# The paperless office



## dime (Jun 20, 2013)

Do you have any tips, thoughts or strategies to share about the paperless office at home or work? 
Have you 'gone paperless' at home or work? Are you in a confused half and half transition? Love it or hate it, over the past decade we've gone through a tremendous technological change where most financial institutions are providing documents online instead of mailing paper statements.

Let's get the discussion started!


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

My home office is pretty much paperless: all of my work files are stored electronically either on my computer or on my employer's shared drives/Sharepoint sites. I rarely print anything; the only paper stuff I have here for work is some of my HR forms that they require me to print out, sign, scan, and send back to them as PDFs. I used to have two large four-drawer file cabinets with all my work files but got rid of them 8 years ago and no longer maintain any paper files at work.

It's a little harder with home stuff: I need to keep a small number of receipts for tax purposes, for example, so those get stored in file folders in boxes. But I don't need to keep paper receipts for any other reason, except in cases for equipment that may require proof of purchase for returns etc.. If I buy anything online, I save the receipt as a PDF in my Dropbox. I also use home inventory software; anything of value gets entered into the software along with a scan of its receipt and a PDF of its instruction manual. That makes it really easy to find receipts and manuals, and I've gotten rid of all my old files for that.

All of my regular paper files now fit into this little box:










The only things that aren't in there are my tax archives, some sheet music and related files, some of my work products (reports, fact sheets, etc. for my portfolio) and my in-box basket.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

Interesting you ask Dime and Brad...

I've vowed to make 2016 the year of going paperless at home. I can only have so much influence at work 

I will keep some personal finance documents such as signed wills, 6-years of tax filings, etc., in paper format but where I can will scan everything into PDF files. I will save those files that I need ready access to in OneDrive and more personal stuff will be on portable hard drive.

All home equipment and maintenance manuals I will keep as-is, in paper, and they've already been sorted into a few consolidated binders for each access and use.

In this process, I should be able to get rid of one small filing cabinet of crap and keep about 5-10 1" binders for the essentials. That's the plan. More organization, more digital, less clutter.


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## dime (Jun 20, 2013)

@brad Holy @#$&* that is so very inspirational! Thankyou for sharing that, its just what I needed. Maybe someday I can post a picture of what my office looks like right now and look back on it at laugh. Right now I just feel shame and get depressed by it. 

@my own advisor 2016 is the year my man! Lets do this! I'll be right here along side you and everyone else who's attempting this quantum leap forward.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

dime said:


> @brad Holy @#$&* that is so very inspirational! Thankyou for sharing that, its just what I needed. Maybe someday I can post a picture of what my office looks like right now and look back on it at laugh. Right now I just feel shame and get depressed by it.


I hear you! That's what caused me to whip things into shape. It took a while, but I ended up being ruthless about it: I threw out/recycled/shredded about 95 percent of my papers because I realized that in all the years I'd been accumulating them I never once referred to almost any of them. 

There's a very popular book by the Japanese organizational consultant Marie Kondo called "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up," and by "tidying up" she really means organizing. Some of her approach only makes sense in the context of Japanese culture, but there are a lot of transferrable things in her approach. Her main strategy is "first you discard, then you store what's left." Once you get on a "discarding" mindset and maintain that momentum, you can get rid of a lot of stuff that you don't actually need. Only after you've gotten rid of the things you don't need should you start turning your attention to how to store and organize what's left. She also has you go through things by category instead of by room: for example the first step in her process is to take all of your clothes, no matter where they are in the house, and dump them in one big pile on the floor, pick up and hold each one and ask yourself if it "sparks joy." The "sparks joy" thing is a bit farfetched for many people, especially when it comes to things like underwear that may not spark joy but you're not going to get rid of them because you need them. In my case I changed the "does it spark joy" test to "would I buy this again?" That works a lot better for me. 

Papers don't happen until later in her process, but she has one rule for paper: "Throw it all away." That's pretty extreme, and most of us can't actually do that (we need receipts for tax purposes, things like wills, titles to cars, etc.), but I tried to follow that guidance as best I could.

We don't actually need most of the papers we save.

Scanning takes time, especially if you do things to make it easier to find specific documents later on, like assigning keywords to them or giving them descriptive titles. So if you focus on throwing things out first and then only scanning the small portion of necessary stuff that's left over, it'll make the job easier.

