Well, I stand by that article nearly in it's entirety! I spent most of my spare time last year scanning old documents and then shredding the originals. I guess one question would be, what format do people scan to? Mine are all PDF.

And yes, though I'm digital with almost everything, I'm not on the eBook bandwagon yet. I'm waiting for future versions of Kindle.

digital_man

the only paper in our house in the past few years is mail, art supplies, and the occasional photo we print off for a friend.

Swizzler121

I won't try going paperless since it would take too much time. I keep very little paper around (like bills, receipts) to begin with, but it's pointless to try to reduce it to zero.

Basically, at the end of each year, I archive a 2-3 inch stack of paper and keep it seven years with my tax return. On the eighth year, pretty much everything gets pitched except for the tax returns. My financial history can fit inside one banker's box which is fine by me.

There are other paper items (mementos, letters, drawings, etc.) that I keep around so it's not really any big deal.

Deprong Mori

I actually already read most of my books electronically, but it's pretty hard to go without my college textbooks and notes.

kobewan

I'm all for reducing clutter, but I grew up with my nose in various books and shudder at the thought of a childhood spent reading "The Wind and the Willows" and "James and the Giant Peach" on Kindle.

AlbanyEd

I had all my bills go paperless a year or so ago. Now I get my monthly statements via e-mail. I make sure that all flyers are sent elsewhere. If I want deals, I've got the web. I keep out of magazine and newspaper subscriptions by using online RSS feeds and looking for the news I want to hear. The only paper I ever print is the occasional resume/application when needed.

chris.lucier

One other thing worth mentioning in the my whole quest for paperlessness is that I now get the majority of my mail (including any bills which can't be delivered electronically) sent to this service: [www.earthclassmail.com]

But a big word of warning - it does cost $$$. I've mentioned them here in Lifehacker before, and I'm not affiliated with them other than being a customer for the past 8 months or so. But I am very pleased with their service and it does help the paperless goal.

digital_man

Long ago I used to print stuff off the web for reference; now I save it as .txt or .html or .pdf.

I find 75% of equipment manuals can be found in pdf, and are often easier to consult in this format, so out with the paper.

I have about 2 G of music scores on pdf.

Part of my two filing cabinets has been scanned, but that is too time consuming. Maybe my personal assistant in India will get the job. Just kidding.

[www.wired.com]
"In 1983, a company called Wang Labs had introduced a system that could scan images and store them in memory. They predicted paperless offices. Today, offices are 'Wang-less.'"

As I recall, I thought An Wang was crazy at the time, but with the cheap storage available today I'm now with it.

Capone

Mark Shead of Productivity 501 regularly writes about his experiments of going paperless. Read it at :

[www.productivity501.com]

I'm not linked to Productivity 501, just that I find his blog interesting

desipenguin

Like Digital_Man, I spent most of my free time at work 2 years ago borrowing their high-speed scanners and scanning the past 7 years of bills/records. It's overkill but hey, it's all digital now so no harm no foul. I scan everything to PDF. Now, I keep a pile on my desk as the few non-electronic bills i do have come in. Every week or two, I scan that pile, and sort it. I keep an encrypted DMG on my Mac called my "File Cabinet" that has a folder structure (sorry no tags!) that I can unmount for security, or copy to my macbook for a trip or a meeting where records are needed. I have folders for statements, personal records (medical/legal/etc.), insurance policies, tax returns, receipts & product manuals/info (nice to have the instructions to your camera on your desktop). Of course with quicklook (leopard) my life improved about 50 times over as I can just use the cover flow to see all my records. And then quicksilver helps me get to the folder i need quickly. The ONLY paper I keep of any consequence is all the official records for the house (mortgage note, deed, etc.), which are kept in a fireproof safe w/ my backup hard drives. Online backup service gets the file cabinet every night as well, so all records are safe in event of a catastrophe. And best thing is that the online backup service just gets the DMG file (encrypted), so an extra layer of security for me.

