Going Paperless with Your Company
This is the year 2019. Millions of people worldwide are still overwhelmed by floods of paper out from their desks and drawers. The right technology has been invented years ago, so why are there still so many people that don‘t enjoys the convenience of a paperless life? I know having everything on a computer can be stressful trying to remember what file you saved it in. And stressing if it gets lost so sometimes a physical copy can make things easier for some. The big key point is to not have stacks of not needed paper.
The answer is bad habits. If you fall back into old routines, it is hard to go paperless at home or at work. So here are 5 habits you should adopt to finally go paperless this year-
1. Always scan everything
No matter how unimportant something might seem at the beginning, you never know when you‘ll need it again. This is the number 1 habit we suggest for successfully going paperless at home or at work this year. Whenever you receive a physical piece of paper, scan it and save it to your computer or to the cloud. It will makes things so much more easier for you. There are plenty of good scanner apps for your smartphone available, so you can do it right away, even different systems as well. Check if you need to keep the original version of a document after scanning. If not, toss it.
2. Use digital versions of your usual paper products
If you can, start using a digital version of your paper products right from the start to eliminate as much paper from your job as possible. Consider these-
• GoodNotes instead of your paper notebook
• Use your built-in smartphone calendar instead of a paper planner
• A cloud storage like Dropbox instead of your paper filing cabinet
3. Helping Going Paperless at home or work
This trick seems too simple to be effective but it helps a lot to go paperless at home or your workplace. Separate the unimportant mail like junk or newsletters directly so that you don‘t even need carry it into your office. If it is important mail, scan it right away, then throw it away. If you need the original document, scan it, then file it somewhere where you will find it without problems.
4. Perks of getting rid of all your paper
Every system has its flaws that will need to be optimized step-by-step. Every 4 weeks, try to ask yourself the question: “When did I receive that much paper or even any paper that I couldn’t scan or toss right away and why?” Then adapt your system to prevent it from happening again. Its goal is to clean your home or your office from all unnecessary paper that piled up because we did not really see how much easier things are without stacks of paper constantly. During trying to go paper-less you will:
• Throw every piece of paper away that you don’t need
• Scan everything that you think could eventually be important
• Make sure every digitized file is named or tagged correctly
• Sort all unsorted files into the cloud or the right apps