For things like emails, electronic receipts, etc. that you want to save, the trick is to make it easy so you aren't tempted to print them out. The Mac has a built-in PDF engine and you can save any file to PDF with one click and save it to your hard disk, Dropbox, OneDrive, or whatever. Windows 10 now has its own built-in PDF engine as well, so you can do the same thing in Windows. Some people like using EverNote for this, which also works well.


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## Ag Driver (Dec 13, 2012)

Deleted


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## Sherlock (Apr 18, 2010)

I try to be as paperless as possible, both out of environmental concerns and to reduce clutter, but unfortunately many organizations are very slow to adapt. CIBC Investors Edge for example still mails you a trade confirmation whenever you buy or sell a stock, and there is no way to get these by email or opt out entirely. Other companies like my utility company still mail you bills by snail mail each month and have no option to send an email instead. Many companies still require faxes for certain things. I suspect the reason they are so slow to adapt technologically is because a lot of the senior management at most larger organizations are old fuddy duddies who don't understand technology.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

What is the primary motivation behind going paperless?
Is it environmental protection?
If so, a *peopleless* office benefits the environment far more than a _paperless_ office (IMHO).
By _peopleless_, I mean 100% telecommuting employees.


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## Sherlock (Apr 18, 2010)

They're two separate issues, but telecommuting definitely saves money and the environment by eliminating commuting costs and allowing people to live further away from the office. Some argue it reduces productivity but I disagree.

Telecommuting is another thing that is opposed by old fuddy duddies. My last boss (old) did not allow working from home ever. My current boss (young) is ok with occasional working from home, he even often does it himself, though he cannot allow full-time working from home as his bosses (old) will not allow it.

I think we will see a lot of changes in offices as the current execs retire and are replaced by a more forward thinking generation.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

HaroldCrump said:


> What is the primary motivation behind going paperless?
> Is it environmental protection?
> If so, a *peopleless* office benefits the environment far more than a _paperless_ office (IMHO).
> By _peopleless_, I mean 100% telecommuting employees.


I've been a full-time telecommuter since 1994. ;-)

For me, the main benefits of going paperless in both a conventional or home-based office are:

1. Less clutter and less stuff: A good chunk of my office space was taken up with file cabinets. Now I have none and the office feels more spacious and comfortable. Furthermore, when work was busy I often wouldn't have time to file things so big piles of paper would accumulate on every horizontal surface in my office.

2. Much faster document lookup: With paper files, you often have to decide which folder something belongs in, and inevitably when you're searching to find it you look in the wrong folder. With electronic file storage you do a search for keywords, or words within a document, and you can find what you're looking for quickly, usually in a few seconds. I can find any receipt in 5 seconds or less just by typing the name of the vendor or the item.

3. Less waste (recycling uses energy, water, and materials; if you don't use paper in the first place, energy won't be used to recycle it).


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## fraser (May 15, 2010)

We have gone paperless on everything we possibly can. Ebanking, ebills.

We do keep some paper. Tax records, some bills for warranty purpose etc. We have eliminated almost all of our newspaper/magazine subscriptions in favour of on line versions.

Having said that, we still use our shredder.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

For those that have gone paperless to the extreme ... some questions.

The first is how often are backups taken? 
Are the backups kept in the same location as the paperless copies?

What's the plan for ensuring the executors know where the electronic copies are as well as to ensure that their computer can read that particular software format?


Cheers


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Eclectic12 said:


> For those that have gone paperless to the extreme ... some questions.
> 
> The first is how often are backups taken?
> Are the backups kept in the same location as the paperless copies?
> ...


If you keep everything on Dropbox or other cloud-based storage, there's no need for backups. Even if you accidentally delete files you can recover them through Dropbox. But to play it safe I also have a backup hard disk; that's backed up automatically every 20 minutes or so, 24/7. If Dropbox goes out of business, no worries, I still have my files on my local machine and in my backups.

As for executors, I gave my master password and some instructors to the person named in my will, who keeps that info in a secure location. I save all my files in "future proof" formats: PDF and JPEG will be around for a long, long time and those are my default formats. Using a Mac makes all of this easier; you can save to those formats with one click from an email message or the print menu, but Windows now (finally, 12 years after the Mac) also has a built-in PDF engine which makes it easier.

