For whatever reason, I was around several people this week who lost their phones, had to reset them, or otherwise suffered from a lost of data with their phone.

While sometimes surprises happen, there is no great reason to ever be left without all your contact phone numbers, pictures, or videos from your phone. I can throw my phone into the lake without worrying about “losing” my important information. I might lose a very few recent pictures, but anytime I take a “keeper,” I back it up at the next opportunity.

If you use Gmail and input your contact info through gmail contacts, then link them on your phone, everything will always be updated, available from anywhere, and never lost. It will even load the picture you put into gmail into your phone. If you have a couple of hundred contacts, you shouldn’t use the excuse of “it takes too long” to input them into gmail, as you won’t notice you’ve lost all that time later when you must attempt to beg, scrounge and find your treasured contacts once you have lost your phone or data.

I didn’t include a long, complicated explanation of how to do it in this post, as I’ve found that the best way to learn is to google it yourself. Even better – take advantage of someone smart at your particular phone store and ask them to walk you through it.  Using gmail for your contacts is such a time-saving, effective way to ensure you have your contact information backed up and always at hand. If you so choose, you can also input ALL of each person’s information, including addresses, birthdays, notes, etc.

I try to keep an excel file updated, too, with at least the important names, addresses, and phone numbers of the people in my life. The file can be accessed from anywhere with internet access. It is surprising how often I am out and about and someone asks for a mutual friend of family member’s information. It is at hand no matter what the circumstances. An excel file is ‘old school’ without a doubt, but I can’t convince myself to stop doing the extra step yet.

As for pictures or videos on your phone, each of us should be connecting our phone manually to a computer at regular intervals and using the drag-and-drop method to copy what is one our phone. There are also great tools to automate this for you, too. But for them to work, you have to use them.

I’ve written several times in the past about the need to backup our stuff. I know my advice is mostly forgotten or ignored.