Now I've recycled my tree's worth of paper, the last week of my paper challenge is going to be about reducing the amount of paper that comes into my office next year.
So, by looking back over the last eleven weeks, I've put together a list of habits that I'm going to try to change. Here goes:
Envelopes - I will stop using new envelopes altogether.
Books - I will limit my purchase of print books to those I buy for my work as I'll be using them again and again. All other books I will get from the library or on Kindle. I am also going to aim to give away ten books every month to charity, as I still have way too many for my bookshelves.
Business Cards - I will stop hoarding business cards and instead use my phone to connect to people I meet via social media, either on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Bills - I will keep up my household bills spreadsheet and once entered onto that the bills will be recycled. Where paperless billing options become available I will sign up for that option. I'm sure more and more companies will start to offer this.
Notes - I will aim to type up notes straight into my blog, but where that doesn't happen I will transfer them from my notebook or from the scraps of paper I often use, into the blog on a weekly basis. This will be a good way to ensure that I've acted on everything I've taken notes about and it will mean a clearer desk, and I hope, a clearer head!
Every year, when I finish my year end accounts, I will dispose of the oldest set of company accounts so that I am only keeping six years of paperwork.
Manuals and Instruction Booklets - From now on, when a gadget goes, so does its instruction booklet!
I'm no longer going to keep the boxes from any new gadgets or appliances.
That's my New Year's Resolutions sorted. I hope I can stick to it!
Happy New Year!
3 comments:
It's better to look at your place when piles of unnecessary papers aren't visible. Reminds me of an office full of documents that are dated 5 years ago. Hmm. I hope you'll be successful in your paperless office this year. Just make sure that you'll have scanned copies of those important files and save them in a secure drive. Don't forget to save some backups too! :)
Ruby Badcoe @ Williams Data Management
Organized documents won't just give you additional space in your office, it'll also help you locate important documents as soon as you need them. Since we're on our way to a paperless society, it's advisable to have your documents scanned and stored in a hard drive. To avoid identity theft, you should secure the hard drive, or get a reliable data management system. :)
Curtis Pilon @ SpectrumInformation
Good point about keeping backups of documents. But when I think back to my huge amount of paper, I really didn't have to scan anything. My aim was to get rid of stuff I didn't need, rather than to move from paper copy to electronic copy. I was keeping way too much information. I'm aiming to clean up the amount of electronic information I store too!
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