Fox Den Spring Cleaning
Welcome to our Annual Spring Cleaning Week!
The goal of this week is to give you some easy and quick tasks each day to make small but meaningful impacts on data you might have that you no longer need.
Each day has a recommended focus area.
- Monday: Paper/Physical Files at Home + digital cloud storage
- Tuesday: Laptop Files - Desktop, Documents, Downloads
- Wednesday: Email, Matrix
- Thursday: ‘Maybe’ Items, Password Managers and other security best practices
We really encourage you to take advantage of this time. A little effort by all of us will help us as an organization stay lean and practice good data hygiene. Plus, think of how great you’ll feel when you see that clean download folder or desk drawer in the morning!
Monday - Paper does still matter. And "digital paper" matters too!
We still create, and sometimes are required to, keep paper records. Write down your passwords on a sticky note or random slip of paper in a drawer? Use removable media? Perhaps you don't use paper, but you are a heavy cloud storage user. Use today to clean up and get those (sensitive) files out.
What Can You Focus On?
Make sure that if you are getting rid of papers to use secured bins or thoroughly shred the documents. Dumpster diving is a thing after all!
Here’s today’s handy checklist:
Physical file cleanup
Home office - 10 minute activity
- Quickly scan what files you have in your home office.
- Store any sensitive documents you find in the appropriate secure location.
- Shred anything else unneeded.
Work bag - 5 minute activity
- Quickly scan files in your work bag.
- Move sensitive files in the appropriate secure location; be cautious with documents in your work bag as they are more susceptible to being lost or stolen.
- Shred anything unneeded.
Digital file cleanup (note: computer files are tomorrow!)
Cloud storage - 15 minute activity
- Quickly scan files on your Google Drive, OneDrive, and/or Box folders.
- For Google Drive, use the “Show Details” icon (“exclamation point” on the top right of your ‘My Drive’ homepage) to check the details and recent activity for specific documents or folders. Pay extra attention to documents and forms that include personal data or confidential information.
- If you were assigned individual access to a document or folder with sensitive information and you don't need access to the document or folder anymore, delete it or notify the document owner to revoke your access if you are unable to remove your access yourself.
- For sensitive documents or folders, ensure the appropriate access controls are applied to the documents or folders.
- If you created Google Forms to collect information from others, make sure to disable those Google Forms if they’re no longer being used, so no additional data will be collected. If the data collected from that Google Form is no longer needed, delete it.
Removable Media
If you use thumb drives, external hard drives or other removable media, make sure it is password protected.
Tuesday - Welcome to Computer Files Day!
As much as many of us love to work via Google Drive and other collaboration solutions, inevitably things may end up on our computers. Use today to clean up your computer and reduce the files you have on it!
What Can You Focus On?
Here’s a handy list you can use to help you get going.
Desktop Folder - 5 minute activity
- Create 2 folders called “Maybe Move” and “Maybe Delete”.
- Move any sensitive records to the appropriate secure location. Or, if you’re not sure, add them to the "Maybe Move" folder, and address on Day 4.
- Move any items you aren’t sure if you want to delete toin the “Maybe Delete” folder. Otherwise, trash it.
- Don’t forget to empty your trash at the end.
Documents Folders - 15 minute activity
- Create 2 folders called “Maybe Move” and “Maybe Delete”.
- Move any sensitive records to the appropriate secure location. Or, if you’re not sure, add them to the "Maybe Move" folder, and address on Day 4.
- Move any items you aren’t sure if you want to delete toin the “Maybe Delete” folder. Otherwise, trash it.
- Don’t forget to empty your trash at the end.
Downloads Folder - 15 minute activity
- Create 2 folders called “Maybe Move” and “Maybe Delete”.
- Move any sensitive records to the appropriate secure location. Or, if you’re not sure, add them to the "Maybe Move" folder, and address on Day 4.
- Move any items you aren’t sure if you want to delete in the “Maybe Delete” folder. Otherwise, trash it.
- Don’t forget to empty your trash.
REMINDER! Before you delete any files from your computer, if that file needs to be stored, make sure you have stored that document in the appropriate secure location.
Wednesday - Is there ever enough email?
Now that you have a few things cleaned up this week, let’s keep the momentum going with our email inbox.
What Can You Focus On?
Concentrate on what matters most - check out the guidelines below. Remember, keep your goal small in order to be successful. You can always complete one goal and then work on another later. Won’t it be fabulous to have some of those inboxes under control?
Here are some guidelines to keep in mind for today’s task.
- Sort your email for attachments. This will help you quickly find documents that are likely to have personal or confidential information.
- Is it a final document or deliverable of some sort? Keep it (and save it to the appropriate system, if needed).
- Not sure? Keep it & look into it later (we'll have time tomorrow).
- Focus on the last 7 days worth of emails. If you have extra time, go back 14 days, then 21 days, etc.
- TIP: Delete only what you’re sure you absolutely do not need now or in the future (e.g. your Spam/Junk folder, one-off announcements, messages that have been filed elsewhere). Be mindful of your approach as you delete items from your inbox and other folders in your inbox.
Email clean-up - 15 minutes
- Use the same approach for email that you did yesterday for computer files. Create 2 sub-folders called “Maybe Move” and “Maybe Delete”. Remember, time is precious so you want to focus on emails with important attachments that you (or your team!) wouldn't want you to lose.
- Move any attached documents to a separate secure location, if needed. If you’re not sure, add to the “Maybe Move” folder and address on Day 4.
- Move any items you aren’t sure about into the “Maybe Delete” folder. Otherwise, trash it.
- Don’t forget to empty your trash.
Anything Else?
Absolutely! Do you own a Matrix channel that you don't use or need anymore? This is a good time to clean that up and have it removed.
Thursday - Check those “Maybe” folders, set up your Password Manager, and cleanup your GitHub
Did you put some documents or emails this week into “Maybe Move” or “Maybe Delete” folders? That’s fine! Let’s use today to handle those items in those folders.
What Can You Focus On?
- Pick one of those "Maybe" folders and dig in.
- Working draft? Keep it.
- Possible duplicate? Dig in a little.
- No record of it anywhere? Store it in the appropriate place, then delete.
- No idea? Keep and check with your manager.
- If you frequently use Github, we also have some additional recommendations below for today.
Anything Else?
Yes! You need to use a Password Manager. Get one today. A Password Manager is software that lets you generate, store, and use unique passwords for every site and service you use, protected by one master password. Instead of remembering multiple passwords or using the same password over and over, a password manager remembers all the passwords for you. It helps you keep things secure AND makes your life easier!
What you should do
Install and use a password manager such as the one built into Firefox and Thunderbird! You can read more about these at:
Frequent GitHub users:
For those who frequently use GitHub, focus your time today on tightening up some security best practices:
- Check for the following unused items and take action by removing, cleaning, or disabling:
- Sessions - https://github.com/settings/sessions
- OAuth apps - https://github.com/settings/applications
- SSH keys - https://github.com/settings/keys (consider having a separate key per device)
- Personal Access Tokens - https://github.com/settings/tokens
- Check for proper access level
- Consider making your Token expirable
- Remove unused tokens
- More info on personal access tokens: https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/keeping-your-account-and-data-secure/creating-a-personal-access-token
- Consider disabling SMS/text as a two factor authentication method; instead use TOTP/HW key: https://github.com/settings/security
- For more information on keeping your account secure, check out the following:
Further resources
If you found this useful and want to look at steps you can take every day to keep your digital world a bit more manageable, you may want to look at the Data Detox Kit as well as videos that will help you to detox your computer, smartphone and social media.
