Old-school DocumentSnap readers will remember way back in 2010 I wrote a newsletter and a blog post about Meg Stout’s 300 Boxes project.
300 Boxes was not just a clever name for a site. She actually did have 300 boxes worth of stuff, and her blog detailed her ongoing quest to deal with it all.
A quest that she declared over in 2011 with a blog post where she showed the before and after. She also talks about her project in an interview in the Paperless Document Organization Guide.
If you read Meg’s blog post, you’ll notice a P.S. at the bottom:
P.S. In the mean time, I’ve been able to pursue my passion of creating an aquaponics system, the purpose I found that really inspired me to push through to complete the job.
I hadn’t heard from Meg for a while, then I was pleasantly surprised to receive an e-mail from her the other day.
It turns out that going paperless allowed her to find the mental and physical space to really pursue her passion for aquaponics. Here’s what she wrote me:
Being relieved from the burden of paper clutter gave me time to really focus. In one short year I’d gone from dabbler to an officer in the Aquaponics Association, based on my desire to make aquaponics something anyone could do with local materials.
Now all that energy has actually led to a book deal! This week The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Aquaponic Gardening has been released.
Congratulations Meg, that’s amazing! It looks great and I will be checking it out.
When I give talks about going paperless, I always start by telling people to ask themselves “Why?”
It is really helpful if you are doing this for a purpose. It makes all the difference when it comes to keeping going, and Meg’s story shows that you never know what can happen when you accomplish your goals.