Death by Printer: Do You Really Need to Print All Those Emails
Email is very effective for sharing information quickly. However, most people prefer the complicated procedures that result in hard copies of information. Therefore, your company probably spends a lot of time, effort, and money printing emails. There’s really nothing wrong with printing emails. It can be significantly easier to manage hard copies of information than trying to find an email buried in your mailbox. Yet, there is a problem with printing allof your emails.
If your company is anything like most companies, then you need to find ways to reduce unnecessary costs. So, the question that you should ask yourself is, “Do I really need to print all those emails?”
What Does It Cost?
If you’re involved in managing your company’s expenses, then you’re probably aware of the cost of excessive printing. It is true that the cost of printing a single piece of paper, whether it is in color or black ink, is relatively small. In most cases, it only costs a couple of cents to print a single page. While this may not seem like much, most companies print thousands of pages per day. These tiny costs can quickly add up and create a major problem for your organization.
How Does It Help Me?
Another important thing to think about is how printing each email helps you do your job. If you are printing emails so that you have physical notes to write on, add to, and organize, then you are likely receiving a tangible benefit from printing them. If you are printing email so that you can keep records of your communications, you are also likely gaining good use from acquiring the hard copy. However, there are better ways of keeping and organizing this information.
Do I Really Need It?
Determining whether or not you really need to print an email is the key to finding ways to reduce your costs. Not every email contains significant information, and much of the information in every email may not be necessary. Implementing different ways of managing this information can help you determine if the material is truly necessary to print.
If you need a better way to organize the information in your emails, you can use programs like Microsoft’s OneNote to collect the important pieces of information and compile them into a single location. By selectively targeting specific pieces of information and organizing them digitally, you will likely print fewer pages. Alternatively, keeping records can be done effectively through electronic means, specifically by archiving your emails to a physical device in your office. An external hard drive will allow you to make a backup of your emails without using large amounts of storage space to do so.
While it is tempting to keep printing emails to help manage important information, there are better ways of doing so. By reducing the number of printed pages to only the essential information, you can significantly reduce your company’s printing costs. Plus, your company will have greener operations.
