Janet Hall, The Organizing Wizard and Certified Pyramid Feng Shui Practitioner, offers professional organizing services to small and large businesses and also works with individuals, families, seniors, and individuals with ADD and ADHD in dealing with home clutter and time management.

Janet Hall has written organizing articles for various publications. She is the owner of OverHall Consulting, and Organizing By Phone and has written several organizing booklets. Subscribe to her FREE organizing newsletter at www.overhall.com/newsletter.htm or visit her web site at www.overhall.com.

If you have any Organization or Feng Shui questions or concerns, click here for Janet's "Ask Janet Hall" section.

D - BUST YOUR COMPUTER
D - Stands for Delete
When was the last time you deleted a document or Email off your computer?

Do you ever go through your folders and files to see if you really need all those documents or are even using them?

Schedule a date and time to go through your files and delete any you are NEVER going to use or refer to again. If this "OverHall" is going to take many hours that you might not have time for, then try to schedule to do a folder a day or week until you have everything deleted that is old, outdated, and unused.

If you work for someone, first see if they have a document retention policy in place. If they don't have a policy; suggest they develop one.

If you own your own business or just use your computer for personal matters then YOU need to determine how long a document is kept.

If you are unsure due to legalities or accounting reasons, please seek the advice of an attorney or accountant before you start deleting your documents.

I personally recommend that if you haven't used a document (printed, edited, copied, or sent) in the last six months that it is probably safe to delete it. Again, if unsure, ask someone. If you still don't want to delete but DON'T need it on your computers hard drive taking up space that you might really need check next month when I'll write about "T is for Transfer".

To check how much Free Space is on your Hard Drive

• Double Click My Computer
• Place Pointer on [C:]
• Right Click on [C:]
• Click Properties
• Click General

Okay, how can you check to see how old a document is? 

I will explain the process for those of you that use Microsoft. To those of you that use other systems please refer to your manual or look (click) around using similar steps or wording to see if these steps work for you.

• Click Start (Usually located on the left bottom of your screen)
• Place Pointer on Programs
• Place Pointer on Windows Explorer and Click

You have now entered into your electronic file cabinet. Here you can "see" every document, file, and program that is on your computer.

Your screen will show one of two things:
A simple list of all your folders and documents
OR
A detailed list that includes not only the name but the size, type, and date and time.

If you do not see the detailed list:

• Locate the VIEWS button in your toolbar near the top right of your screen
• Locate the little down arrow button next to VIEWS
• Click on the little down arrow and a drop down menu will appear
• Click on the Details option

We'll going to be looking at MY Documents Folder... not really mine but yours:-)

• Double Click on My Documents 

You will be presented with a list of all the folders you have created in My Documents and any documents or files you have saved under My Documents.

Notice the date and time under Modified. Now here is where the date can fool you. If you backup your folders and files (You do do backups don't you?) or have opened the folder or file or did something with the document, it WILL NOT have the created date.

To find out the creation date:

• Click on the document you want to check on
• Click on File in the toolbar, usually located at the top left of your screen
• Locate Properties on the drop down menu
• Click on Properties
• Click on General or Statistics
• Locate the creation date
• Click OK

Now decide if you need to delete the document or keep it. If you want to delete the document press the Delete key on your keyboard and follow the on screen instructions.

Please Remember

OPEN a folder to see all the documents you might have stored there before deleting a folder!

You are now on your way to D-Busting Your Computer!

Smiles, not Piles,
Janet L. Hall