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Name: Jamie Rubin Location: Virginia Evernote Ambassador: Paperless Lifestyle Website: www.jamietoddrubin.com Twitter: @jamietr Go to the Paperless discussion forum |
Hello, from your Paperless Lifestyle Ambassador
I suppose it seems odd that a writer would go paperless. Writers produce books made of paper, write articles printed on paper. Paper, one would think, is the canvas on which a writer creates. So why go paperless? There are three reasons I went paperless, two of which are practical and one of which was a challenge to myself.
- To eliminate clutter and save space. My home office has bookshelves filled to the brim with books. I have no more space for new books. So I buy almost all of my new books in e-book format. Digital documents take up very little physical space. This makes my wife happy. The technology is available to store all of my paper digitally and Evernote makes it easy to do.
- To have instant, ubiquitous access to all of my documents. Given how much we use devices like iPhones and iPads these days, it seems like it would be remarkably easy to have instant access to any of my digital documents. I can already do this with the books I own in e-book format so why not my other documents? I like being able to access my notes for the story that I am working on no matter where I am. It has proven convenient to be able to pull up a homeowner association budget while sitting at a meeting. Evernote, with its ability to store, tag and make searchable even my scanned documents makes this ubiquitous access remarkably easy.
- To prove that a paperless office isn’t some pie-in-the-sky dream. For years I’ve heard that we are moving toward a paperless office — but when push comes to shove, people seem hesitant to go paperless. I decided that I was going to see for myself whether a paperless office was really possible. There is a bit of a time investment getting started, but I have to say that having been paperless now for nearly a year, the time it has saved me in searching through piles, and the convenience it has added has more than made up for that initial time investment.
My process
One thing I learned early on: I can go paperless, but the rest of the world still uses paper. Paper still enters my daily life, and must be accounted for. So I established a habit for getting rid of any paper that came in as quickly as I could. Writers live for the mail. It is ingrained in my soul to check the mailbox as soon as I get home from work. I then deal with this paper — and any others that might have accumulated — once each day as soon as I bring the mail in the house. If I am given paper at some other time during the day (maybe I get a pay stub from work) I put that into a paper “inbox” on my desk for processing at the same time I process my mail. My process looks like this:
- Check the mailbox after work
- Toss out the junk
- If anything is left, determine if I need to scan it.
- Scan to Evernote
- Do I need to keep the original? If not, shred it, otherwise file it.
- Check my paper inbox
- Repeat steps 4-5
This daily effort has become part of my routine. It takes less than 10 minutes, often less than five. A few important things to highlight about my process:
- In step 3, determining if I need to scan something is the most significant decision in the process. I only scan items that I think I will need again in the future, and that are not otherwise available in electronic format. So I might scan a property tax statement, but I won’t scan a copy of the gas bill, which is available to me online through the gas company website.
- In step 4, to scan to Evernote, I use the Canon P-150 portable scanner for Macintosh. It comes ready to scan directly to Evernote at the push of a button, can scan both sides of a page at the same time, and can do something like 15 pages per minute. It is compact and takes up very little space on my desk. It works great and I love it!
- Step 5 is a reminder to myself that there are some things you have to hold onto, my infant daughter’s social security card, for instance.
Tips for getting started
Here are some tips for getting started going paperless with Evernote:
- Establish a daily routine. Don’t worry about going back through old records, at least not at the beginning. Establish a daily routine that works for you, make it habit, converting each day’s paper to digital form. Once you’ve gotten into the habit you can, if you wish, go back and scan old paper.
- Figure out your organization structure. Think about how you want to organize your documents before you get started, but try to keep the taxonomy simple. Remember that Evernote has some great search capabilities, including the ability to make PDFs searchable. I rely much more on the search feature than on tagging because I can search faster than I can tag everything.
- Access notes, even without a connection. If you use a mobile device like an iPhone or an iPad, consider turning on the “Offline Notebook*” feature for those notebooks you want to have access to even when you have no Internet connection. I have a “paperless filing cabinet” notebook that contains the bulk of my documents and I can access anything in that notebook even if I am not connected. Keep in mind the initial synchronization might take a little while, depending on the size of the notebook. [Learn more about Offline Notebooks]
*This is a Premium feature.
Join the Paperless Lifestyle Twitter Chat
Jamie will be hosting a Twitter Chat about Paperless Lifestyle in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for the announcement!
Jamie anchors the Paperless Lifestyle discussion over at our Lifestyle forum. Join the discussion here.
Check out some of Jamie’s on his blog about living the paperless lifestyle:
Using Evernote as a surrogate memory; or answering the question: when did ‘x’ happen?
How Evernote has helped me go paperless
Going iPad, Part 3: Note-taking, Evernote and Science Fiction Conventions
Managing my writing life with Evernote
68 Comments
Steve
Adding product manuals into Evernote is one of the biggest space-savers I’ve found. In many cases you can find the manuals online as PDFs and either just add the link to the PDF or add the actual PDF into Evernote.