Trust me, once you get over the hump of getting all your old stuff scanned, keeping up on it is easy. PDF is the best. If you use Adobe 8 Professional, you can "reduce file size" once you scanned to get the maximum bang for your buck, and also use the OCR functions to make things searchable (spotlight, anyone?) . I know this sounds very Mac-oriented, but I started all of this on a PC first, and Paperport is a great program for this, but Leopard and Quicklook make it all a piece of cake!

bgwynne

I dont get whats so hard about going paperless. In my household the only paper that comes in is recipts, contracts, cash, books and toilet paper. I don't count books though because those don't stop being used or lose usefulness like, say, a printout of a miscellaneous email would. Heres a tip - if you want to not use paper anymore, stop letting it in to your house. It also helps to only have one pen. how many do you need anyhow?

That whole bit on scanning is retarded too - the paper already exists - you're already using it. whats the point of scanning it and throwing it out at that point? the idea of going paperless is to reduce/eliminate your consumption of paper in the first place, replacing it with digital formats instead. not to consume paper AND energy to convert it to digital formats.

Being paperless takes absolutely NO work. Not complicated what. so. ever.

Rajio

I use Paytrust to make sure that all my bills (even the paper ones) are electronic. I change my billing address to them and they scan everything in and process my bills based on rules. At the end of the year I get a CD-ROM that has all my scanned images for the year.

I use paperport as a filing cabinet and Microsoft onenote as a notebook (scanning, web clipping, and writing etc.)

I also use Hamachi VPN to have my laptop, tablet, home, and work PC's always synchronized with my documents (which included the onenote notebooks).

I still keep a legal pad around for spur of the moment notes, but sometimes I'll end up scanning that into Onenote as well.

bradray

I work for the government and get a housing allowance...even though I submit the stuff by .pdf now, I have to have a paper copy.

But other than that, I'm trying to go paperless. I still have a hard time shredding stuff, but as time goes on, it gets easier.

What I need (because I'm too cheap to buy Acrobat at home) is a good system for tagging files with the appropriate metadata, in case I ever really need to look for it electronically.

karlawithak

Anyone know of a decent paper fed scanner for under $100? For me, paperless will be a reality when scanning a document is as easy as putting it in my inbox. ScanSnap is drool worthy, but I think too much for the price.

airogos

@airogos: I found a inexpensive but reliable solution in the Brother DCP 7020. It has an ADF and decent software. Price starts at $ 150.

I'm using OS X, Automator and Hazel to set up complete workflows.

Dominik Reinmund

> That whole bit on scanning is retarded too -
> the paper already exists - you're already using it.
> whats the point of scanning it and throwing it
> out at that point?

Uhm, what's the point ?

Long-time free archiving, that doesn't take space.
Searchability
Security - backed up to internet

Need I say more ?

I eliminated all paper copies of bills and invoices. Everything gets scanned.

Dominik Reinmund

Going paperless is all good and well - but there's something that the Treehugger link to this article mentioned that hasn't come up here. Many are going paperless in an effort to help the environment - but doing so with so many electronic gadgets that there's not much of a difference thanks to an increase in power use!

Yes, it's convenient to have everything done electronically and cuts down on clutter, but I believe there needs to be balance to really get at the essence of the "why" behind it. We need to make sure we're not trading one evil for another, so to speak.

seekingserenity

being an origami artist, i can't see my place of stay ever not having any paper in it.

origamimavin

I tend to keep magazines for a long time and have books all over the place. Fed up with all this clutter I recently started scanning my magazines into multi-page, searchable PDF documents. It is a laborious process but I'm just tackling it a little bit at a time and eventually will be able to scan new magazines as I get them. I wish there was a device like an e-book reader that could handle full colour PDF's. That would make me soooo happy :p (Tablet PC's are too big)

pixelkid

@origamimaven: how about 3D animation studios? LOL. Just kidding, really, no offense intended ;)

My personal motivation for going paperless is of out a desire for manageability, and not so much for environmental reasons. My parents still like their morning paper so that can't be helped, but as far as possible I keep everything in soft copy format, backing up to a 4GB SD card for archival. It has helped keep my table relatively paper-free and file-free so far - it's amazing how much physical space that saves.

