I take a lot of photos every single day. I snap photos of my children doing foolish things, my dog stealing a sock from the hamper, my latest attempt at cooking a fine meal, my Cheeto that looks like Ron Perlman, and my obsessive use of the Oxford comma. All of my photos are automatically uploaded to a cloud storage service where I can easily search through and find any photo that I want to view or share with family and friends. It’s easy, it’s reliable, it’s secure.

I take the same approach with important personal documents such as children’s report cards, medical paperwork, and financial statements. They’re each cataloged and backed up to a secure cloud storage service where I know I’ll always be able to access them at the exact moment that I need them. As with my ever-growing photo library; it’s easy, reliable, and secure.

Using a trustworthy cloud storage service allows me to reduce the clutter from my computer and never have to worry that the important things will be lost from a simple hard drive failure. Unfortunately, even with this reduction in clutter, some of these personal documents tend to find their way into my Downloads folder where they’ll sit unnoticed by me for a lengthy amount of time. While this isn’t a problem in itself; it could lead to a problem down the road if a malicious actor was able to gain access to my computer.

My personal documents contain private details of myself, my family, and my finances. A malicious actor could easily turn my world upside down if they had access to these. This would be nothing short of a massive problem. This is why I’ve learned that it’s important to delete these problems before they exist.

A few months ago I set a recurring calendar event for every Friday morning at 8 am. The notification simply reads “Delete Your Problems.” Once this notification arrives I promptly open my Downloads folder and remove any file or document that could turn into a problem if found in the wrong hands. It’s a weekly 5-minute investment that I eagerly take to prevent potential problems. I encourage everyone to make something similar part of their routine. It only takes a few moments each week and you’ll quickly be rewarded with the peace of mind knowing that you deleted your problems before they had the chance to exist.