Weekly
- Restart it, instead of just closing the lid or leaving it asleep for days on end. A full restart clears out memory and lets pending updates finish installing.
Monthly
- Run a scan with your antivirus software, even if nothing seems wrong.
- Check your free disk space. Under 10 to 15 percent free on your main drive starts to slow everything down.
- Clear out your Downloads folder. It quietly fills up with installers and files you already used once.
Every Few Months
- Update your software, not just Windows itself: your browser, and anything else that prompts you.
- Confirm your backup is actually running, not just set up once and forgotten. See the backup basics guide if you haven't set one up yet.
- Uninstall what you no longer use. Fewer programs installed means less starting up quietly in the background.
As Needed
- Dust out the vents if it's running hot or the fans are loud. Dust buildup is one of the most common causes of overheating.
- Check your drive's health with a tool like HWiNFO if anything feels off. Catching a failing drive early is the difference between a warning and losing your files.
Free tools for most of this are on my software page.