Tips To Learn How To Go Paperless | DocumentSnap Paperless Blog

Being a technical person, sometimes I tend to jump into implementing a solution to a problem right away. If it is a very small project that approach can work, but I have learned[1] that it can be smart to take a step back and plan out what you are going to do before starting. Crazy talk, I know.

I came across this post by Bill Good: 12 Steps To Near-Paperless Bliss: Part I and in it he makes the case that you should outline both the process for what you are going to do, and the goals for what you want the end result to look like.

In six weeks, those 40 cabinets will be gone, their paper files converted to easily accessible PDF files. Why six weeks? We’re moving and I’m not going to pay thousands of dollars a year to store all that … ‘er … stuff.And we will do it with two $500 scanners!

I am not sure if Bill made his October 21 due date[2], but I really like how he outlined and described both the process and the goals. Well worth it if you are going to be starting a paperless project of a decent size.

He also has a helpful resource page, and I am not just saying that because he had nice things to say about the The Unofficial ScanSnap Setup Guide, though that never hurts.

Have you outlined the goals of your paperless project?

(Photo by oddsock)

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If you have been reading DocumentSnap for any length of time, you will know that I am always going on about making your PDFs searchable.

One of the first things I tell people to do when they are setting up their scanner is to enable the OCR option so that the contents of their PDF can be indexed.[1]

Every time I write about making documents searchable, I am reminded of an email that a DocumentSnap reader sent me back in the summer. Amongst other things, it contained this line:

I don’t need my documents “searchable” but “findable”.

I really love this line because it brings up an excellent point: the purpose of doing all this, which can get lost sometimes, is to be able to find the documents that we are filing away. Optical Character Recognition is the tool, not the goal.

How do you make sure that your documents are findable and not just searchable? Aside from, yes, turning on OCR, I would suggest:

1. Using a folder and/or tag structure[2] that makes sense to you and is not overly-complex.
2. Using a smart, consistent naming convention for your documents.
3. Making sure everything is backed up and test your backups.

So, consider myself smacked down for my over-use of the word “searchable”. How about you, are you making your documents findable or just searchable?

I am always incredibly fascinated by the way that people do their jobs.

Whether it is a writer, a TV producer, a bartender, or what have you, I love watching people go about their routine, and if that is not possible, I love reading about it online or listening to their podcasts.

In that spirit, I recently came across (I believe via Shawn Blanc) this post by screenwriter John August: My daily writing routine.

Aside from a fascinating look at how a screenwriter operates, there are some great paperless workflows in the post as well.

Every morning, I send what I’ve written to my assistant to type up. I used to fax pages, but on this last trip I just photographed the pages with my iPad and uploaded them to a shared folder in Dropbox. It’s simple, and guaranteed backup.

He also goes into how he uses hard drives for clone backups, including using a product I wasn’t familiar with before, the Voyager Q.

Of course, he is also a big fan of the ScanSnap S1500M as well as Evernote. I also like how he singles out, for Mac users, using the built-in Preview application for managing documents. This is something I have written about a number of times before.

Because it’s included with system software, Preview doesn’t get the attention it deserves. You can easily rearrange or delete pages in a PDF with it, or combine multiple documents. It’s amazing and overlooked.

All in all, great post. If you have other examples of great “workflow” type posts, I’d love to hear them in the comments.

Being about a 30 second walk away from our local library, my wife and I are regular patrons. We take a lot of books out of that place.

This is one reason why, despite my insatiable gadget lust, we have not picked up a Kindle as of yet – it hasn’t supported taking books out of the library.

Recently, in the United States at least, this has changed, and you can now borrow books on your Kindle from your local library.

Here is how it works, according to their site:

Visit the website of a U.S. library that offers digital services from OverDrive.

Check out a Kindle book (using a valid library card).

Click on “Get for Kindle” and then sign in to your Amazon.com account to have the book delivered to your Kindle device or reading app.

Note: Public library books can be sent wirelessly to Kindle devices via an active Wi-Fi connection or transferred via USB.

Neil over at Paperless Today has a good writeup of how he uses it.

All this doesn’t help me since I don’t live in the US, but hopefully it will come to Canada soon. Do you use your Kindle to read library books? How do you like the experience?

(Photo by Eric Adeleye Photography)

In Tim Cook’s Apple Event in October, he gave the usual roundup of Apple achievements. One interesting quote was this one:

In the cockpit, pilots are using it. They are replacing 40 pound flight bags full of paper manuals and logbooks and navigational charts and checklists, making the pilot more efficient and making the plane more fuel efficient.

That quote reminded me of a fascinating New York Times article from the summer that I had clipped to Evernote, that went into much more detail about this.

The Federal Aviation Administration has authorized a handful of commercial and charter carriers to use the tablet computer as a so-called electronic flight bag. Private pilots, too, are now carrying iPads, which support hundreds of general aviation apps that simplify preflight planning and assist with in-flight operations.

“The iPad allows pilots to quickly and nimbly access information,” said Jim Freeman, a pilot and director of flight standards at Alaska Airlines, which has given iPads to all its pilots. “When you need to a make a decision in the cockpit, three to four minutes fumbling with paper is an eternity.”

