Photo courtesy of Rob!
I was sick and tired of rifling through piles of papers to find what I was looking for so I decided that I had to do something about it. Thus, my goal for 2008 was to move to a paperless office. I feel that I have pretty much accomplished that goal – and surprisingly, it was mostly painless. These days, my inbox consists of bank deposit envelopes, Priority Mail envelopes and a manilla folder into which I place items that must be scanned. Additionally, I have gone from a file cabinet with 4 overstuffed drawers to only 1 drawer containing a couple of file folders (tax returns and legal documents such as birth certificate, passport, etc.)
The process was fairly straight-forward – here are some key tips that I used:
1. Set up a digital database
I purchased DevonThink Pro Office, an awesome intelligent database solution for your digital files. In my goal to have a “paperless office” (or paperless as much as possbile, anyway), it is indispensable. It allows me to store all of my digital files – graphics, sound files, movie files, spreadsheets, word processing documents, pdf’s, etc. in one repository – and retrieval of information is almost instantaneous. You can also easily collect and store data from the Web and from your e-mail application with just a couple of keystrokes.
2. Get a good scanner
I got the Fujitsu Scansnap S510M scanner, which allows you to convert paper archives into searchable .pdf files (there is a version for both Macs and PCs). When used in conjunction with DevonThink Pro Office, you can use OCR recognition so that the text of your .pdf’s is searchable by DevonThink (and Spotlight as well). Plus it is simply an awesome scanner!
3. Do not allow any papers to accumulate.
When I piece of paper comes across my desk, I use one of the rules of GTD – I ask myself “Is this actionable?” If it is a reference material or something that I may need to refer to in the future, then I add it to my “to be scanned” folder. If it is a bill or something I need to mail out, I take care of it right away (I have discovered that paying your bills immediately is a major stress reducer). Otherwise, the item gets recycled. I also scan receipts, warranties booklets and appliance instruction booklets.
4. Keep a “to be scanned” folder
I don’t scan items immediately when I get them. Instead, I have a manilla folder on my desk into which I place paper that needs to be scanned into my database. When I get about 10 or so items in the folder, I then scan them in.
5. Start scanning the contents of your file cabinets.
By doing a few items a day, you’ll be amazed at how fast you can empty out your file drawers. In my case, it had been years since I even looked at any of the contents of my files and discovered that a good majority of the items were no longer even relevant or useful. So I was able to toss them rather than scan them.
6. Stop printing out your e-mail messages
I also apply the actionable rules to e-mail. I either respond to it right way or put it in a Pending Folder in my mailbox. Once I respond or otherwise take care of it, I import it into DevonThink for storage (the program comes with a plug-in to easily import your mail into the database). If the mail item is not something I will need later, I simply delete it.
7. Scanning Magazine Articles
I never let magazines pile up. After I receive a magazine, I read it and if I come across any articles that I want to keep, I will cut them out and add them into my “to be scanned” folder. It’s amazing how pleasant it is to have a nice clean coffee table.
8. Get rid of the newspaper
Okay, this one may not be for everyone. I personally no longer subscribe to newspaper delivery. Instead, I subscribe to a couple of online news blogs and receive updates throughout the day from the New York Times. This more than meets my news needs.
9. Have an offsite backup plan
If you are digitizing IRS documents such as receipts, contracts, etc., you will need to obtain an off-site backup solution. I personally use Amazon’s S3 service in conjunction with Jungle Disk. Other popular options are Mozy for both Mac and PC users users and Carbonite for Windows users only (although I do believe there will be a Mac version in beta soon ). When getting rid of your paper documents, it is essential that you have some sort of backup plan in place. So if you don’t back up to an offsite storage facility, at a minimum backup to an external drive. I used to tell my computer students that there are two types of people – those who backup and those who wish they had.
The trick to making this work is to to be diligent- take those scraps of paper, those letters, those magazine articles – scan them in and then toss them out! Once you go paperless, you will never want to go back to the way things were before.
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