Accept the necessity of maintaining careful password habits

You can contribute to company security by simply following a few password best practices, and it's not that hard. It's easy to be lax about it, thinking that if we don't share passwords and I don't leave them lying around we will be fine. Spend 90 seconds thinking about what another person could do in your name if they had your password(s) and some misguided intentions.

Give your passwords a overhaul.  Come up with some logical password themes that you can remember, and incorporate some creative ways to include symbols and numbers.  This simple awareness can save you from enormous headaches in the future.

Adhere to protocol when making support requests

This is a tough one for both user and tech support. It falls under "old dog, new trick", too many years spent in small, informal working environments, where you could grab anyone available to help you obtain software, configure installations, troubleshoot problems. Nowadays, more employees, more formal organization, and a more sophisticated and complex infrastructure demand a controlled procedure for making requests. No more, "Yo, Ted, got a minute?" (I'm relatively certain that Ted will be happy to hear this.)

If your shop is just growing into the need for a more formalized help desk system, this simple VBA-driven tool might come in handy. It includes forms for opening and updating tickets, printable statements for recordkeeping, and a report feature.

Handle computer problems more scientifically

I tell myself to take screenshots of error messages or write them down and to document the steps that led up to the problem. And then I don't. I always think I'll remember. (Good one.)

Along with recording details, I will stop making wild, intuitive leaps that yield foregone conclusions about how implementing some trivial tweak or surfing for chipotle-bologna roll-up recipes caused a cascade of minute system alterations that months later induced Outlook to forget that it's the default e-mail client. The tech does not need to hear my theories. I do not need to look any more foolish than I already do. And relating objective details becomes impossible when they're overlaid by a laboriously contrived hypothesis.

Practice a little desktop housekeeping

 There's nothing quite like the feeling of watching a support tech pop open your computer case and seeing wave upon wave of dust and doghair come rolling out. And an M&M. How the hell did that get in there? Or having them sit down at your keyboard to check something on your machine and suddenly noticing that A through [Enter] have all but disappeared under a layer of composted Doritos. In fact, as I'm writing this, I see that even the mouse is looking a little skanky. I can do better than this, I'm pretty sure. A little regular maintenance and a can of compressed air, and I'll have things showroom-bright in no time at all.

Follow corporate policies regarding downloads and installations on the company machine

Okay, I'm projecting here. I don't fit the profile of those cavalier or hapless users who stuff their hard drives full of extracurricular files and apps. But I know it's a big issue for most IT departments, so I figured I'd throw it in here. If I were ever tempted to put a lot crap on my machine, I'd resist the urge anyway because if the system went belly-up, I'd be mortally humiliated. If you don't have a policy in place, this one will give you a starting point.

Take ownership for ensuring data on my company laptop is backed up

Last spring, my laptop's three-month-old hard drive failed in a big way. No one could explain it, no one could revive it. How backed up was I? Well, let's see. I've been working in the IT field for, erm, DECADES. So of course I was aware of the critical importance of backing up my files. You betcha I'd backed everything up. Seven months earlier. Here's an excellent list of laptop best practices, if you need one.

Read the e-mail sent out by local and corporate IT staff regarding migrations, upgrades, new security patch deploys, etc.

Especially the messages that say PLEASE READ THIS!!! That's how bad we users are: IT is forced to implore us in their subject lines. If I were in the support department, I'd turn my back on users after the first few e-mails got ignored. "What's that? You don't know the path to the new file server? Well we explained the changes in those 19 e-mails we sent starting last August. I guess you're on your own."

Keep my Outlook mailbox within reasonable limits

I'm not sure when this started being a problem for me. At one time, I was so organized and tidy. No really. But now it seems like I'm always maxed out, forced to dig through glacially compressed layers of folders containing e-mails dating back to the last century so that I can remove enough items for my inbox to breathe again. There's some recreational value in revisiting e-mails addressing Y2K compliance, but at some point, you just have to let go. Or at least move it offline or archive it.

Educate myself on new software, procedures, and technologies that affect my job

I'm a little selective here, eager to master the fun and powerful stuff but dragging my heels when it's time to sit down and learn about anything mundane or utilitarian. So this year, I vow to attend all training sessions, read the instructions provided by the IT staff, and be proactive about my own skills development instead of whining to IT and to my colleagues about the impenetrable interface and idiotic behavior of the new content management system. (Those things may well be true, but I'm going to make sure I've earned the right to complain about them.)