ShareThis1 |
I will scan all paper I receive (receipts, forms etc.) and manage it in my computer. The paper will be thrown away after scanning or just stored in a simple chronological manner in an archive box (e.g. because maybe the IRS wants to see the original someday).
|
2 |
I will call the experiment a success if the clutter on my desk and on my shelfs vanishes, I no longer feel "paperwork" as a burden, and scanning is so easy I don´t even realize it´s done. |
3 |
When I don´t need to access the paper original within 6 months and the IRS is content with just getting a bunch of scans. |
4 |
I hopefully will pretty quickly feel relieved because my desk is less cluttered, and I can access any form/receipt from within my laptop. |
Make my office paperless
Created Nov 05, 2010
| Category
Work
Comments & Observations
Matthew Cornell I'm curious to hear how this goes, Ralf. Did regular paper filing not work for you?
Nov 07, 2010
Ralf Westphal Regular filing became tedious and requires ever more space. Simply not much fun. Also, since I´m travelling quite a lot, it´s always a hinderance to not have some of the papers with me. That´ll change with a paperless office. All papers will be at my fingertips in my laptop :-)
Nov 08, 2010
Ralf Westphal Installed ScanSnap hardware and software. Played around with it to determine how I can use it best.
Some findings
a) Check if you have single sheet or multi sheet documents. Multi sheet docs can be scaned into one PDF. That´s great - but not good if you have many single sheet docs. So be sure to select the appropriate mode when scanning. I selected single sheet docs and am ok with multi sheet docs being split into multiple PDFs. They are pretty rare for me.
b) Think about how to organize the scans on your hard disk. I´m opting for a folger hierarchy as the primary organizational means. Occaissonally I will add tags to docs, though. They are put into the file meta data and thus can be indexed using Google Desktop etc.
Searching within the ScanSnap Organizer does not work well so far. Don´t know why. But I don´t want to rely on a propriatary software anyway for searching.
c) Be sure to add the target folder of the scanner software to your backup set. I´m backing up everything into the cloud using Jungle Disk and Amazon S3.
So far I´m very happy with ScanSnap. Scanning really is a snap with it. Never gobbled up a single sheet. Even small receipts are processed flawlessly.
Nov 08, 2010
Ralf Westphal Insight: The first rule of a paperless office is: "Try to avoid scanning" :-) That means, trash whatever you can. Don´t collect paper just because you´re not sure whether you´ll need it sometime in the future.
Nov 09, 2010
Matthew Cornell Quite right re: trash first. The 4Ds: Delete, delegate, do it, and defer. Definitely think delete first. There are some basic guidelines on how to make the decision, but most stuff isn't necessary to keep, I've found. Good insight!
Nov 09, 2010
Ralf Westphal Thx for the 4D. But I´d rearrange them: Delete, Defer, Delegate, Do. Deferring until the least possible responsible moment is more important than delegation and doing. Because it might turn out that whatever had been deferred need not be done at all in the end. Or the requirements change. This is in accordance with YAGNI: you ain´t gonna need it.
Nov 10, 2010
Ralf Westphal Second rule of a paperless office: Avoid producing paper and convince your partners/customers to communicate paperless with you.
Nov 10, 2010
Ralf Westphal Third rule: Whatever paper is left, scan immediately upon reception. Then process and file solely electronically. Remove the physical inbox from your desk. That way you´re forced to scan right away because you don´t know where to put the paper document otherwise. After scanning archive immediately whatever necessary or - even better - trash.
Nov 10, 2010
Matthew Cornell With the order I gave, the DO means the 2 (or 5) minute rule. It's the only exception to the "not doing, just emptying" approach of GTD and its ilk. DEFER + YAGNI = good idea! Though if you know YAGNI, then why not DELETE? :-) Re: avoiding, that's important - good thinking. Re: scanning right away, does it take much time? Tossing paper into a physical inbox is effortless, but I imagine scanning takes some work. I'd be concerned that it slows the whole process down at "capture" time...
Nov 16, 2010
Ralf Westphal DELETE requires you to decide now and forever. That´s not always the most prudent thing to do. But DEFER is almost as good: you need not do much, not even decide. And maybe you can throw away in the future.
It´s up to you if you scan right away or pile up some sheets over the course of a day. But I would not wait any longer. Scan at the end of your working day. Don´t set up an inbox. If still paper piles up then seek the root cause; it´s probably in your environment which is burrying you under heaps of paper.
Along the same line I´d say GTD is the problem, not the solution. If there´s so much influx you need to set up such an elaborate management system, then do something about the influx. I´ve thrown out GTD since long.
Nov 16, 2010
Matthew Cornell Great work, Ralf. A question: I'm thinking of experimenting with a series of guest posts on my blog by Edison experimenters about what they tried, how it went, and what they learned and got out of it. Tying in the Think, Try, Learn philosophy would be very welcome. Let me know if you'd like to do one. You'd be welcome to point to your own site, of course.
Nov 22, 2010
Ralf Westphal I call this experiment complete since scanning and filing electronically has become a natural part of my office life. The best part of it: I never need to worry about whether to throw away of keep some paper. When in doubt I just scan it. No shelf space is occupied. No decision in which physical folder to put it. If I don´t want to find it a particular place on my hard drive I just keep it in a general location and trust that I´ll find it when I need it using Google Desktop Search.
Nov 23, 2010
Matthew Cornell Fantastic results! Thanks so much for sharing.
Nov 24, 2010
Ralf Westphal A pile of receipts grew on my desk and I just made it to scan it after a couple of days. I procrastinated because I thought I had to work on the receipts (filing them in my computer and adding them to my monthly IRS statement). But that´s wrong! Scanning and processing need not happen at the same time. That feels relieving. I just need to remember there are unprocessed items somewhere on my harddisk. But that´s a problem for another experiment ;-)
Jan 11, 2011
Matthew Cornell "Scanning and processing need not happen at the same time" - YES! That's a key concept in a good personal time management system, e.g., GTD. As you point out, you need a list of the unprocessed items to take care of later.
Jan 11, 2011