Call me a clueless air traveller, but I had no idea that pilots had to haul 40 pounds of paper onto each flight. This is the sort of area where tablets can be a hugely disruptive device.

Speaking of disruption, check out these cost savings:

“I didn’t ease into using the iPad,” said Mr. Long, who has been a pilot for more than 30 years. “I jumped.”
His motivation was to save on subscriptions to paper maps and charts, which had cost him $1,414 a year. He now gets the same maps and charts digitally delivered to his two iPads for $150 a year. His iPads are also loaded with digital versions of all his aircraft, equipment and operating manuals as well as a complete copy of F.A.A. rules and regulations.

That is remarkable.

After the event, TechCrunch tried to test the fuel efficiency claim. Apparently his math was a little off, but read the comments on the post from actual pilots.

Any pilots in the crowd here? Do you use an iPad in-flight? How about my fellow passengers. Any concerns about pilots switching from paper to the iPad? I’m interested to hear your thoughts.

PS: RIP, Steve.

(Photo by Global X)

From time to time, I like to feature interesting scanning projects here on DocumentSnap, and it is pretty difficult to find one more interesting than this.

I’m going to guess that you have heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but if not, here is what Wikipedia has to say:

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name. They were specifically located at Khirbet Qumran in the British Mandate for Palestine, in what is now named the West Bank.

In most cases, the only way to see the Scrolls has been to go to the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. However, now the museum, in conjunction with Google, has unveiled the Digital Dead Sea Scrolls Project.

Here is what Google has to say about it in their blog post:

Now, anyone around the world can view, read and interact with five digitized Dead Sea Scrolls. The high resolution photographs, taken by Ardon Bar-Hama, are up to 1,200 megapixels, almost 200 times more than the average consumer camera, so viewers can see even the most minute details in the parchment. For example, zoom in on the Temple Scroll to get a feel for the animal skin it’s written on—only one-tenth of a millimeter thick.

You can browse the Great Isaiah Scroll, the most well known scroll and the one that can be found in most home bibles, by chapter and verse. You can also click directly on the Hebrew text and get an English translation. While you’re there, leave a comment for others to see.

This is a really cool project with a cool video. Check it out:

I’d still love to go see the real thing someday, but for now, this will have to do.

(via Laughing Squid)

Ever since my kids reached school age, I’ve been fascinated with how teachers do their jobs. It is definitely not an easy profession.

It is also clear that schools usually generate a lot of paper when you are a parent.

To that end, I was really interested to find Vicki Davis’ Cool Cat Teacher blog.

Aside from a bunch of great content about teaching, she has started a great series called Tales From A Paperless As Possible Classroom.

There was also an update a few days later called Paperless As Possible: 3 trees in a year in which she goes into a bit more detail.

It is about streamlining the workflow. Keeping it simple (for the kids and me.) I just don’t see the point in printing out things that are going in the trash after I look at them unless they really NEED to be on paper. I can grade on my ipad and don’t have to lug home a big old bag any more.

There’s some great tips on her blog, so if you are a teacher it might be worth checking out, and if you are a parent maybe you can nicely nudge your teacher in that direction too.

Does your classroom (or your kids’ classroom) have any good tips for going paperless? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

(Photo by Sister72)

Those of you who follow me on Facebook or on Twitter will know that my old 2007 MacBook Pro just died. I’ll take it to the Apple Store for them to check out, but I suspect it has gone to logic board heaven.

This is the first time I have ever had a computer I am actively working on die (I’ve never even had a drive failure), so here are some things I’ve learned from the process so far.

Don’t Tempt Fate

I have often joked “I hope my old computer dies so I will have an excuse to buy one of the shiny new ones.”

I also told someone a few days ago that I have been holding off upgrading to Lion because I wanted to do a fresh install, and haven’t found the time to do it.

Guess what? Now that I am getting both my wishes, it’s not so fun. Next time, I’ll keep my mouth shut.

Backups Make Things Annoying But Not Stressful

You know that expression “the cobbler’s children have no shoes”? Thankfully, one area where I do not fall into that category is with backups.

I do pretty much everything in this How To Backup Your Computer video. My SuperDuper! clone backup had run the day before, and my Time Machine backup had run an hour before.

I also have an online backup with CrashPlan and just to make things even more paranoid, I have my critical files backed up at a friend’s house.

I also tend to store whatever I am working on in Dropbox, so many files are backed up realtime to Dropbox’s servers.

All this is to say, while this whole process is annoying, at no point have I felt stressed out about losing anything important. It’s a nice feeling.

Love The Cloud

I am typing this on my wife’s old second-hand white MacBook, and since my failure, I have done pieces of things on my iPad, on this computer, on my Windows 7 laptop, and on my parents’ 27″ iMac.

All this is made super-easy with cloud services like Dropbox and Evernote. I can’t imagine what a pain things would be if I wasn’t able to seamlessly switch between computers and devices.

Also having my 1Password and TextExpander data synced has been incredibly helpful. My 1Password app on my iPhone has certainly been getting a workout. Not having TextExpander on my wife’s computer is like eating glass though – I am going to have to rectify this.

