How to Create a Paperless Home Office

Creating a paperless home office will help you transform a cluttered workspace into a pleasant one. Without sticky notes living on your monitor and piles of papers to sort through every day, you will find yourself doing more actual work instead of looking for it. While some original documents needs to stored in paper form, most documents and notes can be easily and safely digitized.

Things You'll Need

• Computer scanner
• Original documents
• Online sticky notes program
• Backup storage drive
• Online address book
• Keyed lock box or safe

Instructions

Organizing the Paper

1. Remove any and all notepads, small pieces of paper, index card and any other paper from your immediate reach. Give them away to other people or to the kids. Or use them in other rooms of the house where you may need them. By removing the paper from your immediate reach, you will help break the habit of writing too many notes and creating piles of paper. When you stop relying on paper, your office expenses will decrease, you will be helping the environment, and your desk will immediately look neater.

2. Organize the existing papers by gathering them all together. Pile up all of the papers that are currently on your desktop, including those sticky notes that decorate your computer monitor and home office telephone. Sort through the pile and organize each piece of paper into an appropriate pile. For example, addresses and phone numbers, user names, website addresses and passwords and pin codes can all go into one pile.

3. Make another pile of outdated papers that you do not need. These can be recycled or shredded and then recycled. Some papers you probably do not need to keep are grocery receipts, old warranties, instruction manuals for products you no longer own, any car insurance policy that is not your current policy, receipts for purchases which can no longer be returned and are not office expenses. Old utility bills may also be recycled.

4. Make a scanning pile for papers that you do not need right now, but need to keep. These can be documents that you may need to refer to in the future, but you do not need the originals. For example, all of these documents may be scanned in and store on your computer: bank statements, investment documents, tax returns (the IRS accepts online documents now), and receipts. Receipts may be scanned in and organized into digital files, freeing up a lot of office space.

5. Store original, important documents in a small lock box or safe. Store the documents and original papers that cannot easily be replaced. Include birth certificates, car titles, notarized documents, wills, divorce papers, or any other binding, legal documents. These important documents will all now be safe, out of sight, and neatly stored in one place.

6. For ideas, works in progress and to do lists, make a priority pile. Separate out home papers from work paper if that applies.

Digital Storage Options

1. Determine if you would like to use your computer, a web-based storage service, CDs, or a backup hard drive to store your digital documents. This will depend on how many documents you need to store, how secure they need to be, and who else in your home office will need to access the documents.

2. Scan in important documents with your computer scanner. Store them in organized computer folders on your computer. Use a back up hard drive if you need more storage. For shared documents or web-based documents, consider a free or low-cost document storage web site.

3. Create a priority list for your home office. The priority list will include the deals, works in progress and to do lists, and other important notes you need to see right now. The priority list may be created using a sticky pad application on your computer, a computer notepad, or even a word processing program. Type in all the information from your notes and to do lists into this document. This list should live on your desktop and should always be open. When you have a new idea, or an item to add to the list, do not reach for the sticky notes. Type it into the list and save it often.

4. Minimize how much and how often you print documents. Email documents to yourself or others when you need to share a document on your computer. Use an free online reminder service to keep track of important information or even a grocery list.

5. Reduce statements from clients and your own invoicing by relying on digital methods whenever possible. Change all home office utility bills to online statements, and request to stop receiving paper statements. This can help you maintain your paperless home office.

Tips & Warnings

• Creating a paperless home office will take some time.

• Take action, scan or file any papers immediately.

• Leave flat, clean spaces free of paper.

• Get a smaller desk to encourage less paper piling.

• Open the mail over the recycling bin, immediately discarding envelopes and marketing materials.

• Do not fall back on old habits of cluttering up your home office with extra paper.