How to clean up your digital workplace before you quit

But this is the past, to which you are unlikely to want to return. And so that the ghosts of days gone by do not appear in your present, you should properly clean up after yourself. First of all, this applies to paper cases, but after all - all digital baggage that you have accumulated. About him and will be discussed.

1. Make a backup of your data

Before deleting data from your computer, back up the most important files you've worked on. If the volume is small, then a regular USB flash drive will do. They can now be purchased at every corner. Even a penny 4 GB option will suffice for office documents.

Another option is cloud storage Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive. Just make sure that the account is linked to your personal mailbox, because the worker will soon be closed. This gives you at least 5GB of free remote space. Really large archives will require external hard drives.

Of course, this raises the question of trade secrets. We do not urge you to take risks and expose yourself to criminal prosecution. Photos from evening gatherings at work and e-mails with friends can be taken without a twinge of conscience. However, you cannot take away a backup copy of financial and other confidential documents unless you are explicitly allowed to do so.

2. Check USB ports

Charging your phone at work is a sacred thing. Many do not even take the cord home and leave it hanging in the computer. But this is your property, which will be useful for the same purposes, but in a new place. Therefore, it is worth carefully examining the system unit or laptop from all sides. Thoughtfully and attentively. It may turn out that a forgotten flash drive is sticking out somewhere, and you bought the mouse for your hard-earned money.

3. Disable voice and email

Many years of work have filled the contact book with hundreds of names. It is very difficult to call everyone and everyone to warn about your leaving. It's easier to record an answering machine or set up a voicemail that all incoming callers will listen to.

Email is even easier. Send letters to your partners thanking them for their work and leave the address of a person to contact after you leave. Then you can exit the desktop or browser client.

It will not be superfluous to delete all the threads. Caution is needed here though: some companies require all external communication to be kept for several months (years), including after an employee is fired.

4. Zero the operating system

You are not aware of the fate of the computer after you leave. It can be left in place for a new employee, scrapped or handed over for good purposes. Anyway, it's worth spending some time and covering all digital traces.

Let's say you have administrator rights in your workplace. This means that you have unlimited possibilities to customize and clean your computer. It is a sin not to use the latter, of course, after backing up your dear files. However, keep in mind that uninstalling and reinstalling the system can take several hours. Therefore, plan your event in advance.

If you have a Mac, you can erase your data by reinstalling OS X. The Apple Support Center gives you how to get things done without the hassle.

For Windows machines, there are thousands of utilities to remove information from the hard drive. One of the simplest, most reliable and convenient is (DBAN). The program runs from a disk or USB-drive and offers several options for cleaning system or user partitions.

5. Clean your mobile phone

Who should know about calls to parents from a work cell phone? Such a bonus is not spelled out in the corporate rules. Take a couple of minutes to reset your phone to its original state.

On iPhone and iPad, go to General Options, the last section of which is responsible for resetting. Select "Erase content and settings", after which the gadget will roll back to the factory state.

For Android, the schema is essentially the same. The only difference is that the reset function on different firmwares can be called differently. Typically, this is the "Restore and Reset" section, although it might be "Backup and Reset".

If you can't find it, we recommend a web service that contains thousands of instructions on how to perform a hardware rollback.

6. Erase as many digital footprints as possible

Not everyone is a part of the IT department, and even fewer people feel the subtle nature of a network administrator. Therefore, reinstalling the working environment on the computer is unlikely to work. In this case, you need to break as many threads as possible. Start by uninstalling desktop programs like the Instagram app for Windows 10.

Then switch to your web browser and make sure you delete any passwords it stores. Current versions of Chrome, Safari, or Firefox associate them with a Google Account, iCloud, and Firefox Sync. By deleting the profile, you will close access to all other resources in one fell swoop. If the account is working and you can't get rid of it, you'll have to cover up the traces in the browser options.

In the advanced settings of Chrome there is a section "Passwords and Forms" - click on the "Configure" link and clean out the excess. In Safari, codes are stored in the Passwords tab, and in Firefox, they are among the security options.