My goal for 2017: Get my digital life organized
When I started to think about 2017 and what I wanted to get accomplished a lot of stuff came to mind: Lose weight and eat better, save more money, catch up on all the great television shows and movies Iâve missed over the last few years. However, one thing I kept coming back to was the disorganization of my digital life. Scattered passwords, photos and videos in multiple locations stored on a handful of computers, phones, and tablets used interchangeably.
So, I set my sights on getting my digital life simplified and organized. To start, I went about setting up a password manager. There are a ton of great software application options, but ultimately I went with 1Password. It took a few hours, and a lot of password reset emails, but I finally got it setup and itâs already helped to improve my workflow. I will say, I donât keep every password in there, specifically banking information, but I keep 95% of the passwords saved there. I also began using the built-in random password generator. While passwords are slowly become a thing of the past (fingerprints are so much better and easier) using a strong, secure password never hurts.
The biggest project to tackle was the photos and videos. With items dating back to college this was no easy task. After some research and already being a Google user, I settled on using Google Photos. Over the next few weeks Iâm trying to take a few hundred at a time and get them in a labeled folder within the app.
Getting them organized is not my idea of fun, but I know that chipping away a few hundred at a time is reasonable goal and in a few months, Iâll be a lot happier for it.
Lastly, I had to decide, Mac or PC. Iâve worked on, and enjoyed using, both throughout the yearsâââprofessionally and personally. However, I finally settled down on a MacBook. At this point every piece of software you could want is available on both platforms so that wasnât an issue. The tiebreaker came down to mobile. iOS and MacOS are so well integrated that it almost made the decision for me. I realized how nice it was to reply to texts from my laptop, have all my music synced with iTunes, and have my notes flow my laptop, to iPad, to iPhone.
I know a lot of people have problems with Apple (the new MacBook pros seem like a real let down), but itâs working for me right now (I do reserve my right to back track on this at any point). Windows 10 is a great operating system but just didnât have the integration with my phone and tablet.
Lastly, about that whole âlose weight and eat betterâ stuff I mentioned? I got a FitBit for Christmas, so hopefully I can make some progress on that front as well.
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