How to keep your immune system (and productivity) high during this flu season

Tis the season to be sneezing — and the season for increased workplace absences.

One day you’re perfectly fine; the next, you’re achy all over and your head is throbbing. It’s the annual ick, or as your doctor calls it, influenza.

While it’s impossible to predict just how severe the flu season will be each year, an estimated 52,000 people in the United States have already tested positive for the flu since September 2014. Typically, flu season peaks at the end of December through mid-January.

Catching the flu isn’t just hard on you; it’s bad for business. Companies shell out more than $10 billion a year for illness-related hospitalizations and outpatient visits, and that’s in addition to the $87 billion the flu costs the economy annually.

Still, research shows a few simple precautions can keep you from getting — and spreading — the flu:

Get your flu shot. A yearly flu shot is the single best way to protect yourself from the flu. With up to 56 percent of companies offering flu shot clinics for employees and most major pharmacies offering discounted vaccinations, it’s easy to take preventive measures.

Wash your hands and devices. Here’s a sobering statistic: 39 percent of people don’t wash their hands after sneezing, coughing or blowing their noses. That means your chances of touching a contaminated area are high. Since cold and flu viruses can live up to 24 hours on hard surfaces (like desks, counters or your computer) you should give your space, your electronic devices and your hands a good cleaning at least once a day.

Go home — and stay there! No one wants to be the walking petri dish responsible for making the entire office sick. Flu viruses spread mainly by droplets made when people with the illness, cough, sneeze or talk. Furthermore, studies show that adults could be contagious one day before they experience symptoms and five to seven days after becoming sick.

Discover the ROI of relaxing. Have you ever worked through a cold only to find you’ve pushed yourself too far? One-third of people report feeling pressured to go into work when they’re sick, which in addition to spreading the virus wears you out. Take the time you need to recover and keep everyone else flu-free. You’ll find you’re more relaxed and productive if you let a little R&R support your company’s ROI.

 

 

*See Citrix Sharefile blog for the original article

Spring Cleaning? Don’t forget your PC!

With the hint of spring in the air, your energy levels are up, and so is your productivity. You’re on a roll at work and suddenly—it starts freezing. And we’re not talking about the weather.

PC users have at least one thing in common—we’ve all experienced the distracting error messages, load time lagging, buzzing and whirring that alert us to double-check our backup system just in case the dreaded “blue screen of death” appears. While these signs don’t necessarily mean your PC is going to quit on you anytime soon, they are symptoms of a straining hard drive and an overworked machine.

But it is spring after all… why not extend your spring cleaning regimen to include your PC as well? Follow these simple tips to organize your files, purge unnecessary data and back up important information so your PC is working efficiently and smoothly—and so are you.

Hoard no more
Just because you don’t have old newspapers piling up in your living room doesn’t mean you’re good at letting things go. Remember those photos you downloaded last year or that game that you never play anymore? Those are still on your PC if you haven’t deleted them, and they’re using up valuable space.

Go through all of your programs and files and delete (or back up before deleting) the ones you don’t need or use anymore. Remember, deleting a program from your desktop does not mean it was deleted from your computer—make sure you go through the Start menu to uninstall each of the programs that you want to get rid of. And if you accidentally remove something you need, all of the recent versions of Windows have System Restore, which allows you to restore your PC back to an earlier time to retrieve the deleted information.

Get organized
Now that all of those unnecessary programs and files are out of the way, it’s time to organize the ones you still have. Organizing your files will speed up your productivity by helping you find what you need a lot faster.  There are many apps you can find to help you automatically organize programs and files on your PC, a good one is DropIt.

Back it all up
Everyone knows how important it is to back up your data, but it’s easy to get lazy about it. While you’re organizing your files, it’s a good idea to check and make sure that all of your important information can be recovered in the unfortunate event that your hard drive crashes.

The volume of data accumulated by most businesses can be overwhelming, making it hard to know what you should bother to back up on your PC. It’s a time-consuming process, but you have to take the time to prioritize the types of files you have and assess which ones you couldn’t run your business without—namely financial documents, contacts, and confidential information.

After you decide what to back up, the next decision is how. BizTech offers automatic online data backup from MozyPro.

Speed it up

If, after all of your attempts at cleaning and organizing your PC, it is still going slow, give BizTech a call!  Often times, you will have a virus or malware that you didn’t even know was affecting your computer.  Our experts will diagnose and troubleshoot the problems, and get your device back on track.  We can even take it to the next step and internally clean your computer.  Dust bunnies inside your computer can lead to component failure, fan failure, and slow performance. Find out more about BizTech’s PC repair services.

Make it a habit
Just as you should practice spring cleaning once a year, the process of purging, organizing, backing up data and cleaning the inside of your PC should also be a regular occurrence. The longer you put it off, the more you’ll pay for it later. Stay on top of your organization and your PC will thank you by working better and lasting longer.

These tips are brought to you by the HP Technology at Work Blog

Tech Tips to Increase Work Productivity

• Use Windows keyboard shortcuts
• Start with using just a few; Ctrl+C (copy); Ctrl+V (paste); Ctrl+S (save).
• Get rid of Spyware
• Spyware slows down your computer- getting rid of it can make your life much easier.
• Use more than one monitor
• Using dual-monitors greatly increases your productivity- no more clicking to different tabs on your spreadsheets, and copying/pasting into different documents becomes a cinch.
• You could even have one screen for your emails, and another for other tasks.
• Sort your email inbox
• Creating folders and filters can help you manage your chaotic inbox.
• Use calendars
• Using your calendar in Outlook or Google Calendars keep track of your meetings, appointments and other important tasks that you don’t want to forget about.