The Importance of Cleaning Up Your Devices

Amy Toh

Senior Manager, IT Digital Transformation Department, OMRON Asia Pacific Pte Ltd

National Clean Up Your Computer Month, observed annually in January, reminds us of all that our computers has done for us, and they deserve a little T.L.C. too. After all, like any other machine, ignoring your computer can come at a large cost literally and figuratively. That’s probably why the founders of this day, slotted an entire month to clean up our computers these devices are too important to us.

CIO World Asia Spoke with Amy Toh, Senior Manager, IT Digital Transformation Department, OMRON Asia Pacific Pte Ltd about the importance of cleaning up our devices.

Importance of Cleaning Our Devices Inside and Out

“Cleanliness is one of the basic essentials to ensure good health and wellness. It applies to our gadgets too.” Amy explained.

Given that the majority of individuals today use hybrid work arrangements, it is critical to maintain a clean and dust-free work environment at home. It’s fairly typical for people to eat or drink while using laptops or other electronic devices, and this causes a buildup of bacteria over time that, if the equipment is not properly cleaned, can cause ailments. In addition, the dirt may lead to unneeded mishaps by causing overheating brought on by fan blockage.

Regular cleaning can improve the longevity of devices in addition to health concerns.

Digital waste cleanup, such as data virus scanning, protection against unauthorized software, anomaly detection for unfamiliar behavior, and security should all be included in the inside cleaning process. Early detection will have the impact of preventing needless data loss.

Therefore, it is crucial that all employees are able to understand that laptops/work devices have become an integral part of everyone’s lives. Thus, it is imperative that people protect their devices as if they are protecting their own life.

Taking Extra Precaution in Protecting Work Devices as C-suites

Particularly for the C-suite, cleaning computers and other work equipment both inside and out is crucial. As one of the key targets, C-suites must make sure they take all necessary precautions to prevent any data breaches. As a result, even a small amount of carelessness or unintentional events might seriously jeopardize the organization’s security. An organization’s relationship and degree of trust with shareholders and clients will be affected if a breach occurs. By actively cleaning their computers, the C-suites might prevent all of this from happening.

“An organization’s IT team should help them to understand more about what to clean and what to protect, how to clean and how to protect especially their logins and passwords and confidential files.” Amy explained.

Keeping Our Devices Running at Optimum Capacity

By optimizing the battery charging setting (not completely charged), utilizing wi-fi instead of mobile data, and changing screen brightness, battery life and longevity may be increased. Additionally, one should constantly maintain their OS updated and use low power mode. It’s also crucial to release memory and disk space whenever feasible by emptying the cache, purging the data, etc. Last but not least, storing data on the cloud is a terrific way to guarantee maximum performance.

The Benefits of Keeping Our Devices Clean

Operations are accelerated on cleaned devices. Take the accounting department’s job as an example, where several reports must be produced to support monthly, quarterly, and annual closing operations. The performance of the devices will be ideal and better with clean devices; heavy usage during busy times won’t cause Excel crashes or out of memory problems. This will boost the team’s confidence and enable them to complete their tasks on schedule without worrying about equipment failure.

Storage and document folders become more ordered after cleaning are other administrative value additions. This helps to speed up processes by making document and information searches more efficient. Additionally, a virus-free device guarantees that the papers are secure to share or email without concern for attachment infections. Employees won’t be needed to do an additional scan after that before transmitting the communications.