Teaching moments come in the most unexpected, often painful ways. And the more painful the lesson, the greater the chance its message will stick forever. Making a mistake could be compared to being bitten by the wisdom bug. Its venom rushes through our veins and activates the production of antibodies. As a result, our immune system – or the “wisdom” part of our brain – grows stronger and helps us avoiding the same mistake again.

I’d like to think that’s how it works. After all, that’s the same mechanism behind the acquired wisdom of our ancestors. Through trial and error, they learned which fruit was safe to eat, and which one was safe to eat just once.

When it comes to the things I learned from losing a year’s worth of data, I let the creative juices flowing. I counted five lessons. Starting from the most obvious message: back up your data, kids! to the broader, more spiritual ones. How did I manage to weave in spirituality here, you may wonder? Well, I just applied the late Wayne Dyer’s famous claim that There’s A Spiritual Solution to Every Problem. All I needed to do was to step back and look for the spiritual lesson hidden underneath. Let’s begin!

1. The More, The Merrier – Use Multiple Backup Methods

You’ve heard that old warning of not putting all your eggs in one basket, didn’t you? The same principle applies to handling computer data. Having multiple backups in place for your important data is the best way to prevent a disaster.

What constitutes important data? Anything that can’t be replaced, such as personal documents – just like my journal – photos, home videos. If you want to help your kids to create a memorable wedding presentation when the day comes, you better make sure all your home videos are saved on several disks.

There are physical, external backups, and there are cloud-based ones. I’m not going to pose for an expert in this domain and be upfront that what I know comes from other sources. This article written by Chris Hoffman provides a comprehensive overview of the available methods and solutions. Following his suggestion, I opted for one physical backup (USB external drive using the File History feature of Windows 10) and one cloud-based – Google Drive.

One thing I realized while recovering from losing my data, is the abundance of existing internet-based backup systems, which we might not even be aware of. Take the Sent folders of your email account. In my case, this folder was instrumental in recovering many of the documents I initially deemed lost. Another option could be Trello – an internet-based solution for project management. Or a design tools like Canva. These services won’t obviously replace a proper backup, but could host smaller, often used files such as resumes, social media templates or content calendars.

2. Make a Habit of It!  – Automate

Once we know where to save, we need to make sure we do so regularly. Creating a habit of something requires for us to actually perform the task, and to do it often. Simply thinking about doing it is not enough. It’s the link to action and repetition that turn an activity into a habit. How do I know this? I’m guilty of relying too much on “knowing” and not enough on “doing.”

My old laptop used to run a system backup once a week, on a Sunday evening. If I happened to be working on my laptop at that time, I would take it as a cue to back up my files onto the external drive. Looking back, I realize that I had two backups in place without even consciously thinking about it. When I changed laptops in June 2017, I never activated the regular backup feature on my new computer. And without that little reminder every Sunday evening, there was no cue to prompt me to save my data onto the external drive.

Had I invested 15 minutes upfront in setting up my backup, I would have continued to benefit from the power of an existing habit. Yes, all it takes is 15 minutes – I tested – to set up all precious data backed up on a regular schedule. This post explains step-by-step how to do it for Windows 10. Claiming that I didn’t have time because I’d been working crazy hours between October and March is a little pathetic. The short 15 minutes would have saved me a lot of grief.

Also, I would recommend to link doing a backup – or checking if the files have been properly backed up – with another regularly performed activity. I added a reminder to my phone bill due date to check the files.

3. Paper is King. And Patient.

Despite being so used to having all things digital, there’s great value in keeping physical copies of what’s important to you. Maybe not of everything, but definitely certain photos, awards, articles, letters of references, and a current copy of your resume. All of them are the things worth having at hand.

My friend, who basically lives and breathes digital world, has a habit of printing out the best photos of her and her family once a year. She does that around her birthday, which is in November, and considers it as a kick-off for the holiday season. The reason? Several years ago, her home was broken into and she had all her electronics stolen, including external drives. The only photos that were left behind where the ones that she had printed. While I might not be as hardcore as her, I did appreciate having a framed picture of my mom, my brother and I, taken at her birthday last year. The original, digital file was among the files lost.

I’ve always been an avid note-taker, even though I keep an electronic daily journal. I mentioned that before, and I’m sure will write on this topic again. (One of the benefits of taking the actual notes on paper is improving one’s memory. The act of physically writing something down, taking the actual notes during a lecture, jotting down an idea on a napkin is linked with better memory.) In the light of the latest development, my weakness for taking physical notes has proven to be my saving grace.

In the past, I used to write on anything that’s nearby: envelopes, scrap paper, notepads, my kid’s assignments (returned!). But recently, following a frantic search for a misplaced note, I started writing everything in one place – a simple spiral notebook. In this notepad I wrote the main idea for my book. Without it, the idea and structure for the book would have been completely gone.

4. Be Present and in the Moment. Mindfulness in IT

Turn that autopilot off when it comes to important things. In fact, real-life pilots rely on checklists for safety and so should we. This checklist could include the majority of items from the 9 essential qualities of mindfulness such as focus on the present moment, non-judgement and acceptance of things as they are.

Yes, I knew – heck, I even preached it – that backing up your data is essential. I was the good daughter of a local IT guy, who had recovered tons of data from absent-minded and careless folks. I even laughed when my dad shared some of the stories with me.

So how’s possible that I stopped backing up the moment I changed laptops last year? I overestimated my computer proficiency and choose to believe that this new, SSD drive would be much more reliable. Looking back, I can clearly see that I was playing with fire – including not checking properly whether the backup was visible for another computer.

Had I been fully present, I would have noticed that the time it took to create the shortcuts was too short for it to constitute a full transfer of the data. Also, not checking if the files would open on the other computer, before deleting them for good, was placing an assumption on my part (don’t be attached to the outcome – another quality of mindfulness).

5. Only One Way to Be Authentic. Walk the Walk

On the day I turned 40, I made a vow of living my life in the most authentic way possible. I pledged to embrace my gifts and share them with others. There was a great conviction that I can help others re-connect with their true selves, to be authentic.

But somewhere along the way these vows have fallen short of action.

While in the last 12 months I had worked on many things: course outlines, articles, blog posts, book etc., only the things I shared with the world survived. For example, having this blog post saved as a draft in WordPress, made it possible to recover. Same for this one – I had the major points written saved there too.

If legacy and authenticity are the words of the year, walk the walk, not just talk the talk. In my case, share the fruits of my creativity with the world. Not every single post has to be perfect. A certain degree of imperfection is more authentic than the polished and re-edited, politically correct piece. Same for the courses – improve them by listening to the feedback of the actual students, not by anticipating what the students might think.

One for the Road

Losing that data was painful. But I hope it was an isolated incident, not a trend. A proverbial kick in the butt, if you will. Something significant enough so I start paying attention, and not yet completely devastating so I can’t recover from it.

It could have been my dad’s way of looking after me from above. After all, it came in the form of losing data – a topic that he felt passionate about. And it felt like a kick in my read end. That was our inside joke – my dad used to kick me in the bum before every important step. He picked up this habit from his days at the university theatre, where new actors would receive a swift kick before entering the stage. If that’s the case, he couldn’t have picked the more effective way to get my attention.