The real key, though, is that you don't need to save much. Do you really need every receipt for every thing you've bought, all your electric bills, etc.? Lots of people save that stuff compulsively, but after 20 years of saving things that I never referred to, I pitched nearly all of it.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

Having had PDF documents corrupt on me ... I'm not sure how far I'd take the "future proof".

It's good that you've planned ahead ... my suspicion is that a lot of people haven't.


Cheers


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Eclectic12 said:


> Having had PDF documents corrupt on me ... I'm not sure how far I'd take the "future proof".


Hasn't happened to me yet, but I'm sure it could.

But paper isn't forever either, of course, and there's the issue of storage and accessibility. I suppose if you have some documents that are really crucial you could save them in multiple formats like PDF, JPG scans, .txt, etc to ensure that at least one version will be readable 40 years from now or whenever it's necessary.

Some of my motivation for this came from my stepmother: when she died, we were overwhelmed by all the paper she left behind: she never threw out anything. She still had tax returns from the 1970s, every Christmas card she'd ever received, utility bills dating back to 1984, and boxes and boxes of papers in the attic. Four years after she died we still haven't gone through all of it yet. She had misfiled her will; there was a copy in a folder marked "Will" that wasn't signed, and the courthouse wouldn't accept it; it took four of us six days of searching through her folders before we found a signed version.

That experience convinced me that I'd never want anyone to have to go through something like that when I die. So first I got rid of things I knew I'd never need to refer to again, and then made an effort to eliminate as much new paper as possible.


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## dime (Jun 20, 2013)

brad said:


> But paper isn't forever either, of course,


Good point. I've been going through old receipts that I have kept for insurance of valuables. Quite a few have faded with time and are basically unreadable. Also if I had a fire the paper is all gone.
I'm thinking it would be a good idea to keep a USB key copy of digital documents at another family member's place, in a fire safe, or waterproof container buried where it wouldn't melt from a house fire.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

dime said:


> I'm thinking it would be a good idea to keep a USB key copy of digital documents at another family member's place, in a fire safe, or waterproof container buried where it wouldn't melt from a house fire.


I did that for a few years, but encountered two issues: 1) if I gave it to a family member or friend, they inevitably misplaced it and couldn't find it when I asked for it, and 2) it's inconvenient to add new documents to it.

Online storage solves that issue. If you're concerned about security, the best bet is to use a password manager/safe application, such as 1Password, which allows you to securely store not just passwords but file attachments as well. 1Password is extremely secure: even if a hacker is able to get into your Dropbox or OneDrive, etc. and find your 1Password file, it would take them about 5,000 years to hack into the 1Password file. By then I don't think you'd need to worry about it. ;-)


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## fraser (May 15, 2010)

We keep an updated asset and account list in our safe deposit box. Our son is aware of it and has access to the box. We do not keep an soft copy bills-we retain hard copy of the important ones for warranty purposes. We check off our monthly statements and invoices against our on line versions. We keep the latest quarterly investment summary. Hard copy spousal loan documents, legal papers, birth certificates are also kept in our safe deposit box. We keep our tax receipts in hard copy only.

We gave a portable 2T Seagate drive. Half the size of a cigarette package. We have photos etc. on this. It lives in our safe deposit box and comes out every few months, along with our detailed asset listing, for updating.

I cull our filing cabinet every year to discard things that just get put there to get them out of the way or receipts that are no longer required. We started this about 4 years ago when we were preparing to move. Our record boxes contained banking and tax records back to the mid 80's. Thank goodness for the Alberta Motor Assoc. annual shredding events. We took in about 4 bankers boxes filled with old paper and vowed never to do that again.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

brad said:


> Hasn't happened to me yet, but I'm sure it could ... I suppose if you have some documents that are really crucial you could save them in multiple formats like PDF, JPG scans, .txt, etc to ensure that at least one version will be readable 40 years from now or whenever it's necessary.


I'd have expected multiple copies to do the trick ... though media is also known to degrade, in addition to the document.




brad said:


> .... But paper isn't forever either, of course, and there's the issue of storage and accessibility.


