One day Middle J told me about her paperless office. "What? How? I need to know more!" So started my quest to turn my office into a paper-less office. No. I don't mean paperless, I could NEVER be that organized just paper less, as in LESS paper. First she told me I needed a scanner. "I have a scanner" I said. "No. Not one of those flatbed scanners that take 5 minutes to scan a sheet. A really fast document scanner." AHHH. Now you're talking. An Ebay search turned up just the right thing for me. Scansnap for Mac. Scans 20 sheets per minute and holds up to 50 sheets.
I'm now completely in love. I have discovered the world of "saving as pdf's" instead of printing everything out and scanning then saving important paper documents to my Evernote account where I have organized all my statements, bills, insurance papers, kids schoolwork and art, and random bits of paper that normally pile up on my desk!
Then I discovered that I could use a combination of two programs, Dropbox and Smartvault, to scan all my company's invoices, bills, statements and other paperwork then attach them to the appropriate Quickbooks entries and back it all up at the same time! Ahhh...to never have to file again...and to know exactly where to find what I need...QUICKLY! Okay, so the transition has not been painless but let's just say it's been pain less.
I'm now completely in love. I have discovered the world of "saving as pdf's" instead of printing everything out and scanning then saving important paper documents to my Evernote account where I have organized all my statements, bills, insurance papers, kids schoolwork and art, and random bits of paper that normally pile up on my desk!
Then I discovered that I could use a combination of two programs, Dropbox and Smartvault, to scan all my company's invoices, bills, statements and other paperwork then attach them to the appropriate Quickbooks entries and back it all up at the same time! Ahhh...to never have to file again...and to know exactly where to find what I need...QUICKLY! Okay, so the transition has not been painless but let's just say it's been pain less.
To find out more about using Scansnap scanners, Evernote, Dropbox and Smarvault to set up your own paperless office, I highty recommend checking out Brooks Duncan's website Documentsnap.com.
And no. That's not really my messy desk. Mine's slightly cleaner than that now.
5 comments:
Awesome Justine, I'm glad its all working out for you. It's a great setup!
It's painful to go through the process but once achieved... Sooooo worth it.
about 90% of my work files -Real Estate- is electronic, saved me 50% time of working on my files.
By the way, I also have MyFax: electronic fax. When I receive a fax I receive an email with the fax too. So I can see a fax coming in via email on my iPhone... YES!!!!
wow thank you Justine for the post
your friend Bobby
First, let me just say that I have been a bit anxious knowing that 2010 is almost done and what would I do if the J-sisters don't continue their blog of inspiring ideas & funny posts? And here is why!! I have been dreaming of going paper-less (as you) but how? Where do you start? What do you need? My scanner is SLOW! And today my dream has come true! Thank you, thank you! My goal for 2011 - reduce the paper piles around here! :)
Jeni - You have my vote for the sweetest and most inspirational comment all year! Thank you! I hope your transition to paper-less goes well. And have no fear! The J's are working on the 2011 plan as we speak. Stay tuned...
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