Ctrl+Alt+Del

My phone has been acting up lately; the screen freezes for no apparent reason, or the camera won't load, or the scrolling starts to stutter. The same thing's been happening with my work computer; it's ancient as far as laptops go - nearly four years old - and after a few days of simply closing the top instead of shutting down at night, the color and brightness starts to go all wonky. Before I know it, I can't see the checkboxes next to my email messages and my desktop wallpaper of Lil Bub starts to look a bit zombified.

Lately, my life has been a stuttering scroll. A zombie-Bub. Sure, I'm going through the motions, and I'm technically getting things done, but my days are just...gunked up, frozen, and/or wonky. It's sort of like riding a bike through mud, or mincing garlic with a dull knife - it takes way more time and energy that it should.

My dad, a computer programmer, taught me the trick of utilizing a PC's task manager to shut off background programs and processes that eat up a computer's memory. You get to it by holding Ctrl+Alt+Del. It's like lifting up the hood of a car to see what's going on in the engine.

Once you're inside, you can pick and choose which programs, applications, and processes to stop. You can look at which programs are using the most memory.

You can learn what's going to slow you down if you start it up again.

It works really well on a PC, and even on a smartphone if you can figure out how to get to it. You shut a few things down, maybe even restart the device, and it's smooth sailing once again. Perhaps you even make the decision to delete the applications that cause you the most trouble.

It's time to hit my inner Ctrl+Alt+Del buttons. Take a look at the engine. Pinpoint the programs I need to either close or maybe even delete entirely.

Restart.