I dislike the process of backing up my computer documents. Deleting my previously backed up files before copying and pasting all of my original files that I need to back up seems like such a waste of time. This process takes about 30 minutes, but I've been doing it every Friday afternoon for the past couple of years. My laptop crashed a few Fridays ago early in the morning before I backed up my work—which meant that I lost a full week of work and I've been scrambling ever since to try to get caught up.
A few days ago, a friend told me about software that can be set up to automatically back up files to an external hard drive. I loved the idea. And better yet, my friend said that back up software quickly scans files to see if any changes have been made since the last back up and when it finds one, it only backs up that particular file—keeping systems resources more free. This type of software has probably existed for a long time, but I've never heard of it before. After a little research, I downloaded and installed a program called Argentum Backup.
It worked so well I couldn't believe it. After my initial back up (on a new 120 GB external hard drive), I can now back up my work in about one minute at the end of each day—or I can set the program to do it while I sleep. I wish I had taken the time long ago to find and use such a program, but I'm glad that I at least had a back up to turn to. Otherwise I would have been in big trouble because I would have lost the book that I'm currently working on (and is due to the publisher by April 15).
Why is it that something bad has to happen before we do the things we should have been doing all along? I guess we believe that we're the exception and that the "bad" things will always happen to other people. But then it happens to us and it's hard not to feel a little foolish. I guess if that's what it takes to learn a lesson, then it's worth it.
