Sweep out, tidy up, close up:
How to get rid of your digital clutter & start the new year tidied up

Step #1 – Reflect: What stays, what goes?

Your cleaning action can begin immediately after booting up the computer: How much clutter has accumulated on your desktop over the year – screenshots, unused shortcuts, old project folders and documents that were “just filed away” at some point? Start here with a digital sweep – because a tidy desktop immediately creates visible order and gives you the feeling of a fresh start every time you restart. Sort the files on your desktop into categories:

• Delete immediately: Everything that is outdated, irrelevant or duplicate.
• Archive: Files that you no longer actively need but want to keep.
• Active: The few documents that you are currently editing.

Of course, this categorization is not only suitable for the content on your desktop, but also for all underlying programs, structures and data that you manage yourself. You don’t want to do the tedious work of cleaning up your data manually? That’s fine too! There are now smart and cost-effective tools on the market that help companies to clean up and organize their data. Our modern enterprise search solution searchit, for example, offers various functions with which authorized employees can easily identify duplicate files and delete them if necessary. This is easy on the nerves and keeps the company’s data storage lean.

Step #2 – Sort out & close: Tools that track down your digital legacy

In many companies, various “dust catchers” accumulate over time in the data filing system, which need to be identified quickly and disposed of with as little effort as possible. A common problem in the filing system is multiple versions of the same file, stored under different names and in different locations. As a customer-oriented software manufacturer, this is where we come in: “Finding duplicates was a frequent request we received for the expansion of our enterprise search solution searchit. This is where a lot of storage space is lost in most organizations. This not only costs money in the purchase of additional infrastructure, but also for energy costs in the ongoing operation of servers and storage solutions,” explains Christoph Wendl, CEO of the Austrian software manufacturer Iphos IT Solutions.

searchit provides several practical additional tools for efficient data management: for example, the plugin for storage space management not only scores points for detecting and cleaning up duplicates by calculating checksums, but also offers a graphical representation of the data storage used. This makes it possible to clean up memory hogs in a structured way – whether in the email inbox, on the file server, web server or on the PCs. Data that is no longer required is deleted according to the dual control principle, whereby each deletion request must be approved by an authorized user.

Once the memories have been cleaned up and unnecessary data deleted, you can turn your attention to archiving. Make sure that all existing compliance requirements and retention obligations are met and create an efficient archiving system. With a logical folder structure, standardized file names and regular archive maintenance, you can complete projects cleanly and free up your workspace for new tasks.

Step #3 – Focus: Gain more time for the essentials

Now that you have freed yourself from your digital legacy, it’s time to take a deep breath and start again! Data cleansing and restructuring not only create order. They also give you the freedom to realign yourself, rethink established structures and processes – and optimize them with the help of new tools and technologies if necessary.

Our modern enterprise search solution offers powerful features that relieve you of routine tasks and sharpen your focus on the essentials: With searchit, the focus is on the central search function, with which you have all relevant information at your fingertips in seconds, regardless of storage location and file format. Not only full-text search and keywords are taken into account, but also context, relationships and metadata. The time you would otherwise spend searching can now be used more sensibly thanks to the efficient search – for the really important tasks that deserve your full attention.