrading a program, installers may leave an older version on the computer in case the new version doesn't work as expected. Get rid of what's no longer needed.+

Change for the Future
With good policies in place, computer clutter can become a thing of the past. But stay on it; don't let a good policy lapse because of poor enforcement. Example: Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia, requires all staff members to initial any codes that they add to church-management software. Katherine Fedele in the education office admits that she sometimes forgets to do that. "But if I knew someone was going to delete a code just because I forgot to add my initials, I would be more careful," she said.

Provide every computer user with suggested directory structures, and inform them where documents are kept on the network. Offer guidelines for adding or deleting information in your church software program. Then establish a time frame for deleting documents.

Bonus Points
Offer prizes to the staffers who remove the most digital debris on cleanup day. Rewards should also go to the person who has the least cleanup to do and the person with the best idea on how to reduce future clutter. The prizes don't have to be expensive, but they should send a message about the wise use of computer resources.

Other benefits from cleaning up computer clutter include freeing up space on hard drives, which delays the need for future upgrades. Condensing codes in your church-management software system and updating your membership list should speed up searching and reporting efforts. Shared files and documents will be easier to find. And communication should be more consistent as everyone uses the same template.

The best reward of cleanup day is the encouragement of good habits that will prevent having to do computer cleanup on an emergency basis.

Jennifer A. Schuchmann is a management consultant from Marietta, Georgia, who formerly worked in sales and marketing for church-management software.

Copyright © 1998 by the author or Christianity Today International/Your Church magazine. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or e-mail yceditor@yourchurch.net.
Mar/Apr 1998, Vol.44, No. 2, Page 56

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