Do Excel Short Cut Keys Really Save Time?

Most Excel short cuts can be performed in 2 seconds or less. We actually rounded up to 2 seconds for several of these when we tested. Some of the most common tasks save the most time when performed with short cuts. The Save As short cut, for instance, was 3 seconds faster than its manual equivalent. We found Excel short cut keys to be on average 41.1 percent quicker than their manual equivalents. You can shave a whole second off even the quickest Excel tasks with short cut keys. Excel short cut keys significantly enhance productivity.

Is your Cloud Data Storage as Green as you Think it is?

What is the Environmental Impact of Cloud Computing?

And, How to Reduce your Digital Carbon Footprint in the Cloud.

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On Wednesday May 5th 2021 a news story on Al Jazeera's environmental show Earthrise reported that our consumption of cloud storage space accounts for 1% of the entire global usage of electricity annually. This caught our attention since it is a staggering statistic, something like equivalent to the power consumption of two medium-sized nation states such as France and Germany combined, just from the data centers which hold our content in the Cloud.

In fact, Greenpeace gives a much higher estimation of Cloud Computing's environmental impact. Greenpeace estimated the technology sector to account for around 7% of global electricity consumption in 2020 and attributed this to the expansion and growth of Cloud Computing. Greenpeace also predicts that by 2025 this figure is likely to rise to something like 25%.¹

Again, Christopher Marquis writes in Forbes that:

Our digital technology use is now responsible for about 4% of global CO2 emissions.²

And, according to EcoWatch, around a fifth of the energy consumed by the entire technology industry is accounted for by the data centers which house our data in the Cloud.³

From this we can immediately tell that the environmental impact of Cloud storage is absolutely colossal, and we can conclude that we all have a responsibility to be better digital citizens of the Cloud by managing our consumption more effectively. And, whilst there are actually numerous environmental benefits to be gained from Cloud Computing these gains can easily be mitigated by bad data and content management practices and poor governance over what we store, how and why. One study commissioned by Microsoft shows clear environmental benefits and energy savings to be found in opting for Cloud-based products compared to on-premise ones.⁴ Google Cloud also prides itself on having become carbon neutral, and aims to be carbon zero by 2030.⁵

However, only with good data and content management, can we truly reap the benefits of these gains by moderating and managing our consumption of Cloud real estate.

The momentum up until now has almost inexorably been in the other direction and towards storing more in the Cloud rather than storing less, with little consideration to effective information management or the cumalative environmental impact of our Cloud storage.

OneDrive, provides a good example of this emphasis and of the ways in which we are encouraged to consume more.

Storage space is given away in the form of incentives, such as Bing Rewards whereby if you sign up you get an extra 100GB of free personal storage on OneDrive. And, unless you or your administrator, manage your OneDrive settings effectively, you will find content syncing with OneDrive before you've even given a thought as to whether it belongs in the Cloud or not. And on top of that, features such as Windows 10 Storage Sense even takes over moving content that hasn't been opened in a while on to OneDrive, thereby decluttering your PC but lifting content into the Cloud and exacerbating the issue. If you enable Storage Sense then this feature will even silently put your temporary files and Recycle Bin content in the Cloud. In short, whilst Storage Sense is very good at de-cluttering your data locally, a large amount of what it sweeps up ends up in the Cloud.

For OneDrive business users, Microsoft only becomes the gatekeeper when a user account reaches 90% of their 5TB capacity, and a case must then be opened with Microsoft support to extend the storage up to a maximum of 25TB.⁶ Below 5TB per user, the responsibility is with OneDrive users and administrators to manage their Cloud content effectively and to set internal policies and good governance.

Moreover, whilst it is possible to selectively delete email files using a content search, Office 365 offers no comparable way of cleaning up OneDrive files (for the solution to this see the OneDrive settings and permission tips below).

Microsoft is not the only culprit of course and there are many other Cloud Computing services out there clamouring to get their hands on more of our data such as Google Drive, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle, Netflix and Dropbox.

As more and more data and content moves into the Cloud, it is easy to feel that we have less and less responsibility for it, but this in reality is not the case. We created that content and we have a responsibility for the energy consumed by the megalithic data centers which store our Cloud clutter. The responsibility ultimately resides with users, content creators and consumers to prevent the Cloud from becoming a mountain of digital landfill.

Admittedly, there is very little we can do quickly to mitigate the impact of big data in the Cloud or of video streaming in the Cloud, but when it comes to our management of every day personal and business data we can do a lot.

On the positive side, if we start to deal with our digital waste effectively then this can make a tremendous positive impact in the battle to fight climate change. Just imagine! A positive environmental impact which overall could be the equivalent energy saving to turning all the lights off permanently in two large countries.

In terms of making a real and tangible impact, this is one of the easiest ways to exert corporate and individual responsibility to reduce our carbon footprints.

How do I de-clutter my Cloud?

Here are some simple steps you can take to reduce your environmental impact in the Cloud and reduce your digital carbon footprint:

File Management

Good housekeeping can go a long way towards reducing the amount of space that we can consume in the Cloud.

Delete Obsolete files.

Empty your recycle bins (locally and in the Cloud).

File and Folder Compression.

In the early 2000s we all used file compression tools such as WinZip and WinRar to save space on our hard drives and on our email attachments. These days the absolute necessity for file compression has long since passed, but when trying to reduce the amount of cloud storage that we consume then file compression should be our new best friend.

Image Compression.

It is possible to reduce the file size of your images often by as much as 50% or even 70% without any noticeable loss in quality using services such as CompressPNG.com and Compressjpeg.com.

Flat files

Convert old Excel files which you need to keep on record to CVS format. This can reduce the file size by around 50%.

Follow GDPR Guidelines.

By following GDPR guidelines you can observe good governance and destroy old customer records and data which you no longer require.

How sustainable is my website?

To improve this you can opt for Green Webhosting. You can also use a service such as EcoGrader to find out how environmentally friendly your website is. The results might surprise you, and making some simple changes can help contribute towards your website's digital sustainability.

Manage your OneDrive Settings and Permissions

Control which file types can and can't be synced with OneDrive (video and audio would be a good place to start). See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/block-file-types
Control user storage settings.
Admins can set user default storage limits. With subscription accounts the pre-set default storage is 1TB and can be extended to 5TB! It is practical to reduce this significantly for many users since most of our job descriptions don't include needing a small data center all to ourselves. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/set-default-storage-space
Encourage good housekeeping amongst users.
You also have the option to switch off syncing all together. See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-off-disable-or-uninstall-onedrive-f32a17ce-3336-40fe-9c38-6efb09f944b0
Set corporate policies for Cloud storage limits and processes for increasing storage limits which have effective check and approval processes.
Share files rather than emailing attachments or copying and pasting.
Follow Microsoft's guidelines for managing your OneDrive storage and limits: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/manage-your-onedrive-storage-and-limits-989fce19-ade6-4e2f-81fb-941eabefee28
Use PowerShell to clean up your OneDrive files. See How to Use PowerShell to Remove OneDrive Files Found by a Content Search

Footnotes

1) See https://earth.org/environmental-impact-of-cloud-computing/

2) See The Cloud Isn't Inherently More Sustainable: Manage The Environmental Impact Of Being Virtual

3) See Is Netflix Bad for the Environment? How Streaming Video Contributes to Climate Change

4) See Cloud Computing and Sustainability: The Environmental Benefits of Moving to the Cloud

5) See https://cloud.google.com/sustainability

6) See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/onedrive-for-business-service-description

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