It’s one of those things you always promise yourself and quite often it’s something that gets forgotten or put on the ‘do it later’ list. How many times has someone suggested you take a backup of your machine or you’ve thought about doing it?

What would you do if your computer or laptop died and you lost your hard drive – all your applications, all your data? What would the impact be? Could you continue to run your business?

So this is to remind you, if you don’t already or if you’ve been promising to do one, to take a backup of your data. It also happens to be one of those things that you do once you’ve had it happen to you. Many people start taking regular backups AFTER they’ve lost their hard disk or had a computer crash. There’s nothing so perfect as the benefit of hindsight.

Try surviving without your laptop for a day or at least be much more aware of what you are using it for, so you can identify the potential impact if the worst should happen and a power spike corrupted your hard disk and you were left with nothing.

• Make sure you backup your data regularly – not just the documents you use but also your mail files, calendar etc.
• Synchronise your calendar and address book with a PDA, Blackberry or smartphone – it does at least mean you’ll know where you’re meant to be and can continue to contact people.
• Use an online mail system – at least you can temporarily access your email from an internet cafe or alternate computer.
• Keep a note of your user IDs and passwords somewhere – in coded form obviously. I don’t know how many systems, applications and groups I use – if I didn’t have them written down I’d be totally lost or would spend an age getting them resent or changed.

If you’re unfortunate enough to have to replace the entire hard disk, not only do you lose your data and your applications but all those little things like:

• Cookies that automate your login to the 101 systems you use on a daily basis.
• Bookmarks for all your favourite websites and links.
• Options and preferences for all your apps – default settings etc.

As someone suggested to me – every time you install an application, change a setting – make a note of it in a notebook, so that if the worst happens and you need to recover your system or revert to a previous setting, you’ve got something to refer to.

Assess just how important your computer is to you and your business and take appropriate action:

• CD, DVDs and USB memory sticks are fine for small amounts of data or important documents.
• External hard drives are more than worth the cost when you think of being without your laptop for a couple of days or losing your data. Make sure the software is easy to use both for backup and restore or you won’t do it. You can also just use them as offline storage for photos and music files.
• Backup to a second machine. If you use a desktop and laptop – backup your laptop data to your desktop. Desktop computers usually have a much larger hard disk.
• Online backups automatically backup your system and your data via your broadband connection. This is a better option for important or business data as it’s then held in a different location from your office. Useful in case of a fire or flood.

For the average home user an external hard drive will be more than adequate – more complex systems are intended for business users or those with business critical data and applications.

The older your computer is – the more likely it is to happen. Of course, we all know we should take regular backups but how many of us actually do?

While a hard disk re-install is an ideal opportunity to declutter the hard disk and get rid of all those programmes you installed years ago and forgot about and never use, I don’t recommend it.

There are clever guys out there who can recover data but usually at a price and it depends how important it is to you.

Don’t get caught out – take that backup today!

Clare Evans is the author of a time management book. She is a personal and business coach and enables individuals and business owners to get more out of their day and make better use of their time.

How good is your Time Management – find out in my FREE Time Audit and get free articles, information, tips and resources when you register for her free newsletter http://www.clareevans.co.uk