The 2012 organizational crusade continues in our home. The next project I have almost completely tackled is the file cabinet. Let me introduce you to my file cabinet. It has four drawers, it's black metal and it's incredibly ugly. I hate it. It has served its purpose over the last few years however, it's time to get utilize the technology I have available to me.
I have a ScanSnap document scanner hooked up to our home network. Our home network has an external hard drive that we can store everything from documents to pictures. We back our computers up to this hard drive and always have a fail safe. This hard drive has a back up hard drive in case one fails. Nifty huh?
So last night I began the task of sorting through that giant filing cabinet. The only papers that I didn't put in the shred box were birth certificates, car titles, etc. Everything was scanned and named as a PDF. The part I'm super excited about is the kid's drawings. I scanned in art work I had been saving from my kiddos. The result is a beautiful color PDF of their pictures. The macaroni art however, was sacrificed to the trash can gods.
You don't have to have a ScanSnap or a crazy complicated external hard drive network to do this yourself. Most printers these days are 3-in-1 with scanning capabilities. You could scan and save to a disk or use an online document storage service. The options are endless.
Sort your mail while at your scanner. If you are still receiving paper bills, you can scan them right away and toss them. Doing this and being diligent about it will stop those piles of envelopes and paper from piling up on your table, mantle, dresser, counter, etc. Handle all things once, to keep from moving them from place to place and wasting precious time shuffling paper.
Now I have a partially empty file cabinet for sale. Hundreds of hanging file folders and manila folders to go with it as well. The black file cabinet will be at the yard sale this weekend if you would like to visit. I feel fantastic to be rid of the paper that is bogging down my life!
I have a ScanSnap document scanner hooked up to our home network. Our home network has an external hard drive that we can store everything from documents to pictures. We back our computers up to this hard drive and always have a fail safe. This hard drive has a back up hard drive in case one fails. Nifty huh?
So last night I began the task of sorting through that giant filing cabinet. The only papers that I didn't put in the shred box were birth certificates, car titles, etc. Everything was scanned and named as a PDF. The part I'm super excited about is the kid's drawings. I scanned in art work I had been saving from my kiddos. The result is a beautiful color PDF of their pictures. The macaroni art however, was sacrificed to the trash can gods.
You don't have to have a ScanSnap or a crazy complicated external hard drive network to do this yourself. Most printers these days are 3-in-1 with scanning capabilities. You could scan and save to a disk or use an online document storage service. The options are endless.
Sort your mail while at your scanner. If you are still receiving paper bills, you can scan them right away and toss them. Doing this and being diligent about it will stop those piles of envelopes and paper from piling up on your table, mantle, dresser, counter, etc. Handle all things once, to keep from moving them from place to place and wasting precious time shuffling paper.
Now I have a partially empty file cabinet for sale. Hundreds of hanging file folders and manila folders to go with it as well. The black file cabinet will be at the yard sale this weekend if you would like to visit. I feel fantastic to be rid of the paper that is bogging down my life!
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