As spring rolls on here are some tips to continue to clean up our digital lives

Passwords. It’s a good idea at this time of year to look at all your accounts and change the passwords. As suggest by many digital security sites and professionals the mix of upper and lower case with numbers is one of best ways to create a secure password. So take a look at your passwords and update them. And if remembering all the passwords for your different accounts is too much then there are apps such as Lastpass or Passwordbox to help.

Get rid of files you don’t want any more. Just like clearing out our work space, desktops, and emails, you should also clear out files that you no longer need. Many of us have files on our computers that we no longer use, and that takes up valuable space and are at time home to viruses. As as you delete all these files remember to empty the recycle bin.

Security software. Your security software should be up to date and running the most recent version. It’s a good time to check your security software and make sure that it’s running at its optimum best. Some of the better security options are the ones that are paid for as they are automatically updated, the ones that are available for free generally require you to do manual updates and also come with additional software that you often times don’t need.

Social media. Social media is very popular and one of the main ways we keep up with what’s happening around us. If you’re a fan of Facebook you’ll notice that every so often their privacy policy gets updated and this will in turn change your privacy settings. Check in on your digital footprint with your social media and check that your privacy settings are intact to where you want them to be.

Subscriptions. Over time we have all subscribed to numerous newsletters on a variety of topics that at one point in time was useful to us. But as we move on in life many of these newsletter emails just add to the clutter that we all experience. Go through your subscriptions and unsubscribe to all the unwanted newsletters, email alerts, and updates you no longer need.

Smartphones and tablets. Not only do we need to clean up our computers and laptops but also we need to do the same with our smartphones and tablets. There are normally countless apps that have been downloaded that are not needed and it’s a good time to also clean up the apps on our phones and tablets to make them work much better for us.

As you go through your spring cleaning remember to always empty your bins, recycle, email and the physical ones.

Happy cleaning.