Finally recovered from taxes?  Don’t worry, it’s going to be easier next year – I promise.  This month is going to be much faster, too.

Trash and donate task o’ the month:  Bags and backpacks.  Don’t tell me you don’t have them – every geek conference on the planet gives you a bag.  Vendors give you bags.  Hell, they probably multiply in the closet.  Pull them *all* out.  Every one of them.  Including the backpack/laptop bag you currently use.  Pick five.  Why five?  Your favorite travel backpack and a second runner up.  Your favorite back and forth to work and a second runner up.  And one slot for the “just think it’s really cool” bag.  Now, take the rest of the bags – backpacks go to schools, work style bags to to the homeless shelter or local jobs program.

Nerd purchase(s) of the month:  OK, remember what we did with the USB drives?  Time to buy that external drive or home server with a boatload of storage.  I personally wouldn’t go lower than a terabyte – if you haven’t priced the 1-3 TB drives lately, you might be surprised how cheap it is to have all that glorious storage space.  Take it home, put it in that clean space you cleared up in Part 1 of the series.  Back up *every single* system in your house.  All of them.  And set a regular backup schedule.  Don’t sit around and think “Gosh, I need to delete a lot of crap before… blah, blah” – you have LOTS and LOTS of space.  Oh, and if you are thinking “But, but, I’m going to the Cloud!” (cue sound of angels singing), that’s fine but you are still going to want a physical drive, trust me.

Geeky paper reduction task of the month:   Paperless billing.  All your bills where you possibly can, sign up for this.  While you are there, enable text alerts and e-mail alerts.  If you feel comfortable with it, set up electronic payments for everything you can (but don’t forget to at least look over the bills every month for accuracy).  Set up folders on your shiny new drive to store the electronic copies.  Make sure you store them by year, because you are going to delete them when you don’t need them and it will make it much easier.  There is a link to “how long to keep stuff” in Part 2 of the series, but not something you have to worry about now.   This will go a long way to emptying out your mailbox.

The Rulez:

• Don’t cheat – you don’t need just a couple more bags.  By the time the five you are keeping wear out, you’ll have been to more conferences.
• If you do accumulate a new bag or backpack, don’t just toss it in the pile.  If it isn’t better or cooler than your current bags, chuck it.
• Don’t worry about deleting stuff.  Just back up all your systems.  We’ll worry about electronic clutter much farther down the road.

 Tax month – whee!  It’s not a problem, it’s an opportunity!  No, really.  Time to unload those 10 year old utility bills, receipts for stuff you no longer own, vet bills, registrations & inspections for old vehicles, etc.  I promise this will make next tax year less sucky.

Trash and donate task o’ the month:  Collect all those USB drives you have laying around.  I’m pretty sure that those 500 MB and 1 GB (or higher) drives are doing just that – laying around.  Clear off your stuff, put them in a baggie and donate them to a school (unless you have kids) – virtually all of them require students to have one now.  If you have kids, put a couple away to replace the ones they are going to lose and donate the rest. 

 Nerd purchase(s) of the month:  A shredder and a USB drive.  What, you say?  I just told you to get rid of your USBs?  Right.  Buy yourself a 16 or 32 GB drive with no tops to lose (retractable) and a decent lanyard or key chain ring.  This is a core piece of geek gear.  As for the shredder, never fear, you are getting ready to get a lot of use out of it.  You do not need a heavy duty industrial shredder, but you *do* need a shredder.

 Geeky paper reduction task of the month:  Tax month.  What the heck should you keep and for how long?  Here is a good article from Bankrate on how long to keep financial records.  Don’t worry about the ones you are keeping right now – file them for the moment (use that label maker you bought last month and be *sure* to include the year on the label).  As for the rest – shred ’em and recycle.  If you aren’t sure or it isn’t listed or you just can’t let go of it yet, s’ok – file it and forget it for now.  We’ll get another cut at these later.  At the end of this exercise, you should have a pile of file folders and other miscellaneous paper storing office supplies.  Put these in a box or a (shudder) filing cabinet drawer for the moment – I doubt you will need them again, but who knows?

The Rulez:

• Is it a record you are required to keep?  If no, shred and recycle.
• Replace the piles of cheap, freebie or low storage USB drives with one large enough for your needs.
• Need to keep it?  Label the files consistently and make sure you include the year (ie. 2010 – Medical) and put it in a banker’s box or filing cabinet by year.  For multiyear items (cars, mortgages, etc.) date them by the year of purchase, keep them with the current year.  Remember, you get to shred another year every year!

Yes, I know that you really did install NT from floppies.  Heck, beyond that, you actually *used* floppies.  You think the “return to the command line” is a victory because you never left.  You are nerd and you should know better than to be surrounded by geek clutter and <eek> paper. 

Trash and donate task o’ the month:  Dump the out of date product manuals, old courseware, CDs of out of support software and yes <gasp> go through your games.  The product stuff?  Recycle, do not donate – they have no value.  The games and old gaming magazines?  Take a spin through eBay or ask at your local game or comic store.  Never can tell.  Now dump the out of date hardware (no, the Zip Drive is not coming back and neither is the floppy… just let go.  Take a picture if you want, but let go). 

Regaining some space?  Good.  Dust it.  Look at it with a sense of pride and accomplishment.  Don’t put anything there yet – just revel in the simple emptiness.  One place where there is *nothing* waiting for you to do.  Oh, and take the trash out now, before you talk yourself into rummaging through it.  I know, it cost a lot of money and was really cool when it was new.  Look at a picture of yourself in high school.  Do you still own those clothes?  If no, then time to toss the software that came with them.  If so, you may be beyond my meager skills.  Seek a professional.  For the rest of you, rinse and repeat until you are down to what you might forseeably use.  You should now have enough space to pick up your paperless gear (and then some).

Nerd purchase(s) of the month:  Get yourself a UPS for each computer system (and your home theatre system) and a label maker.  You may already have the UPS, if so, test them and make sure they are still functioning properly and replace if not.  You’ll get some juice in the event you lose power (enough to shut down gracefully at least), clean power when you are up and running and you won’t be worrying during electrical storms.  Don’t skimp on these.  Remember, one of the excuses people give for not going paperless is concerns about losing data – we are going to eliminate those as we go along.  Put a bit of cash aside – we’re going to be doing all those things you “meant to get around to”.

Geeky paper reduction task of the month:  Find soft copies of all of your household and electronic manuals.  Rename them if they need it and store them in a folder for manuals with subfolders by the room the equipment is in.  If you are feeling the dream, take a picture (digital please) of the whatzits and widgets and store those with the manual.  A closeup of the serial number, etc. will also save you time digging around with a flashlight when you need it.

Oh, what do I know about being paperless?  Well, I’ve worked in municipal government for over 3 years and am paperless other than the weekly pay slips (that I would love to get paperless if I could).  My weakness?  Books.  But I’m working on that.  =}

The Rulez:

• Is it currently supported by the vendor?  If no, recycle or toss.
• Do you currently use it or are you planning to use it?  Be truthful.  If no, donate current versions (legal only, please), toss or recycle old versions.
• If it is old media, do you have a drive for it?  If no, toss it.  If yes, copy it up to a drive on your current system and get rid of the media.  (This applies to VHS tapes as well.)
• If it is old hardware, are you ever going to use it?  Can you replace it with something more energy efficient, better quality, smaller, safer or faster for minimal investment?  Time to go then.
• Not sure?  Put it in a banker’s box.  Put the year and month on it.  Put it in an attic, closet, basement… anywhere you can’t see it.  If you don’t need it in the next year, you won’t need it.  Plan to purge when the clock runs out.