I'm still waiting for Blu-ray to be affordable so I can greatly reduce the physical size of my DVD archivals.

kureshii

Another vote for CutePDF....very useful.
I'm a fan of scanning and trashing (but then I live in a small apartment where space is limited). My filing system is a combination of Paperport and Onenote 2007 (backed up on to external hard drive and DVD). I also use PDF X-change to insert comments and notes in the (duh) PDF. . it's worth a look if you didn't see the original post. [lifehacker.com]

FizzyPopMan

Another vote for CutePDF here....very useful.
I'm all in favour of scanning and trashing here (but then I live in an apartment with limited space). I currently use a combination of Onenote and Paperport...backed up on to DVD. I sometimes use PDF X-change to annotate PDFs (insert notes and comments etc). [lifehacker.com]

FizzyPopMan

Don't forget printing to PDF. Much of what we want to save from the web - articles, recipes, not to mention electronic bills and order confirmations, can all be printed staright to PDF and then filed away. True that for emails too (yes email to PDF to keep the inbox slim).

I use the CutePDF Writer. Its free. [www.cutepdf.com]

Others are out there too and Acrobat (un-free) comes with a PDF print driver baked in.

Jimmer

Nice. I generally like the idea of a paperless home and all that it entails.

What I really like though is the fact that, if you look at the graphic closely, the desktop computer is a MacPro and therefore, presumbly, the computer on the coffee table is a MacBook Pro as well.

Apple rule, PCs drool. Yes I am a Mac user, why do you ask?

cloudwalker_3

When I buy something online, and the site says to "print this receipt for your records", I print it to my PDF printer driver which creates a PDF, rather than to paper.
Also, I'm in the UK, so bills are Direct Debit.

muteboy

I don't see why it's so hard to go paperless. Just don't hit that "print" button so often, and when possible, go with the email option with bank and credit card statements, if you trust them enough.

I'm waiting for the day when cash register receipts aren't the kings of proof of purchase. These little pieces of paper are a waste of paper and ink, and they fade after a year anyway.

ww2db.com

hmmm ... Am I the only one with kids on this forum? Having a three kids (the oldest being 5) makes it near impossible to go paperless ... the *concept* of going paperless seems all good, but at what cost? Have you ever stopped to share the joy of a kid who's just mastered writing the number 5 correctly :-)? For coloring and activities, we do need printouts ... so going paperless? Guess that won't be happening anytime soon for me.

muzee

scanned receipts can't be used for 30 days price lowering policies, so be careful.

holyspidoo

@xenobyte72: Prove anything in court , I'll believe you. 3 Recent Original Statements to change banks? Where do you live? I've never needed that. I rent basement apartments and pay utilities in cash to the people upstairs, so I've never had utilities or anything like that even in my name with which to open a bank account, and it hasn't been an issue.

JeffDrake

The problem with going paperless is that if you want to change banks, you need 3 recent original statements, and if you need to prove anything in a court of law, like a bill that is being contested, it needs to be an original or it just looks like it was photoshopped. That and the time it takes to scan everything that has accumulated!

xenobyte72

When Apple gave me my free printer with my new iMac, I just set it up so that it wasn't there to use every time I thought of printing something. I have to pull out the printer, which means I REALLY have to want to print something. Works so far.

pedzurec

I would love to see a Lifehacker article comparing the different scan/ocr solutions out there. I was thinking about the DevonOffice pro but the price tag is quite hefty...

Kent84

For all our day-to-day financial and functional grind-work, we're attempting to go paperless as much as possible. We have a deep 2-drawer file cabinet, and we refuse to let paper take over our house any more than that. We keep a folder on our hard drive labeled "File Cabinet" that acts just like its name.

