10 New Year's resolutions for end users

Why should IT pros be the only ones looking at ways to do things better in 2006? End users have a little room for improvement, too.

IT professionals worth their salt are constantly striving to develop their skills and expand their knowledge and talents--so it only makes sense that end users set similar goals for themselves. TechRepublic editor Jody Gilbert has identified some of her own user foibles and converted them into resolutions for the coming year. In 2006, she says, I resolve to:

• Respect the necessity of maintaining careful password habits. And then maintain them. One of the simplest ways to contribute to company security is to follow a few password best practices. It's not that hard. I'm just lazy about it. I don't share my passwords, and I don't leave them lying around. But are they as strong as they should be? Nope. Do I use the same password for multiple services? Yeah, sometimes. Do I change them as often as I should? Hahahahaha.


• Practice a little desktop housekeeping. There's nothing quite like the feeling of watching a support tech pop open your computer case and seeing wave upon wave of dust and doghair come rolling out. And an M&M. How the hell did that get in there? Or having them sit down at your keyboard to check something on your machine and suddenly noticing that A through [Enter] have all but disappeared under a layer of composted Doritos.


• Keep my Outlook mailbox within reasonable limits. I'm not sure when this started being a problem for me. At one time, I was so organized and tidy. No really. But now it seems like I'm always maxed out, forced to dig through glacially compressed layers of folders containing e-mails dating back to the last century so that I can remove enough items for my inbox to breathe again. There's some recreational value in revisiting e-mails addressing Y2K compliance, but at some point, you just have to let go.

Join the discussion of this download.