3 piles to paperless

Besides all the paper cluttering your home you will need:

• 1–3 boxes — like the kind you would use when you move
• 1 staple remover — your scanner does not cope well with staples
• 1 desktop scanner — if you are serious about entering and maintaining a paperless lifestyle, you should invest some of your hard-earned money in one of those duplex scanners with an automatic paper feed (My scanner of choice is the Fujitsu iX500. It will file all my scans right into Evernote or any other pre-defined repository)
• 1 archiving box/folder — some of those papers are meant to stay with you

1. The first pile, or better a shredder, is for all that paper you will not need in the future.
   All of those old magazines, newspapers, flyers, leaflets, old to-do lists, and all other papers that seized to serve a purpose a long time ago go here. Fill up those boxes and leave some room for when you are done with pile #2
2. The second pile is for information that you want to keep.
   It will hold all those documents, lists, notes, articles, user manuals, and other papers that hold information that you want to keep, but that do not serve purpose in their physical paper form.
   Scan all these papers into Evernote, Dropbox or into a folder on your hard drive. I recommend you are using Evernote — its character recognition is without a doubt the best on the market. You will not sort and file your scans in this session! Only scanning. That’s the deal. After you scanned everything, toss those papers into one of the boxes you filled up with all that crap from pile #1. Wrap it up and go make a great bonfire from it.
3. The third pile is for documents that you need to keep.
   All those legal papers, banking statements, receipts, insurance policies, and identification papers are meant to be kept for some time or forever. Scan them for easy access and file them securely in a safe place.

That is it! That is all you need to do! First step taken. Now comes the harder part…

Maintaining a paperless lifestyle

One thing you need to know about the paperless life is that the world around you is not quite ready for you, yet. That is why you have to actively reduce the incoming paper flow.

Create aliases for your email
Whenever you see the chance to opt-in for receiving digital statements, DO IT! By creating aliases, that you use to subscribe to all those different senders with, you will maximize order and it will be easier to find everything you need by simply opening the mailbox in question and running a quick search.

Get yourself a bound notebook
A bound notebook is what I call good paper. Handwriting has served people very well over centuries so far why stop it now? Modern technology can turn your handwritten notes into searchable content within your paperless system. By simply scanning the pages you have written in your notebook into Evernote, the software will work its magic in the background letting you find that note again when you are firing up the service next time and run a search.

Don’t write on loose paper
Loose papers tend to end up in your bag where they eventually will end up in your home. You do not want this! You’ve got to make one exception though, you can use as many sticky notes as you want. Sticky notes provide limited space, they are colorful, they don’t fly around, and they stay awesome once you scan them into Evernote with your phone. Sticky notes are good paper, too. If you end up writing on loose paper, make it a habit to scan it with your phone as soon as you finished writing.

Don’t print
In fact, I encourage you to get rid of that evil printer, if you still one. There are only three cases where it is OK to print:

1. If it is a legal document that needs to be signed and sent away.
2. If it is an assignment for your class and your old school professor will not accept anything else than good old paper.
3. If it is the manuscript for your next great book.

Magazines…
Now this is a tough one. I know that many people see value in keeping every issue of their favorite magazine, treating them as a collectible. If you are one of these people, then at least find a way to keep them beautifully displayed. If you are frequently reading magazines for the content they provide, without any emotional attachment to the thing itself, scan the articles and pictures you want to keep directly into your digital system and toss the paper once you’ve read through.

Schedule some time for maintenance
15–30 minutes a week should be enough to sort through the paper that came over the week. 3 piles again and you are good to go for the weekend.

Finally…

Give Paper its proper place
Create one place in your home where all the incoming paper can go to until it has been dealt with. Make this place as beautiful as it gets and find out how it feels to have only one place you must look at to know, that the paper that need attention is right there.

That’s it! Now, Go! Go paperless!

If you need any help, advice, or if you want to add your two or three cents chat me up on Twitter @enriconahler or talk to me on Snapchat — enriconahler