However, other types of paper have almost a "sacred" status in our house. Original drawings, by our kids and by us, original photographic prints made from film, books, paper for arts and crafts, origami, sketchbooks, journals...we have a lot of precious paper, some of which I plan to keep until I die. Managing it is no small task, but I consider it important.

I consider the evolution of the use of paper quite special: It is shedding it's function as disposable information carrier, while gaining more importance as a medium for art, emotion and sentiment.

onesix18

I don't deal with a whole lot of papers any more. Email bills and statements cut down on a lot of it. My problem is that I like to think with my hands. My desk is covered with handwritten notes, diagrams, tables, etc.

wffurr

True, I only write checks rarely. My bank has a service whereby my bills that can not be electronically paid are paid by checks that they send out. It's really nice, and I don't have to keep track of records. Pretty much all of my retail transactions are by debit card, so the bank has a record of everything that I can refer to.

I try to avoid paper, and keep the data on the computer. While I tend to lose envelopes with paper in them, the computer is too big and expensive for me to lose. Of course, I use Mozy for automatic backups.

DanYHKim

@muzee: I've got a 2 year old that draws constantly. There is a difference between a child mastering a life skill with paper and pencil and having half a tree of not-so-useful old power bills in a dusty file cabinet =) I try to get all my bills electronically (and pay them electronically too!) I haven't written an actual check to pay for anything in... I don't know how long.

JFitzpatrick

@airogos: I echo Dominik, Brother makes some very decent, inexpensive "all in one" machines with sheet-feed scanners. And I like their control panel better than HP. I bought my current one primarily for the scanning. They aren't the fastest, but holds up to 10 pages, so it is very easy to work with. It comes with Paperport, which is handy, but scanning and printing things to PDF and keeping a decent folder structure is just as simple.

I think it's time to get over the misconception that "going paperless" means 100% no paper. It's never going to happen, but there is nothing wrong with minimizing it when possible. As fas as how to start, just pick a point and start from there. Don't worry about the past stuff, if you are already tossing old tax files aver 7-8 years, or have other methods of getting rid of the things that are past being useful, you will eventually reduce that clutter from attrition. Either that or just take a half-hour a week and dedicate it to scanning in old documents. You don't need to do it all in one sitting.

mcnee

I'm poor and out of ink.... paperless is easy :)
Thank you college.

ACF

I'm with AIROGOS and KENT84. The scanner for $295 is just too much money. But that's what's offered at the big box store in my town. I'm waiting for something affordable that sucks my paper in and scans as fast as the new Bank of America ATM's zip in my checks for deposit.

cynvision

I am a good ways down the paperless road and I will give one warning. For those of you doing e-billing, check on the retention for old bills. Many companies will only keep the last 3 statements or so. So if you want to compare last year's electric use versus this year, you're going to have problems.

Likewise if you're being audited for a home office tax deduction, if you e-bill, you may not have the documentation that you think you'll have.

The solution to this, is just to have a monthly checklist of websites to go to and print them all to PDF via cutepdf as others have mentioned above.

daniel.j.doughty

Very timely topic.

I have a friend who is a professional organizer. She says paper is the worst offender when it comes to clutter because it comes into your home univited on a daily basis - junk mail, school announcements, etc. etc.

My wife and I have spent the last several weekends clearing out YEARS worth of paper. The mountain was so huge we had become paralyzed and it just kept getting worse. Finally we devised a system we could live with (as far as what to keep and for how long) and began pitching and shredding. I estimate we have gotten rid of a couple hundred pounds of paper - and I'm being conservative. We're still plowing forward. Getting things out is great, now need to do a better job of slowing the flow of paper in - get more bills electronically, etc.

DoxDox

All my bills are paperless (not hard, being a college student) -- except that Citibank has sent me a letter in the mail every couple months to remind me that my statement is available online, as a part of their "All-Electronic Program". Thanks, Citi.

