Liberating yourself from paper
August 6th, 2009 Chip Joyce - Staff ContributorCategories | Community Contributions | Gear | Implementation
Living in an apartment in Manhattan I have very limited space, and I cannot possibly keep the amount of file cabinets that I otherwise might. Unfortunately I have been the opposite of a pack rat: I routinely discarded material, and later regretted it. Having been a horrible organizer all my life, despite full court press attempts every couple years, I basically had a box of everything “important” that I added to, and once in a while retrieved from. Then I would cull the box occasionally, and there was no space–literally–for sentimentality.A couple of years ago I had to move to London for a while and decided to organize my most important papers in an accordion file with about 30 sections so I could take them with me. It wasn’t half bad: my bank statements weren’t in order, but at least they were together in one of those sections. I could eventually find what I needed, as necessary. But that accordion started getting full, and there was a lot of stuff that didn’t fit, or didn’t make sense to put in, with the paperwork I collected.
GTD really required me to do something about filing stuff, but I decided for lack of space, I had to find a digital solution. Eventually I decided to use a Fujitsu ScanSnap Scanner (I chose the compact S300M model but there are bigger desktop models if you’re inclined) and for software I selected DEVONThink Office Pro for document management. (I will review this software in a future contribution. While I love it, you can use the scanner without it, and there are Windows versions with included software.)
The scanner is brilliant. You simply put in a stack of papers, double sided is fine, and push the button on the scanner. The pages whiz through the scanner and in no time a window on my Mac asks me what to do with the image; I choose “save as PDF” and it compiles the stack, in order and minding both sides of the pages, into one PDF. I name the file and hit “Save.” Since my downloads and default save location for everything is my “Personal Records” folder in DEVONThink, it’s immediately collected. Originally I would then process the scanned documents into various sub-folders but I found that to be unnecessary because the software is brilliant at searching so I don’t think any organization is necessary.
My file naming convention helps. I use grouping prefixes, such as “TAXES,” “READ,” “INSURANCE,” “MEDICAL” and then name the document descriptively. For example, all records pertaining to my dog Olive are “OLIVE Vet bill for eye infection 20090315” (I like that date format: YYYYMMDD and use it all the time.)
So what do I scan? I started by scanning literally every document I was holding on to and it took a lot less time than I would have expected. This included: financial statements, tax returns, tax related correspondence, legal documents, insurance policies, medical records, receipts, proofs of purchase, warranty info, birth certificate and other forms of ID, personal letters, birthday and Christmas cards, instruction manuals, recipes, magazine clippings, research materials, etc. The scanner accepted everything, included very oddly shaped documents such as birthday cards and two foot long receipts.
Finally, if you have supporting OCR software (DEVONThink has it built in), PDFs can be converted to searchable PDFs so you can easily search for “Samsung HD TV” and find the receipt and warranty information from the content in the document. However for most documents I do not convert them to searchable PDF, as just a well named file is most often all I need to find something.
Every Sunday night I scan papers that have accumulated in my (physical) in box and throw away or shred the now unneeded paper.
Having this system has liberated me so that I can keep anything that is mildly interesting to me. I no longer have to feel the dread of, “Where I am going to put this?” and “Who am I kidding? I will never find it even if I keep it!” I have no doubt that I will end up being more creative and productive as a result of this system.
Chip Joyce is a regular contributor to GTD Times and member of GTD Connect. You can also read his great post on his Mac + paper hybrid system.
Terrific post Chip. I too use a Mac and the Fujitsu scanner but I drop everything into Evernote. Evernote provides a great iPhone interface so I can access my documents anywhere. And Evernote now provides a service to its’ Premium members that makes all pdfs searchable without any additional software. I would love to hear your thoughts on DevonThink Pro and Evernote. I used to use DevonThink but now Evernote exclusively.
only thing to avoid is digitizing collect without processing or organizing it
Scott,
I don’t have experience with Evernote; I chose DEVON because a friend loved it with his Fujitsu scanner. So I never did a comparison.
The iPhone access is kind of cool, I must admit. Where are your files stored — in the cloud or are you accessing your computer via the iPhone?
Chip, I also use the Mac/Snapscan/iPhone combo with evernote. I also use this on my Windows machine at work; Evernote is cloud based but I keep important financial documents on a local only part of the Evernote database.
Chip,
I assume you use this only for reference materials, not for actionable items? Sounds cool…
Amy -
I keep my lists in Things.
Great post, Chip. I want to highlight that our service (http://www.pixily.com ) can scan documents for you in your account, and make them accessible anytime, anywhere. We integrate seamlessly with Evernote (Documents can be sent from Pixily to Evernote). No Gruntwork.
