Paperless on Payment Lake

One of my second level 2011 resolutions was to use less paper around the house.  I tried to reduce my use of paper towels, cut down on magazine subscriptions, buy fewer books, and use my printer less.  As a result I reused a lot of cloth rags, read articles online, checked out more books from the library, used my Kindle (Kindle #4)  and got used to saving soft copies, rather than printing out and filing hard copies.

I think I'm ready to step it up this year.  I like the idea of limiting the amount of new paper I bring into our home, but I still have a lot of existing paper in the house filling files, drawers, boxes and bookshelves. This is more of a clutter/space environment issue than a green environment issue.

I've decided to focus on two additional paperless strategies this year: scanning documents (new and existing) and keeping only the books in my collection that I have a good reason to keep (frequently used or sentimental value). I'll keep you updated on my progress.

This afternoon I found out I might have to apply this same resolve to a new paper predicament that cropped up at work.  I was trying to track down a 2007 event expense when I discovered five banker boxes full of old event files in my colleague's closet.

I thought I had filed, bound, or tossed all the old documents last month. I didn't know we had event registrations, invoices, task lists, memos, etc going ten years back. I don't have the space or the need for all of this old documentation. My goal is to get this stuff scanned and/or shredded this month.  Luckily, worms like shredded paper.