For my friends in the United States, it’s time to back your clocks up this weekend as daylight savings time comes to an end for 2013. I think of this event as a good reminder to focus on the things we should backup in our business, especially since we gain that precious extra hour in a day that we all seem to ask for.
Your website
I talk about hackers + security a lot on this site, because it is important to know what you are up against in running an online business. One of the best ways to keep yourself protected is to make regular backups of your entire website.
That way, in case of crappy circumstance, you can breathe easier knowing you have a complete copy of your site as it was 3 days ago. Compare that to how you would feel if you didn’t have a backup plan at all + your site files were ruined?
Your computer
Depending on how you operate your business, you might have dozens or hundreds of important files on your computer that are vital to you or your clients. That’s why it’s important to backup your computer’s hard drive – or those important files at least.
I have a backup system in place that automatically runs a backup a few times a day while I am working. When the storage space fills up, it deletes old copies, but typically has copies that are at least 3 weeks old up to 2 hours old. I like having options.
Your smartphone
Have you ever felt the panic of not knowing where your phone is? Or what about the feeling of dropping it on the hard ground + being too scared to flip it over knowing that you’ll see nothing but shattered glass? The worst outcome of those 2 situations is that the phone is truly lost or damaged beyond repair.
I don’t know about you, but my life runs on my iPhone. Sure, a lot of things are synced to the cloud, so I could access them on my computer. But, I have tons of photos, videos + apps set up that are beyond useful to my business. One false move of my iPhone landing in a toilet + all of that would be gone if I didn’t have a full backup to restore.
Your backups
This is my time to get uber nerd on you + explain that redundancy is your friend when it comes to backups + backup systems. I have dealt with corrupt backup files, backup versions that didn’t fully copy + user error when selecting the folders or contents to backup.
When talking about backups, it’s never a bad thing to have 2 separate copies or options in place, but 3 is even better. That might mean a few versions of your full backups, like I mentioned having with my computer. Or, it could mean having a few systems that run backups or store your backups. For example, you might have a plugin on your site that runs a full backup, but you might also have a hosting company that runs a regular backup of your server files. I bet you can guess, but having redundancy in your backup systems + multiple copies in each system is the best way to operate your business backup systems.
Get started
So take some time this week to prioritize the 4 things you should backup {not including your clocks} + start as soon as you can.
Remember, you have an extra hour this weekend to take advantage of.