MichaelTV

There is a pretty good article here: [www.43folders.com]
I really want to get that industrial paper cutter and the Fujitsu ScanSnap so I can scan my huge catalog of music magazines into PDFs and free up about an entire closet worth of space.

I do the usual electronic billing for everything that I can and print to PDF ([www.primopdf.com]). I don't worry about the few bills and things that come only in paper, just file them for their usually short retention period and then shred/recycle.

Michael Kizer

I want to point this out to anyone else who is contemplating going paperless for environmental reasons: Please don't! Now, I consider my self green friendly so why would I say something like that you ask? It's simple, in the United States at least, most paper companies are actually the ones doing the most for planting new trees and tending forests outside of National or State reserves. The more demand they have for paper, the more trees they plant to keep up with the demand, creating greener spaces overall. Clutter removal is all well and good, but don't delude yourself into thinking that you are helping the environment by saving trees because generally, more trees get planted than cut down to ensure future supplies, even if they are slated to be cut once they've grown.

Excalibur

My bank (a CU) emails my banking statements in a password protected PDF file (love it). I just wish I could convince the local water and power company to do the same. Not to mention credit card company, I always forget to download my statements. I do however check the accounts online once per week or better.

miran

Well I never thought of going paperless, but for some reason without even thinking I have managed to almost rid myself of paper.

First When I moved into a new house I decided not to setup my printer. That has eliminated allot of my paper.

Second I have maybe one notepad in the whole house but I never use it.

Third almost all my stuff is digital now (Except Books!), I have bought many HDD's.

I will never go digital in books as that eliminates the whole purpose of reading I think. I will never forget opening "Homer Price" and my hands touching paper; it was an experience.

I don't think kids today when grown up will say "I remember reading off my Kindle"!

GeorgiaBoot

I scan what I can (Fujitsu Scansnap rocks!) PDF as much as possible, and have changed most bills & statements over to electronic form. What I can't stop is the neverending tide of junkmail and catalogs that fill the mailbox on a daily basis.

I use Greendimes & Catalog Choice, and have removed my name from as many mailing lists as I can, but it doesn't seem to make much of a dent. 90% of my mailbox's contents go from front-door straight to the recycle bin -- just wish it never got here in the first place.

Anyone have suggestions beyond what I've already tried?

ddrang

At home I have a paperless office, mainly because my printer is not great. Instead, if I have to print anything off, I save it as a file on my memory stick then take it to the office and print it off there. I know it's not as environmentally friendly as not printing anything at all, but it saves on my printing costs at home. plus they have much better printers at work.

astroman67

Wow - a big thank you to Jimmer and Fizzypopman for mentioning the CutePDF app [www.cutepdf.com] . After reading your comments, I've downloaded it and have been making PDFs like crazy! Brilliant idea!

digital_man

Every morning when I get to work the first thing I do is print my TODO list for the day, from Remeber The Milk, and put it on my desk.

Going paperless would kill me.

tobyca

I also think it depends on what part of the world you live in. Not all countries have a system where you can get all your bills electronically :-)

But maybe someone here could give me a tip on a software that will run on a Ubuntu server and can be reached from all pc's on the network that will store and manage all our documents? We want to scan them to pdf.

I know there a nice programs on MacOSX, but that does not help us much. I prefer something that can run on Linux with a nice web GUI.

Yes, the server is alreaady up and running several other applications. If the application is Open Source, even better.

As it is for us, it is not possible to eliminate paper. Both me and my wife are huge fans of books and magazines. But we would love to get rid of as much as possible of the stored stuff.

Oceanwatcher

One of the best purchases I made last year was a Fujitsu ScanSnap. I wrote an article about it on my blog, FunWithButter.com. I scan as much as I can to it and it makes a searchable PDF in just a few seconds. I then throw away the files. For receipts that are temporary, I made a temp file and I label the file with the date that it can be removed. Everything winds up searchable in Google Desktop. Love it.

eyevinyl

I like this idea and do it sometimes.

