Computer Cleaning

It has been a long couple of weeks for us — and a new form of summer cleaning has set in — not for our home but our hard drives.

Turns out that after so many years of saving our personal and professional work on a specific desktop it's now time to play the "what is worthy" game of keeping, duplicating and removing while reviewing our family history made of documents, web sites, scans and downloads.

Because this computer was shared at some point by four people over a decade, there are whole folders of files that have been finally opened for the first time in years. There are the stats from the little league games. The homemade invite to our children's middle and high school graduation celebrations. The typed announcement to family and friends when my mom moved — twelve years ago. There are student projects that were put through "Turnitin", Girl and Boy scout badge applications, even notes from professional development programs with completion certificates.

As I am not a perfect electronic organizer, I notice I have much of the same information replicated in different locations throughout the C: drive to insure its safety. And if that's not enough, we have used an external hard drive (a little box the size of a thick stubby book) to save it again. All just in case — sort of like a digital belt and suspenders.

In essence, it is a walk down memory lane without shoes. The time spent makes me feel as if I have cleaned a room from top to bottom or cleared a closet and bagged up the clothes I haven't worn in a few years. Every file I open might only get two to three seconds for consideration. Does the file have any value? If it does, great. But if it doesn't, what happens next is so difficult and so final — I hold my breath and hit the delete key.

A contributing writer to the Herald since 2012, Lauren Lev is an East Meadow resident and a direct marketing/advertising executive who teaches marketing fundamentals as well as advertising and marketing communications courses at the Fashion Institute of Technology and SUNY Old Westbury.