I use Tracks for actionable items and Microsoft OneNote for document management and note taking. I also scan most things and ‘print’ them to onenote.
Nice system Chip, But it also important to have a good backup system. How do you work with backup you files?
Best regards, Ove
Hi Chip,
Thanks for sharing your setup, and for writing it in a way that made me immediately go out and check the Scansnap. The concept of digitizing a lot of my papers and bills is very appealing, but has always been too much work so i keep map after map with old stuff.
One question I have is about the use of document management software. I’m a PC user, and there seems to be no good alternative for DevonThink according to Google and many bloggers. While looking for alternative for my windos environment I found several programs (onenote, evernote, etc), but all have different functions. this made me realize that I actually don’t know what you use your Devonthink software for in the first place.
Could you elaborate a bit on that part?
For example, which functionality do you use? How does it help you in your workflow? Why do you use it if you name your pdf’s from the beginning? If Scansnap already makes searchable pdf’s, would any local search engine do the same job?
Thanks in advance,
Jorrit
The price was right. I got a S510 and love running stuff through it and dispensing with it. Feels strange though after decades of paper.
Take care to have multiple levels of back up, including off-site in case of theft or fire. I keep my most critical papers and reference outlines on a server for access if needed. But, of course, access codes to banking, SSN, and the like are not digitized.
Regards,
- Bob
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I too would recommend using evernote as pdf’s are now searchable automatically. You can use the free one. I use the paid version as it gives additional benefits; the main one for me is having https (secure socket), just like accessing your on line bank account, when accessing Evernote on any web browser (which mainly when on the road). Evernote provide free clients for windows, mac, iPhone & blackberry. My favourite is using evernote on the mac with the safari browser as you press shift + click and the web page you are looking at is converted into a PDF and added to Evernote.
Ove – I use Apple’s Time Machine software, an Airport Extreme wifi router, and a La Cie 1TB drive, for local backup. I also have a remote backup service.
Jorritt – I think there is a lot of functionality in DEVON I’m not using, but in time will explore that more. I use it as a capture device on my computer: I set up hot-keys that capture selections in any app; there is a drag-and-drop too. I don’t customize names when I do that, because it takes too much time. (I might do it later, depending on the purpose.) DEVON has a brilliant search engine with an AI-type of associating similar documents. I also like how I can browse my documents visually, much like you can see album covers in iTunes.
Grant and others referring to other software solutions: I didn’t try other solutions like EverNote. I read reviews and chose DEVONThink (especially because a friend recommends it, and I like using software friends use, because we can share tips). So I do not have a definitive opinion of one app over another; from my research DEVON seemed what I needed.
I know Evernote has an iPhone app. DEVON is making one. But I was thinking about it, and I rarely, if ever, would need it. It’s a nice-to-have for me, only.
Chip – great article both on the howto and motivational fronts. My primary existence is in a windows world, and I have been considering how to make this a practical reality for me some time. Your article has finally motivated me to tackle this once and for all when I return from vacation. Thanks.
Going paperless is so liberating, as you said. It’s important to know, that DIY digital imaging can lead to disaster without the proper software. Images quickly eat up the memory that otherwise keeps your computer quick and reliable. Without the proper document management software, not only will your computer become sluggish, it will also become increasingly difficult to find what you want when you need it – or at all!
Digital document management software organizes your files to maximize search potential and memory, because it works as a database in addition to a holding pen for information.
Keep your eyes on my blog http://www.aroundtuitorganizing.com for upcoming news and information about how to optimize your ROI on going paperless!
UPDATE
The ScanSnap S1300 just replaced my beloved and nearly perfect M500. The S1300 is cross-platform capable, i.e., it works both in Mac OS and Windows. It has several improvements, but only is absolutely brilliant.
You can highlight text–with a highlighter marker–in a monochrome document, and that text is identified by the scanner and the document is tagged with that text. So I can simply highlight “Insurance Policy” and scan it, and I don’t have to do anything else. This probably will save me 5-10 seconds per document I scan, which adds up over time.
Sure, you can convert a whole document to a search PDF, But that greatly increase its size and takes time, and for me, it is hardly ever necessary. I always have named the document in a meaningful way, and that is how I have retrieved it. That seems so old fashioned, suddenly.
YOU ALSO NEED A STAPLE REMOVER.
This is a tip I wish I’d seen before I started scanning all my files… While the ScanSnap is as wonderful as people say, you still have to remove any staples from the documents you scan. And there are a lot of staples. More than you realize. If you value your fingernails, and don’t want to end up with sore fingers, make sure you also grab a staple remover before doing a large batch of scanning
ANy updates now that DevonThink is close with an iPhone/iPod/iPad app?
I’m considering the conversion from Evernote to DevonThink but wondering if you are still happy with it now.