Thursday
Jan122012
Steps to Going Paperless
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 5:00AM I've been working on going (largely) paperless. I'm slowly getting rid of paper files. I've just moved 90 boxes of books, but I hardly moved any files, which has been really nice.
Here's how I've been doing it. Three steps:
- I signed up for Evernote Premium.
- I bought a scanner: a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300
. I'm amazed. Why didn't anyone tell me about this product before?
- I scanned and uploaded documents directly to Evernote using the scanner software.
That's it. Evernote Premium automatically goes through and makes the PDFs searchable. I can upload a ton of documents without sorting them, and quickly find what I'm looking for by doing a simple search. I couldn't do that with my filing cabinet. I'm finding old seminary papers and lectures that I'd forgotten about long ago.
I'd love to hear any tips you have on going paperless.
Reader Comments (5)
Darryl, I too grabbed a scanner recently, a Cannon P150 slightly used off ebay which works great. I haven't gone with Evernote premium but I let the scanner software do the OCR. Plus any other PDF or file I want in Evernote I just drag and drop on the Evernote icon. I'm finding that a clean desk makes for clearer thinking.
I have this scanner for home (work is more problematic as they block anything like Evernote or Dropbox). I am using Evernote Premium for stuff I need on the road (including lay ministry material and even recipes for grocery shopping), Dropbox (for sharing and eventually website after MobileMe bites the dust), and Paperless for Mac (for home financial stuff). I say "using" but truthfully we are just getting started. I am a paper & article packrat so I hope this process brings healing. : )
Buy a bidet... ?
I bought a Doxie scanner and am knocked out at how good it is. And I have been using Evernote Premium for a long time.
With the amount of travel Imbi and I do for client work, and the problem of getting expense reports done to bill said clients, we now take the Doxie with us and immediately scan receipts and load them into Evernote.
The basic Doxie scanner is $149USD or $119USD for teachers and students. A wireless version is $199.
Doxie is an affectionate term for a Dachshund and the scanner looks a little like one. Nice and small footprint.
Still working on going paperless but Evernote has really helped.