Backups Saves Sanity

I read a tweet today about a friend of mine who lost her writing.  How?  The FLASH drive that she carries everywhere and contains everything has been lost.  Now, she does back it up, but not enough. So some very valuable work has been lost.

I remember a few times over the years where I lost my writing.  It’s devastating to say the least.  Yesterday, I completed my projections on a business venture I’m about to start.  It took weeks to put the numbers together. It took a few more days to put it all together and add formulas to the excel sheet. It took a few more hours to double check that the formulas were calculating correctly.

I hit save (like every 2 minutes).  It was saved.  I was sure of it.  So I closed it.  Then I went to send it to my partner.  I went to attach it to the email, but I couldn’t find it.  My heart sank.  All that work… Poof! Gone. Just like that.  But I was clicking save. No errors, no prompt of where to save it.  It must be somewhere, right?

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I downloaded this particular file from Gmail.  It opened. I worked on it. I clicked save.  So where did it go?  It has to be here somewhere.

Luckily for me, my partner is a computer geek.  Indeed there is something called Temp files,  and with a little digging and a lot of patience (on my part), we found it hiding in one of those Temp files.  After breathing a huge sigh of relief, I quickly saved it to My Documents then turned around and emailed it to my partner.  Double containment!

What do these 2 things have in common?  I didn’t take the time to make a backup copy of something that was extremely valuable to me.

Is it a pain to make a backup?  For me and most people it seems, yes.  Somehow it’s time consuming. 

Luckily, in my case I found my file and by saving it to My Documents it will auto-sync with my server which is then backed up to a Tera bit thingy weekly  (we are about to discuss nightly).  So I will in essence have 3 copies.

I used to use FLASH drives and I have lost 1 so the absolute horror of knowing your work is gone is very real for me and pains me to no end for my friend. 

Since I now carry my laptop everywhere I have less fear of losing my data.  I mean it’s quite noticeable when this big bulky thing is not on my shoulder or under my fingers.  As long as I save everything to My Documents it will sync with the server the moment I’m back in the office.  Now that’s piece of mind and time I don’t need to worry about.

Everyone works differently. So do you backup your work?  How?  How often?  Let me know.

PS:  If you’re reading this and haven’t backed up your files recently, maybe you should take a few minutes and go do so, it’ll save your sanity.