Are You a Hoarder?

You have probably heard of the tragic affliction called "hoarding."

Hoarders are people who can't get rid of junk. They are driven by a fear of throwing things away. Compulsive hoarding is the accumulation of things and the failure to discard them, even if the items are worthless or hazardous. Hoarding impairs mobility and interferes with basic activities.

I'll bet YOU are a hoarder and don't even know it.

When was the last time you cleaned up the junk you've accumulated in your computer?  Oh, you haven't done it because of fear of throwing things away? Hmmm....

Have you noticed that your mobility on the computer is impaired and your basic activities are running pretty slowly? Hmmmmm........

So, you continue to "step over" the worthless and hazardous waste products in your computer that have been dumped there by unused programs, deleted files, outdated software, and a whole bunch of other old garbage, and you just pretend it's not there?  Hmmmmmm........

And you still don't think you're a hoarder?

I had a friend who got a new PC every couple of years because his started getting slow and he thought it was because his computer was "outdated." He never cleaned it. That is the equivalent of being a hoarder and moving into a new house when the old house gets crowded!

Dr. Annie has a prescription for this affliction.  Face your fears.  Clean up that mess with CCleaner. (This is just for Windows computers and laptops.)

CCleaner stands for "crap" cleaner. (Don't ya just love this young generation of geeks!)  It is FREE.

Don't be afraid. I will walk you through the process. (It might be helpful to print these instructions because when you run the cleaner it will ask you to close all other pages.)

Click on Download CCleaner.

In the upper right corner it says "Download Latest Version." Click on it.

The next page is a little confusing, but look for where it says "Your download will start immediately, if not then please click on this link". Give your computer permission to download the program if it asks.

Follow the prompts, when it gets to "install options" check all of the boxes and click "install." Check that you want to run the cleaner and then "finish."

A box will pop up. Click Analyze. All of the trash you have accumulated will be listed. This may take a while. When it's done click on Run Cleaner (box in right lower corner).

You are not finished yet. Still lots of garbage.

In the very left column click on "Registry," and then, Scan for Issues. More garbage listed. Yuck. Click on Fix Selected Issues. It will ask you if you want to fix all the issues, click yes. It will ask you if you want to back up changes, click no.

When it's all done, your computer will be clean as a whistle. It will erase your history and you may have to reenter information your computer normally saves for you, but that's good.

There will be a new little icon on your desktop. Just click it to run CCleaner again.

You need to do this at least once a month. Just make a note to yourself that the first day of every month you are going to run CCleaner. And before you run it, make sure you check for updates (bottom right corner where it says "check for updates").

Now that we've solved that problem, come lie on my couch and tell me, How does THAT make you FEEL?