I want to quicken my scanning. Any software or hardware that I can set a 'template'? So that my scanner recognises all invoices/bills from Company X and then files them where and how I want. Company Names>Date Invoice>Amount. Maybe an extra field for date I paid.

I'd like to be able to search my PDFs or other formats ie png. As a start maybe for an invoice number etc. Or at least get my scanner to go company X file in Folder X.

I use multiple scanners. Work and Home here may be the issue. Then again so maybe my filing system. I keep looking at document management software...yet overkill?

TBW

2007 become my first year paperless. I just decided to do it and it wasn't a minute to early.
When you work at home its realy important to have it clean and well organized
For 2008 my goal is to have absolutely everything collected on the net an also scan interesting things from newspaper etc.
And then i hope we will have an euroepean Kindle....

gikkog.com

Hah. Going paperless. I used to work in consumer tech support/repair. I can't tell you how many people came in because they tried to go paperless and they got a virus or their hard drive died.

Remember people: Many external hard drives use the cheapest drives possible. NO important data should be kept only in a single location. Otherwise it is neither backed up, nor secure against loss. If you want to go paperless keep it on your computer AND the external hard drive, or get one of those external hard drives with 2 drives that mirror eachother. Better yet, use an online backup service, if you do a little research the one you pick will have redundant backups.

On another note.. I remember when my office tried to go 'paperless' over 10 years ago when they upgraded all the computers and printers. Everyone started printing out their paperless emails so they could file them. :D

n/a

What's funny is when you go mostly paperless and are receiving only junk mail, then you try to apply for a loan where they want some official bill as proof of address.

pixelstuff

Here, we've gone almost paperless. I scan whatever comes in and deserves to be kept, and I trash the rest. The only invoices I actually keep as paper are those needed for the tax. Book, however, I will never swap for their digital counterparts nor will I move from my Moleskine for notes (back) to a PDA.

eboehnisch

Using online payment for over 4 years and have not received any paper statements for over 4 years too. But the missing link of a truly paperless world is the lack of a good affordable, make-sense e-ink type of ebook reader. See my blog post at [sustainingfuture.blogspot.com]

albertip

I'd like to go paperless, but...oh the joys of fumbling through the morning paper, the smell of new print, the occasional paper cut. Who, I ask you...who will read Calvin and Hobbs now that the paper is gone? Should I start training my dog to fetch my laptop? Where are all my post-it notes with which I can annoy my girlfriend? If you ask me, some things just need to be.

rarfuls

Does anyone else find it ironic that underneath the graphic for "The Paperless Home" is a link to "Print this image"?

Siliver

I am all about a going paperless! One thing that i have done, is first off cancel all paper forms of bills and ask to receive them all online. Then when i pay each bill instead of printing the receipt i take a screen shot label the pic and then throw it in my bill folder.

thesteve13

Re SEEKINGSERENITY and EXCALIBUR on environmental impact:

Some will point out that electronic gear is very damaging to the environment, and so outweighs any benefit from going paperless. This is only relevant if you buy new computers, etc to make the transition. If you already have the equipment (we're reading this online, after all), then the impact is negligible.

In addition to the production of paper, there is also some impact from schlepping paper from one place to another (although, again, the equipment and travel is already being done).

I have tried to argue that CO2 fixation by trees is only significant when trees are actively growing. Thus, wood products should be produced and never allowed to re-enter the carbon cycle. This could be done by never recycling paper, but storing it in locations where they will not decay.

DanYHKim

Full disclosure: I'm a NEAT Receipts employee.

NEAT Receipts is a great solution if you're aiming for a paperless home or office. It's a scanner and software combination that enables you to organize all of the paper you encounter, in your personal and business life, in a database on your computer.

NEAT Receipts software extracts key information from receipts and business cards and inserts it into corresponding fields on a spreadsheet. You can easily run reports, create PDFs, and conduct keyword searches. That data can also be exported to other applications, such as Quicken, QuickBooks or Outlook.

