With January being National Clean Up Your Computer Month, it’s the perfect time to get organized for the new year!

By implementing an organization system for your digital files, you can find important files much quicker and easier. Overall, this will help your funeral home’s staff be more productive and better serve your families.

Below are some organizational strategies that your funeral home can adapt for National Clean Up Your Computer Month and beyond!

Organize Your Digital Files

If your desktop is littered with icons, a folder has more than 300 files, or you rely on the search function, it’s time to clean up your files! To start, you should create a single “root” folder such as your “My Documents” or “Shared Documents” folder, but you can rename it to whatever you’d like.

Then, create subfolders for different categories of your funeral home, such as “MyFuneralHomeDocuments/finances” and “MyFuneralHomeDocuments/marketing.” You can even create more subfolders within these folders depending on how detailed you want to get.

Once you make these changes, you’ll notice how much easier it is to find your files. It will make training new staff easier, as well as finding the information you need for your client families. Everything will have a place and reduce the chance of losing a document.

To keep your files organized, you should make sure files are in the appropriate folders and delete any unnecessary files every few months.

For more tips and an example file organization diagram, check out this file organization article!

Clear Your Browser Cache

Cleaning up your computer and its storage space doesn’t just include your digital files. You also should clean up your computer by clearing your browser cache.

To put it simply, your browser cache is the temporary storage on your computer or mobile device from the websites you’ve visited. When you visit websites, the information is stored so they load quickly the next time you visit them. However, over time, it fills up and may cause issues with websites not displaying properly.

You should clear your browser cache every few months. The specific steps for clearing your cache may vary depending on what browser you’re using. But, for most browsers, you can clear cache by holding down the control, shift, and delete keys at the same time. You also should restart your browser to make sure the cache cleared.

To find the specific steps for clearing cache in your browser, check out this browser cache article!

Clear Your Cookies

Another important thing to clear is your cookies. And no, we’re not talking about that delicious plate of chocolate chip cookies you made for your client families. Your cookies store information to track website activity that’s related to the user.

For example, when you log into a website or enter personal information to make a purchase, that site remembers that information for your next visit. But, while cookies help provide a good user experience, they also can clog up your computer’s disk space.

Like with clearing cache, most browsers let you clear cookies by holding down the control, shift, and delete keys simultaneously, and you should restart your browser afterward.

What other tips do you have for keeping your computer organized this National Clean Up Your Computer Month? Share them with us in the comments!