Mac App Store

The Mac App Store has been great for quickly installing applications. You don’t really appreciate it until you have to install a number of them all at once.

Life Didn’t Stop Because My Computer Died

Unfortunately, the real world kept going even though my computer didn’t. I had a hard deadline at 5pm yesterday for a new project I am working on for DocumentSnap, and the failure did slow me down a bit. I got it done though – at 4:52pm. Having things backed up and accessible is important if you are in a situation where downtime is a problem for you.

Fortunately for me, this all happened on a long weekend, so the only real impact will likely be no video post this week.

Look At It As An Opportunity

As the Monty Python song goes, I try to always look at the bright side of life. I had been meaning to do a clean install of Lion anyways, so this way I can go through and see what things I really need from my old computer and what had been junking up my computer over the last four years.

Also, my old MacBook Pro was getting pretty slow at doing video, so I’m looking forward to a new, faster computer.

Have you ever had a computer failure? How did the recovery go? Any more lessons learned? Let us know in the comments.

(Photo by andymangold)

In the past week, I’ve had two instances where going paperless has come in very handy.

Neither of these are earth shattering in and of themselves, but they are examples of little things over time that can add up to make life easier when you can find what you need, when you need it.

“Did You Send In Your Registration?”

This year, we are putting my youngest son in a new preschool. His cousin previously went there, and his other cousin will be going with him this year. Also, my oldest son did a daycamp there, so we know the place somewhat well.

A week ago, my sister-in-law asked us if we’d be attending the open house on the weekend to meet the teachers, ease the kids in, etc. Our response was “what open house?”

I didn’t think too much about not receiving notification at the time, because we live in a townhouse complex and it is not unheard of for physical mail to be delivered to the wrong house. So on the weekend, we went to the school.

When we got there, one of the owners took me aside. “Umm, did you send in your registration forms? Did you send in post-dated checks or a pre-authorized payment form?”

It’s safe to say that “did you send in your registration forms?” is not a sentence you want to hear a week before school is supposed to start.

I started second-guessing myself. It was way back in February. Did we send it in? Did we give it to my sister-in-law or something? How did we pay?

I whipped out my iPhone and fired up the Dropbox app and typed in the name of the school in the search box. Sure enough, up came the signed registration forms that I had scanned in. The PDF was too large for the Dropbox app to handle properly, but I was able to open it in GoodReader.

I showed it to the school, and then they remembered receiving it. “Ohh right, you sent us an electronic copy. I thought it was so cool how you had filled out the PDF without having to write on it.” Thank you PDFPen for that.

I used the Dropbox app to create a link and re-send it to them there, and the problem was solved.

By the way, as far as I know, the Dropbox app only searches by filename, not file contents. This demonstrates the importance of naming your files well.

Saving Money With Evernote

Once a year, Vancouver has a big fair called the PNE, and yesterday evening we decided to head down there as a family. I was at home, my wife was at work, and the kids were at their grandparents’.

Like most of these types of events, tickets to get in are expensive, and being cheap I wanted to save money.

I was running late to pick up the kids, and just as I was heading out the door, I had this vague recollection that my son’s elementary school had some sort of discount.

I fired up Evernote, did a global search using the ^⌘E keyboard shortcut, and typed “PNE”. The first result that popped up was the last school newsletter of last year that I had scanned to Evernote, and sure enough, near the bottom was a discount code for the PNE. I punched it in, and saved $10. Yeah!

In this case, having the document searchable via OCR made finding information that I never would have put in the filename possible.

How About You?

So, those are two simple of examples that have happened to me over the last week of how useful it can be to have your documents scanned, named properly, and searchable. Do you have any similar stories? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

(Photo by www.metaphoricalplatypus.com)

“Do you need a paper receipt, or is e-mail fine?”

Every time I go to the Apple Store to buy something (an event my wife would say is much too common), I am given the option to have my receipt e-mailed to me. In almost every case, I choose the e-mail option.

Given the fact that I run this website, I am probably a bit of an edge case. I started wondering what kind of adoption paperless receipts are having.

The Boston Herald had an article on the topic:

“It’s the next big thing in retail,” said Richard Mader, executive director of the Association for Retail Technology Standards, a division of the National Retail Federation. “In five years, up to 60 percent of retailers will go paperless.” Colin Johnson, a Nordstrom spokesman, said all of its stores started offering the paperless option this month.

Of course, retailers aren’t doing it just to make things convenient for us. According to this New York Times article, some retailers (I’m looking at you, Gap) are using those e-mail addresses for marketing purposes. The Times had an interesting quote from Patagonia:

That marketing potential is a drawback to some customers, said Robert Cohen, vice president of retail at Patagonia, which began offering e-receipts nine months ago. “People are very protective of their e-mail in-box,” he said, so only about one-third of Patagonia’s customers choose an electronic receipt.

To be honest, I am surprised it is as high as one-third.

How about you? Do you take the paperless receipt option, or do you like the perceived safety of walking out of the store with a piece of paper? I’m curious what others do.

(Photo by ben_onthemove)