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Thursday
Apr082010

Imagine There's No Paper...

Posted on DateThursday, April 8, 2010 at 5:24PM
... it's easy if you try. I don't hate paper. I dislike chaos. I like order. Wouldn't it be nice to simply open a window on your computer, or iPhone (or iPad), and just type the name of the document you want? No more going thru files searching for client info, or an insurance document, or well, anything else. No more paying thousands of dollars to store documents when you run out of room, or having to buy yet another file cabinet for even more documents. This is the world I dream of... IMAGINE.

Well, it can be done. Today I'll going to go over how I do that, but if you really want to consider going paperless this is a good site to check out: http://www.apaperlesslife.com/.


My original method used to be a desktop scanner. The scanner may just be the perfect tool for you. Here's an article from Lifehacker that discusses the ScanSnap S300. And here is a link for the scanner itself on Amazon. At the time I found that to cumbersome (it wasn't the SnapScan, and it was several years ago) so in my constant vigil to streamline my life I searched for alternatives.

 

I settled on the iPhone (originally it was my Windows Mobile Phone), it's camera, and some apps. The first step for me was Evernote. This is an amazing note taking application that runs on multiple platforms - Windows, OS X, iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Android, etc. - the fact that it does so was the biggest reason I chose it. Also, it's free (you can pay for more storage and features which I do) and it stores a copy of your data locally on your machine and remotely on their secure website. It also takes information in a variety of forms: Text, Pictures, Audio, Web-clips. As you take these "notes" you can save them to a "Notebook", and tag them to make them easier to find.

So, for example, instead of writing down notes on paper when doing a site-survey at a customer site - I would use Evernote on my iPhone. I would jot down notes, take pictures of the site, I could even make an audio recording of our meeting. All of this would be immediately saved to the Evernote website. When I returned to the office I would open up the Evernote app on my computer and it would then sync with the website and download all the notes that I made for the meeting. No paper! And better yet - I had actual images of the site of was visiting - helping me to better remember what we spoke about. All of this I could save in a customer folder on our server to keep for our records and to use for working on the customer proposal.

This was the beginning of my paperless life. But, there was more. Taxes. Receipts. Work Orders. All on paper. With my trusty iPhone and Evernote I began a new stratagem. Whenever I got a receipt for a purchase, or a business meal, or even a parking ticket - I would take a picture of it with my iPhone, assign it to a notebook (say tax items, or Receipts, or Work), gave it a memorable tag (Invoice from Nortel, Lunch on Job 1045, etc) and title and I was off. I knew there was a copy on my phone and now one in the cloud (on-line). It was already stored, backed-up, and cataloged for later retrieval. Documents such as my car registration, insurance forms, my car radio's unlock code, etc. could now all be "scanned" by simply taking a picture of it and stored to be easily found when needed.

With an iPhone app called "Zosh" I was now able to have work orders on my phone, filled them out, and have the customer sign them without any paper being involved! Once completed I could e-mail a copy of the signed document back to the office, or the customer, or directly into Evernote to be filed in our database to be easily found later with a simple search.

The reason I chose to use my iPhone instead of the document scanner was a matter of efficiency. With the iPhone I can literally scan anything, anywhere, at anytime. I don't have to worry about taking that paper back to the office to be scanned - as soon as I'm done it's already there! Also, it's faster to take a picture than to wait for the scanner to do it's thing. If you do have stacks of paper, or perhaps you are converting large amounts of paper into digital format - then a scanner may be the best thing to use. Especially if you have one that will scan stacks of paper at once. But, once you've reached that point where all you paper is now digital, a mobile device with a decent camera (3 megapixels, or better) will serve the purpose admirably.

Some other reasons to consider going paperless:

COST - No paper, Ink, or printers to buy. Never make that weekly, or monthly trip to the office supply store to buy overpriced printer ink and paper. Depending on the amount of paper you may even have to out-source just STORING the paperwork.

LESS CLUTTER - Imagine what you could do with all that space. No more file drawers filled to the brim with folders, or scattered over you desk.

BACKUP/REDUNDANCY - If there's a fire you paper is ruined. If there's a water damage your paper is ruined. Backing up and storing multiple copied of you data is much easier and more cost effective than doing the same with physical paper. You can have the same data stored at the office, on an online backup service, at your home, on your phone - at the same time!
As long as you have a designated system and follow it well retrieving your data will be much easier. You can search by customer, or job, or tag. it's up to you, but typing to search for your document will be much easier and faster than manually searching for it.

SAVE THE PAPER, SAVE THE PLANET! - Congratulation you've earned your Green Badge!
 
Well, I'm sure I'll have more to say on this in the future, but for now I'll stop here.
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