How Paperless Work Can Make You Even More Productive
A look into how going paperless can enhance your productivity at work
Paper tends to get unnecessarily printed, shared around the office and placed on your desk across your work day without a moment’s notice. Small mountains of documents pile up on your colleagues desks and with very little structure behind the madness.
We’ve become obsessed with the idea of paper and documents being part of our lives without asking ourselves the question of how relevant it needs to be.
It’s weighing us down.
Movies and culture have embedded in us a natural instinct to bring paper along to our meetings, events, activities and more as a kind of “crutch” that assists our day to day workload.
For creatives, a messy desk might inspire proactive thinking, but even for creatives, getting organised is a real goal. Of course, there are many thousands of scenarios where you will interact with paper on a daily basis, but if it’s not necessary, then why do we do it?
There’s a whole host of benefits to eliminating paper from your workspace.
- The first. Your workspace.
Being able to keep a clean workstation will dramatically reduce stress levels, improve performance on a daily basis and provide you with a canvas to keep clean. A newly tidied desk can quickly turn into a messy one, but with some good practice and a few techniques you can keep things tidy.
Paperless eliminates the need to store and collect paper on your desk. With a host of resources already pre-installed on your laptops and mobile devices you’ll be feel a weight lifted off your shoulders. A empty desk is a clear mind.
- The second. Effective planning.
Removing paper from the routine can be beneficial for your planning process. Many people skip past a lot of helpful tools online because they are scared of using them and tripping over themselves getting started in the fear of missing a trick. The majority of resources are super simple and with a host of free tutorials on YouTube (my tutorials), you can learn them at a fairly rapid rate.
My advice. Ditch the to-do list, if you can see it cluttering your desk. Try a host of to-do list applications to get started. Learn the basic uses and transfer any to-dos there as soon as possible. Try this for 30-days and see whether it’s for you. Planning using digital resources can save you heaps of time and effort.
- The third. One location.
The less methods of collection you have the better.
Imagine you collecting all of your workload and to-dos from emails and organise them into a clear filing system on your desktop. Simple right?!
The paper surrounding your desk is a physical representation of this. A cluttered desk isn’t one location, it might be 34 or 51 different. The more items and locations you have on your desk, the more spots you’ll need to re-focus. Try channeling your workload into one location so you can process everything all at once.
There’s tons of pros and cons to going paperless. Many of them derived from the increased focus on a cleared desk and one location.
So how do I go paperless?!
My office loves paper. I’m bombarded by paper daily. My boss writes me memos. *Panic*. How do I even start to convince them to switch to paper?!
1. Start with yourself
Experimenting with your own workload, going paperless will help to create a worked example in your office. Have a little word with your boss that you’ll be working paperless best you can in the next few weeks, in an effort to keep things better organised across your workspace. He/she will understand.
2. Clear your station
Now you have the awareness of your experiment. Begin by clearing your desk. Save this for 5:30PM or 8:00AM when no one is in the office and you want no additional workload to be added. This might be a sacrifice of your time, but you’ll save it later in your paperless mission.
3. Introduce an in-tray
Now you’ve cleared your station. Add an in-tray to collect items across your day. Your aim is to eliminate any paper, but whilst it’s being added, add a collection method to help organise this on your desk.
4. Communicate with colleagues
To help reduce the size of your paper workload. Ask your colleagues to only give you paper when urgently needed. This will change their approach to printing things out to you. Ask to only send items via email from then on.
5. Set a daily clean
Aim to clean your desk at the same time every day. Smaller spring-cleans will reduce the chances of things getting messy once again. Aim for your workstation to be a paper-free space.
6. Ditch your to-do list
To-do lists can become pretty manic. You start one, then move to another. In no time, you’ve got 3 or 4 pieces of paper floating around your desk with different due dates and deadlines. Try digitising it with Todoist or TickTick.
7. Convert your team members
With things getting clear and organised you’ll need to begin inspiring the team around you. Try to show your organisation to them in subtle times across the day, they’ll begin to gravitate to paperless methods through your worked example and reduced stress.
8. Paperless Meetings
Begin to only bring a phone or tablet to a meeting to scribble up notes. This will begin to inspire others to reduce the amount of paper floating around the office and meeting rooms.
There’s many other approaches to being paperless in the office to embrace, we’ll be diving into them more often here on the GoodNotes Blog, very soon!
We’ve done a very similar article covering the habits of being paperless at home. Well worth a read, here is some general advice for going paperless at home and at work! Here’s three of those useful habits!
1. Always Scan Things
Get scanning! Using scanning tools to save paper for later will be helpful in the road to going paperless. A snapper in your pocket will be one of the most useful tools in your arsenal!
2. Open all your mail at the postbox
A habit that I’ve adopted at home, clearing your postbox right away can be helpful in the effort. Getting rid or disposing of the paper that isn’t needed will help a clean postbox and get you in a healthy routine for work too!
3. Always ask for digital versions
At work, there’s nothing wrong with asking for a paperless experience. Ask your colleagues whether they can send you a paper-free agenda or even a PDF of what they are handing out. They’ll get the idea after a few times, and once they do, you’ll have everything saved safely there.
Let us know your recommendations for paperless work or any tips for working paperless at home, we’d love to hear all your productivity tips and tricks.
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📝Recommended Read — Why the iPad is the real answer to your meeting notes nightmares (READ HERE)
Another Recommended Read — How to go paperless at home or at work in 2018? Adopt these 5 habits. (READ HERE) 📝