I use the product and it not only organizes my desk and home, it frees the data that was once trapped on the paper. I use it to scan in my receipts (for expense reports as well as for tax purposes), business cards, recipes, articles and warranties. It's nice knowing everything is digitally organized and it's even nicer to no longer have piles of papers on my desk and floor.

NRJenn

Eliminating all "junk" mail would have the likely result in the decimation of universal mail delivery. In a country that is FAR from achieving universal broadband access, I think it's important to consider what that might mean. It's good to be privileged enough to contemplate going paperless, eh?

ann14989

+1 on the issue around printers failing: with so many moving parts, these are one of the few items I would opt for (relatively inexpensive) extended warranties.

As I noted here [blogs.msdn.com] we see many families going paperless each day. Add to that the scanner we have at home (actually, three of them when you count the ones in the family room, kid's computer and our home office), we're finding ways to reduce clutter.

I prefer receiving the offending hard-copy items in electronic form, otherwise I face another problem: finding the time to scan all this paper with the paper-reducing technologies available to us. I have a stack of stuff collecting to scan, and then you have to manage, back-up and store the digital files (not quite zero footprint). Thankfully we receive more content via companies that send files that are easier to archive (either via URLs or digital copies).

Mthree

I have two printers, both came with two computers I bought a couple years ago (it was a special, buy a computer get a free printer). They weren't cheap printers either, if I bought them they would have cost me almost $450.

Last summer they both broke down! I asked around about getting them fixed. What I was told repeatedly, "don't bother, it's too expensive, just throw them out and get a new one."

WHAT!!!? They were hardly over a year old!

I'm fed-up with absolutely everything being disposable these days!!! What I concluded is... not only will I not fix hem, but I'm not replacing them either. I figure I've saved myself about $150 every 3 months by not having working printers (after buying paper and ink, it's a lot of money).

So, what I'm doing is when I absolutely have to print something... I put the items in a folder on my desktop, then burn the items on a CD and bring it down to my local printer. I label the CD's real well so that I don't have to burn another CD. Now, I spend maybe $20 every 3 months to print stuff. Huge SAVINGS!!!

Speaking of "stuff" you really need to see this excellent 20 minute film The Story of STUFF It's the best!

Speaking of non-waste, you can get rid of all those mail order catalogs that waste trees, clutter your mail box at Catalog Choice

Evelyn Vincent

I have been paperless at home, and in my home office, for about 3 years now. The more time I spend paperless the more clunky and annoying paper seems. If I forget about paper's long cultural history and look at it with fresh eyes as just another a data storage and transmission technology it sure seems like a dog.

AndyFromTucson

I recently read an article about going paperless at home over on 43folders.com. I took their advice. I invested in a decent desktop document scanner (Fujitsu C550). Everything paper that comes into the house gets scanned into a text-based PDF and archived to disk. Backups are made every hour to an offsite location (Amazon's S3 service). Bills are received electronically for the most part; there are a few that are still on paper which meet the same fate: scan, process, shred. I take all my magazine subscriptions down to the local copy shop, have them slice off the spines, then I weed out the adverts and scan in the remainder and archive as well. This of course only goes for mags that I keep around. Otherwise they are read and then recycled. I don't even keep tax records around. I do my taxes online, and the forms are available there, but I still keep the scanned copies of the forms. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the process.

calittle

@RBURDOCK

You can be forgiven any copyright violations, even for the temporary scans you make if you adhere to the following:

* Never distribute the digital copy to any one for any reason
* For the entire period of time in which you possess the digital copy, retain the physical copy.

If you scan the book and then return it while retaining the scans you are committing both legal and ethical violations. Simply reproducing the work in a more portable form (and following the guidelines above) may be a violation of the letter of the law, but is very defensible both ethically and in terms of the spirit of the law.

bex

I made the decision to go paperless some 6 or 7 years ago - I use PaperPort (keep upgrading, back when Visioneer bundled the software with their scanners). I have a sheet-feed scanner (Visoneer Strobe), and an all-in-one printer/scanner from Epson for my flatbed needs - most everything is PDF.

