create a paperless home office

I have been busy working on other areas of my house lately and the magazines and catalogs piled up once again. I haven’t renewed any of the magazines I tossed. I still need to go through the Bon Apetit and Gourmet magazines before I recycle them.

I also went through some file folders and tossed outdated brochures and papers. Didn’t realize how much I had gotten rid of today until I noticed the recycling bin was half full.

Before scanning monthly statements, I signed on to my bank, credit cards and utility accounts to see if any statements were available in .pdf format. I am currently working with one account at a time to download and import into Neatworks. I also downloaded my current insurance policies.

It’s been a while since I started this goal and when my receipt scanner stopped working on my office computer, this goal was almost forgotten. It took me a while to upgrade the software so that the scanner would work on my new computer.

Scanning receipts and statements will make a dent in the amount of paperwork I have in the office, but it won’t be enough. The others papers would still take over my office.

My biggest challenge was all the recipes that I have collected. I needed to find a new way to organize the recipes on my computer and after a few attempts, I finally found the right solution for me. I am currently using Evernote and am able to view my recipes from my computers and iPod. Lately I have just been using my notebook or iPod Touch while cooking and have stopped printing the recipes. This is a big change for me!

I also had a lot of notes and slowly getting more organized and entering the information to my computer. I starting using GMail contacts and Google calendar to keep everything organized and use Grocery Gadget for shopping lists instead of paper. Small piles of lists, business cards and print outs for upcoming event info/maps are no longer taking over my desk.

Evernote has motivated me to get rid of more paper. I have a Take-out menus on the computer instead of a folder in the desk drawer. I also use Evernote for photography tips and home improvement projects. It’s great to have product information plus photos and design ideas and notes all organized and easily accessible from any computer. I feel so much more organized!

It will take a little time to scan everything and trying to spend at least 30 minutes a day on this goal. A lot of progress has been made in the past week with about 1/2 the recycling bin filled with papers. There is only one box of papers in the office left to scan.

...gotten rid of one small file cabinet and five boxes of papers. I should have all the 2007 invoices and receipts scanned and shredded by the end of this week and will start working on the 2006 papers. I am very happy with how quickly I am making progress on this goal.

...I am really happy with the receipt scanner that arrived yesterday. It only took a few minutes to scan in the previous month’s paperwork and was able to shred a large stack of invoices, receipts and documents. We now have one less pile of papers in the office!

Can’t wait to get rid of all those boxes of papers that are stored around the house and get more organized. It’s going to take some time, but hopefully most of it will be done by the end of the year.

...a receipt scanner to help with this goal.