Challenge - paperless

I saw a version of this the other day and it intrigued me. I am working toward this and I encourage others to try it as well. This has environmental, psychological, and security benefits all wrapped up in one little package.

Step one: get yourself a small, portable scanner. You will need it.
Step two: compile all of the loose paper around your desk, office, life and scan it into organized locations on your computer.

Step three: organize your computer to contain and manage all of your digital life. Plan on that digital information growing exponentially as you remove paper from your life. Include a method to backup and restore data from your systems as needed and be sure to scale this system to the appropriate level in your life. If you need to include office and home, do this. If you need to include family or business partners in your network, do this. What you include in your digital life should include what and whom ever you interact with on a daily basis.

Step four: organize portability with your life so that you do not need to take paper with you to all of your meetings but you can easily connect dates and notes from meetings and conversations back to your computer. If that can be done with a Blackberry or some other mobile device, great; if you need a laptop or netbook, get one. If you do have information on paper be sure to scan that into your computer promptly.

Step five: subscribe to online versions of all of those magazines you get. If you can not get one and you do not read them, get rid of them. If you do read them, pass them along when you are done with them. Make digital notes of the stuff you need and then get rid of the rest. Don’t keep them sitting around for weeks, months and years at a time.

Step six: Get rid of post-it notes and scraps of paper. I saw a person use a digital picture frame for their reminders the other day. They had things they had to remember and instead of putting up a scrap of paper on the side of their cubical they added a jpg to their scrolling picture album. Outlook has to do lists and you can get note pads for most computers and PDAs now. Keep a text document open to scratch down thoughts or paint to draw a quick picture.

Spend six months working really hard at this before you give up. Some things that help are having either dual monitors or two systems, perhaps a Linux and a Windows system. Or if you have a PDA with WIFI, keep it handy so you can use it as a web look up tool or a notepad if your PC is getting busy. Keep a folder to keep your paper documents in. Don’t let yourself get more paper than you can keep in one folder. If someone gives you a document, ask them to email it to you or give it to you on thumb drive.

Good luck. I have been able to do this at work for about a month but have not been able to incorporate this at home yet. Still working on it.