“Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.”

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

“Well done is better than well said.”

There’s a reason old adages have staying power: They’re true, even in this digital age.

Or maybe I should say especially in this digital age. Hardware failure, viruses, ransomware… digital information is susceptible to loss more than ever.

One adage I’ve been thinking about for a couple of weeks is “a stitch in time saves nine.” I’ve been thinking about it since the morning I opened my laptop only to be met with a blank screen. My tech guy confirmed my fears that my hard drive was shot. The computer didn’t even recognize that a drive was there.

Notice I said “my fears” and not “my worst fears.” Last May when my hard drive putzed out on me, I lost everything. Once my programs we reinstalled, I made a conscious effort to save everything to Dropbox. Because even though my files resided in the ether, I could access them as easily as any other folder on my computer.

This time a few files and downloads were lost, but it took this little hiccup to realize I need to alter a couple more file-saving habits. Because even though I’d been saving files to Dropbox, I didn’t have a reinstallation plan for all of the programs that I use. Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Suite are easily accessible. But some of the other programs I use on a daily basis–GIF Animator, TextWrangler, and FileZilla–are not as easy to grab and install. Oh, I could find them. But it would be a process. And sometimes I doubt I could even begin to remember the NAMES of these programs.

This time, my story has a happy ending. When the new hard drive arrived and was installed, the computer didn’t recognize it either. It wasn’t a hard drive issue after all. So we popped my old drive into a different laptop, and I’m back in business. And even though I didn’t suffer a lot of data loss, I lost an incredible amount of time.

So here’s the “stitch in time” part: My 300 Seconds recommendation for today is to look at the different areas of the bookstore that require back-up.

1. First, the data: financials, inventory and other POS information, customer database, photos, logos and other store collateral material, employee information.
2. Now, the software: Can you readily restore any programs that might have been lost, like the Adobe Suite, Microsoft Office, and POS software?
3. And finally, the miscellaneous: things like printer drivers, passwords, fonts, and the like.

Take these 5 minutes to figure out not only the best form of backup (cloud, external drive, etc.) but also the frequency and who should be responsible for each one. Thinking about these things now might save you from a huge headache in the future.

And an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.