True ... though at the same time, after sorting through multiple copies of basically the same info across multiple directories in dos based Wordperfect for a relative that wouldn't have kept the copies on paper, I'm not sure electronic versions fit everyone.


Never mind the people like my manager's brother-in-law ... when he went over to help re-setup the computer after a hard drive failure, when he asked about backups - the software install disks were produced as "everyone knows it's only the programs that I need a second copy for". :biggrin:


Cheers


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Eclectic12 said:


> I'd have expected multiple copies to do the trick ... though media is also known to degrade, in addition to the document.


That's another reason to go with online storage instead of portable media. It's true that oniine storage vendors come and go, but usually they give you some warning if they're going to close up shop. It has happened to me a few times -- I used to use StrongSpace, and when that folded I moved my files to something else whose name I can't even remember; when that folded I went to Dropbox. They won't be around forever, and will likely be bought out (Apple tried to buy them back when Steve Jobs was running the company). Google Drive seems like a pretty good long-term option; I've been burned by Microsoft enough times to not trust anything to OneDrive.

I'm kind of amazed at how long portable media can last, though: I have old floppy disks and CD-ROMs from the 1990s that are still fully readable, REV drives that are all good as new, etc., and I recently digitized some cassette tapes that I recorded in the 1970s that sounded good as new, no degradation in sound quality. But I've heard the horror stories and am guess that I'm just a lucky exception.


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## fraser (May 15, 2010)

...and when we do backup on our Seagate drive we go back to double check that it actually got copied over in it's entirety.


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## AaronJBoxer (Apr 1, 2015)

Interesting topic. We are trying to go paperless at work and also my daughters school has gone paperless. I'm old school and like to have hard copies of things.


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

AaronJBoxer said:


> Interesting topic. We are trying to go paperless at work and also my* daughters school has gone paperless*. I'm old school and like to have hard copies of things.


 ... completely paperless? Or an attempt to reduce paper use by x%? Can't see the workplace going 100% "paperless", at least not for the next 50 years.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Beaver101 said:


> ... completely paperless? Or an attempt to reduce paper use by x%? Can't see the workplace going 100% "paperless", at least not for the next 50 years.


It depends on the workplace.

My office is 99% paperless: literally the only paper I generate is when someone emails me a form that I am not allowed to sign electronically, so I have to print it out, sign it, and either scan and PDF it or send the original by postal mail. There aren't very many of those forms anymore, most things can be signed electronically. Even the legal system is shifting this way; my girlfriend works at a law office and a growing number of forms can be signed electronically and exchanged via email instead of physically or via fax.


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## blin10 (Jun 27, 2011)

simply scan all your documents/statements and store it on a cloud platform... after that spend entire day shredding


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

^^ So are your wills going to go to heaven or that cloud 9? :biggrin: Seriously, how are you guys going to handle a "will"? Load it on an app? and probate your iphone or cloud platform????


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Beaver101 said:


> ^^ So are your wills going to go to heaven or that cloud 9? :biggrin: Seriously, how are you guys going to handle a "will"? Load it on an app? and probate your iphone or cloud platform????


There's no need to be silly about it: some things will likely always need to be in hard copy. So far, our will, some of our house papers, and tax documents/receipts for the last 7 years are the only things we've found we need in paper.

But for an office I don't think you need a will. :biggrin:


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

brad i believe we need some new nouns in the english language, would you be up to inventing them? or at least having a go at it.

we need nouns for persons who are in varying degrees of paperlessness/paper need.

me i need more paper than you do, so the noun for a human like myself is different. On the other hand i'm overjoyed to let a lot of paper go forever.

riffing through books & manuals by keyword search is not always the best, i find. Sometimes it's more fruitful to be able to flip the printed pages.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

brad said:


> ... But for an office I don't think you need a will. :biggrin:


True ... though after being a work when a guy had a heart attack at work ... :frown:
... having an up to date will isn't a bad idea. 


Cheers


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

humble_pie said:


> ... riffing through books & manuals by keyword search is not always the best, i find. Sometimes it's more fruitful to be able to flip the printed pages.


+1 ... I tend to keep the manuals for anything I have that gave me one. I've tried on the web in the past where the manufacturer had a manual from a similar appliance but as there were key differences, it didn't help much.

This is a problem less and less ...


Cheers


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