I've tried OneNote, but found that the more places/applications I used, the more confusing it became. PaperPort is OK for indexing, but I've found Microsoft's Windows Desktop search much better.

Back some 15-years, when I bought my first house, my mother gave me several boxes of stuff that she kept over the years. This gave me a good perspective on what my kids might want later in life. I use the flatbed scanner for anything that doesn't fit in the sheet-feed, and with this combination, I'm able to scan most everything my kids create. There's a lot of other stuff that I just take pictures of (with the kid, of course). There will always be tangible items that won't get tossed, but those don't take-up much space.

Shredding/tossing items can be pretty scary at first, so I use 5-different backup methods (Mozy, DVD, external HD, sync/swap encrypted storage space with an out-of-state relative and between PC's on my home network), just to be safe.

gewf631

Whiteboard replaces post-it notes (with refillable pens).
Laptop notes take the place of paper notes for university (I'm considering buying a graphics tablet for handwritten notes).

crazi_man

Hi All,
I'm Robert, the student mentioned in the NYT article, and while I have yet to comment on it over at my own blog I thought I'd jump onto this incredibly passionate and active thread to share some thoughts.

I would say firstly that the article is a good one, it's certainly generated a torrent of debate on the paperless issue and that can only be a good thing. However it said very little about the depth and scale of my own operation. The article would suggest that all I did, in the way of operating paperlessly, was to carry a digital camera to digitise handouts. Well this is only one tiny piece of my operation and I have very close to 100% succeeded in paperlessly managing a degree, which is heavily reliant on paper, AND a household for around three years now, using many techniques and technology.

To be honest my quest for paperless has been a heck of a baptism of fire and proven really difficult to maintain at times, but I just want to assure anyone who is in two minds, that it **IS** possible to exclusively operate paperlessly, but only if the effort is put into it. I'm not wholly convinced that I've gained more benefits than the effort I've exerted should bring, but my rationale is that a wholesale move to a less paper dependent society will only really take place when enough people are willing to adopt a wholly paperless lifestyle. So there you go I'm in effect a long suffering martyr for the paperless cause :o)

A lot of comments have mentioned scanners (particularly the ScanSnap - which I've not used but have heard many great things about). Primarily as a student my 'scanning needs' are more book based so a sheet-feed scanner is of less use to me than a flat-bed. As such I use a scanner developed more for the digitising of books - the Plustek OpticBook.

Now I know copyright evangelists are going to jump on me, as they have on Mr. Uhlik, but I have scanned innumerable books, or at least chapters of books, in the 3 years that I have operated paperlessly. However being a student I am claiming 'fair usage' here. The act of scanning in my case is in direct replacement for any photocopying I would have had to have done. Be assured though that I DO destroy my digital copies at the end of each term.

The 'linchpin' paperless tool for me though is a Tablet PC. I could never have managed to operate to the paperless level that I have without it. It allows me to take handwritten notes in class but more importantly it allows me to annotate directly onto my electronic versions of handouts and books.

One of the most significant things I miss though is a dedicated e-book reader. I reside in the UK and quite simply e-book hardware manufacturers are completely ignoring us. While our state-side cousins are knee-deep in Sony eReaders and Amazon Kindles (technically as I know there is a dire shortage).

Of course I cover my e-book reading needs through use of the Tablet PC, which in many respects is a better solution as it allows me to electronically ink and annotate the books, but I still crave the opportunity to use a dedicated e-book reader, (as I'm sure any one else in the UK striving for paperless operation does).

What this NYT article has shown me over the past few days though is the incredible amount of interest and passion there seems to be on this subject. Although I've blogged about my paperless operation and lifestyle since I started I've never really considered anything other than an occasional post was needed, and with little detail. I guess I've always thought there was nothing more than a passing interest. However that view has changed drastically over the past few days and I can now see that I am evidently falling short on the interest that my experiences may be able to generate so I am going to be writing a lot more about this.

rburdock