As I sit here writing this post on my laptop, I am trying to do everything in my power to stop myself falling into the trap of the kind of person I am about to describe. In fact, I am slowly starting to realise that, despite my criticisms, everyone is guilty of being lazy with their laptops in one way or another. Laptops were designed to improve the productivity and efficiency in our everyday lives. From razor thin laptops promising us the personification of cutting edge technology to notebooks packed with clam shelled charisma, enabling us to work whilst enduring those claustrophobic commutes; we owe a lot to our laptops.

Unfortunately though, we’re all human and some of us have that unruly gene causing us to take things for granted. Olympians, scientists, Beyonce… they all have far superior chromosome construction to the rest of us mortals and probably don’t fall fail of the technological slobbery we’re accustom to. So take comfort in the fact that if you’re reading this, you’re probably part of the majority. So sit back, balance that laptop carefully on the corner of your armchair, stuff your face with food and comfort eat your way through a few home truths.

Ask Yourself, Are You Guilty Of The Following:

Your Desktop Is Full Of Files

If your desktop is starting to look like a communal trashcan of Microsoft Office documents, you’re falling at the first hurdle in laptop maintenance. Modern laptops are meant to save time, and having a desktop full of files means you’re wasting hours of your life hunting down what exactly it is you’re looking for. It’s the equivalent of owning an office full of filing cabinets and filing your paperwork under the carpet. Just stop it. Now.

You Never Move Your Downloaded Files

I bet you’re too scared to even look in your downloaded files folder because you can’t face the fact that one day, you’re going to have to filter through all of those .exe files and PDFs and actually find something you were meant to file somewhere safe. Tut, tut. Get into the habit of removing all of those installation files after you’ve installed the software. It’s not hard. Oh and if you’re going to download Katy Perry songs illegally, at least make an effort to file them away somewhere appropriate. Such as the recycle bin.

You Leave Your Laptop At Home

It’s 8.27 and you know you should have left your house at 8.15. You rush around in and out of rooms, checking that that your hair looks pretty and that you’ve your keys and railcard. You peer knowingly across the room at your laptop sitting on the couch, just outside of its home, the laptop case. You quickly scan the room to see if you can spot the charger. You can’t. You then erase the last five seconds because you can’t be bothered to go through the process of finding your charger and putting the laptop in its case and then the agonising final step of putting the case in your bag. C’mon son. You could have got a head start by working on the train but now you’ll be late and have to catch up.

You Throw Your Laptop Away When The Screen Is Broken

At the first sign of visual disturbance you bury your head, instantly decide it’s an unsolvable problem and resign your laptop to a life gathering dust in a cupboard, or worse yet, you kill it off. This is what’s wrong with our generation. We need to learn how to overcome problems and not buy our way out of them. Ever had a spot between your eyes? Ever battled with a coldsaw on your top lip after a few heavy nights? We don’t just go and hang people because a few minor imperfections. Take your laptop to a specialist and see if it can be fixed, better yet, learn about how to fix laptops yourself.

You Torture Your Laptop’s Battery Life

You’re sitting watching X Factor on your laptop, draining both your soul and battery life simultaneously when a little pop up message informs you that you’ve got less than 20% battery life left. This is a common occurrence and you know that 20% will see you through at least five of Simon Cowell’s ‘darling’ fuelled escapades. Before you know it, you’ve sat through five Motown karaoke covers and another message pops up from your laptop, desperately informing you that it’s on its last legs and only has 5% of life left. Your laptop has thrown its last flare and yet you’re glancing across the room at the laptop charger, sitting just feet away. You can’t be bothered to lean over and put your laptop on life support and so instead you concern yourself with idiotic mathematics, trying to work out whether five per cent of battery life will be enough to last the last 10 minutes of the show. Your laptop charge runs out before the show ends, you close the lid, sigh and fall back asleep.

You Postpone Updates

Windows is giving you FREE updates to improve the performance of your laptop but rather unwisely they also give you the chance to postpone those updates for 10 minutes, or a few hours. You click 10 minutes because deep down you know it’s best to update your laptop and you’ll be done what you’re doing in a few minutes. Before you know it, those 10 minutes have passed and your laptop kindly asks again if you’d like to update. You’re addiction to looking at ninja cats on YouTube takes over and you feel you’re going to be there for a while. You postpone for a few hours and then repeat this process on a daily basis. Then you complain when your laptop is running slow. Stop moaning, get off YouTube and update. Simple.

When Everything Messes Up You Hold The Power Button Down

This is like overdosing on sleeping tablets when you can’t handle a week’s worth of washing up. Sort of. You’ve let problems build up on your laptop and eventually your computer can’t handle it and freezes. Instead of playing it cool and taking a look at task manager and your computer performance to see what’s happening, you hold down the power button and assume this will solve all of your problems. You’re wrong. You’re temporarily avoiding the real issue, and if your computer has crashed it’s likely to be something that will come back to haunt you at some point once again. Deal with it.

 You Don’t Clean Your Screen Or Keyboard

You wash yourself every morning (hopefully). When your house is looking a little grubby you give it a spring clean (hopefully). So why the hell are you shouting, eating, spitting and coughing all over your laptop and just leaving all that bacteria, dirt and crumbs to breed, colonise and infest your screen and tracks between your keyboard? It’s disgusting. You’re not a 14 year old boy so grab the Domestos and some screen wipes and clean up your act. You’ll feel better for it and so will your laptop.

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You Never Shut Your Laptop Down

How would you feel not sleeping for 7 days? A little tired right? Probably won’t be able to get things done as quickly? You might even crash and hibernate for days on end. You get my point. Rather than falling into the habit of constantly closing your laptop in a rush and never properly shut it down, get into the habit of giving it some sleep. Yes those 45 excruciating seconds of load up time when you switch your laptop back on are difficult to handle, but new laptops are designed to last, so start thinking of their long term health. Well done.

Scott is a writer who completed this post with 17% battery life remaining.