World Backup Day (Short version)

I wrote a blog post when I found out it was World Backup Day a couple of days ago. I wrote about the typical things: back up in case of disaster. 

I wrote the stories of when disaster happened in the world (MySpace and Toy Story2) and my world (damaged hard drive and MacBook crash). How having a backup saved us once and how not understanding how the backup worked made me miss an important memory that got lost. If you are interested in that blog post, click here.

If you know how to backup your devices, amazing! This day is a reminder to do so. 

If backing up is an overwhelming task for you, I invite you to think of what you can do. What would have the most impact that you are able to do?

If your computer or phone died right now, what would make you cry that you lost? What is irreplaceable? Protecting those items is what would have the most impact.

This is the question that firefighters ask. If your house was on fire and you had 2 minutes to grab something, what would you grab on your way out?

On World Backup Day, I ask you to take 2 minutes or 2 hours to find those items that are precious to you and preserve them.

Backing up a computer or phone (without help) may be too overwhelming for the general population but finding those precious items and making a copy shouldn't be.

Do you have an external drive or USB key? Copy the best of the best memories on there and ideally make an extra copy to store elsewhere. If something happens to your house, it won't be destroyed with your computer or phone. 

Review this backup at least once a year to add to it and to ensure that your backup drive still works. They don't last forever. It's also amazing to look back at our best memories so there's also an emotional benefit to checking the backup.

You don't want your precious memories to be forgotten digitally like photos could be in a box. The benefit of the box is that paper today will be paper in 50 years. A digital file today may be useless in 50 years. We need to update our backup as technology changes.