Going paperless

The paperless office was a much predicted and totally unrealized forecast in the early days of digital. Ironically it appears that computers have resulted in offices (both work and home) having even MORE paper. But as individuals we can cut our paper usage and storage down. Several sites offer solid advice for accomplishing this. The first, and one of my favorite sites on the web, is Lifehacker, and their article, The Complete Guide to Going Paperless is spot on with great advice. I found one user's comments about electronic notary intriguing, I will have to read up on that one later. But as you can tell from other users' comments everyone has a different comfort level that has to be met.

I'm betting you can probably find some files, articles, clippings, etc. that could be scanned and utilized better if they were in electronic form. I challenge you to pick one you think would be more convenient if only it were digital and give scanning and storing it on your computer a serious try.

Mine is going to be all those dratted insurance claims sent to me by my health insurance. They often have multiple appointments, patients, and doctors listed making it impossible to sort properly. They end up in one file folder and stay there. I don't need to save the paper copies but do need to check dates, which doctor, and what's owed occasionally. I could create a word or excel list of the claims, list the basic information (date, doctor, what it was for, and for whom) and insert a link to the related electronic copy. That would not save trees but would free up some file cabinet space.

Even better I could check with my insurance company to see if they could email my claim receipts so that I wouldn't need to scan them myself. That would save trees and time.

Note: I since checked my insurance company's web site and they don't appear to offer electronic delivery by email. I can access my records (in a different form and layout) online but only back about a year or so. Which is probably all one needs. But I think I will call them and suggest this as an option. They'd even save postage, and what company doesn't want to save money?

Other related articles and sites:

• Seven Strategies for Going Paperless - check out the rest of their blog, A Small Notebook for a Small Home. It focuses on simplifying one's life and home and has some great ideas.


• Six tips for going paperless

And naturally there is a possible downside to going paperless, see this interesting article at Going Green: Going paperless has its costs