The benefits to having manuals in Evernote are numerous:
They’re easily accessible at any time.
They’re searchable.
You can add additional info (such as tips and tricks related to the product, or reviews, etc.)
It saves space not only because you get rid of the paper version, but those paper versions often have several languages to them which takes up even more physical space.
Lakshmi
That is a great idea! I always found the other languages in manuals slightly triggering my OCD and tore those parts up.
wendy pollock
Hi Lakshmi,
Great comment, and in using evernote for notes for clients
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Ron
I do this as well and it is great. When I find I don’t have the manual already – like today for my wife’s car – I search for it online with my iPhone and add it directly into Evernote there. I have a notebook full of just manuals.
marti
nice post
John
very interesting but what about backup? Ive gone down the hot swappable RAID route but wonder what you think?
Jamie Todd Rubin
John, I’ve had enough people ask me about backups to make it worthwhile doing a post just on that subject. I use IDrive for cloud backups for all my data. I’m on a Mac at home and most of my data is stored on an external 1 TB hard disk (first layer of backup). Of course, my Evernote data is stored in Evernote but if something were to happen and that data was not accessible, the Evernote folders (including the libraries with the attachments) is part of my daily cloud backup to iDrive. Then, too, I have my most important Evernote data accessible offline on my iPad so I can access that data even if I can’t access the web. Like I said, a more elaborate post is probably warranted, but I’m comfortable with the mechanisms I have in place for backups that my data loss would be negligible (minutes at worst).
Phillip Rodokanakis
Well, you need to find a replacement for iDrive soon, since Apple is discontinuing this and other MobileMe services next year. Try SugarSync. I have found them to be a suitable replacement and it’s a lot more flexible than iDrive. Cheap too, 25 GB of storage go for $50 per year, but they offer specials where you can get it for only $25.
Jamie Todd Rubin
I’m not talking about Apple’s iDrive, but IDrive Online: http://www.idrive.com/.
Johnny
How do you back up Evernote data? I have a PC and don’t see an Evernote folder on my computer. I began using MS OneNote a few years ago and it places a OneNote data folder in MyDocuments, which I can have my cloud backup service (SOS Online Backup) find and backup. However, I don’t see how I can back up Evernote…
Steve
MSN sky drive is 25 g for FREE. I like that.
Jamie Todd Rubin
Thanks, Marti!
Katybeth
I am getting better and strive for paperless all the time…since a large orange piece of paper threatening to turn off my water was pasted on my front door recently..obviously I still need to perfect some of my systems. Thanks for the extra tips.
Dave
what scanner do you use? my problem has always been trying to balance cost of the scanner and the speed/quality of the scans.
Steve C.
Your post mentions that you have a scan of your daughter’s SS Card in Evernote. Do you have any concerns about identity theft by taking this route?
Sam
I love trees, hate paper. Great post.
I have one of those scanning apps on my phone (CamScanner on Android). It doesn’t do 15 pages per minute, but does mean I’m ready to scan whenever. Also, I use writing apps like Freenote on Android or Noteshelf on the iPad to take notes with a stylus – because I don’t hate handwriting.
Hugh O'Donnell
I totally identify with the comment about your wife disliking clutter. I, too, am out of book space, but some books yearn to be in my library in paper form. And there’s the challenge.
Stephanie
I’m so fired up right now! This post came at the perfect time as I’m sitting here looking at my new Canon scanner. I want to go paperless in 2012 but have a lot of hesitations. This post inspires me to give it my best shot.
Jamie Todd Rubin
Good luck, Stephanie!
Antonie
Thanks for your great post. I used to follow similar process and later migrated into scanning and e-filing straight onto external harddrive from where I placed into cloud filing systems.
Reason being that Company blocked access to Evermore during daytime, so I had to find a work around
kayle
Yes please write a blog on affective backup for the avg joe, along with approx costs and how many layers. Evernote is awesome but i hesitate to start scanning and shredding until i have that proceas down well. (great idea on the manuals too)
Gregory Cadwallader
My new at iMac I’ve only had since the end of August my other computers were early original Macintoshes have had a great deal to learn . All these passwords are something I did not deal with In my old Macintosh world , and I really haven’t caught on quite yet . the fact is I have forgotten my password and my name, how exactly I put it in, I didn’t write it down and having such a long name some programming lets me put my full name in and others do not. What it comes down to hike basically need to re-programs my name and password thank you.
yours truly Gregory Cadwallader
Janice Russell
Enjoyed the post! As an organizing professional, I have been writing a series of blog entries about residential information management. One of the topics is the electronic piece (hence why I used the word “information” rather than “paper”). Here is a link to one of them: http://bit.ly/PartiallyPaperless There are more entries to come. Many clients call us because they are overwhelmed by data. Evernote is one of my main suggestions for decreasing overwhelm by having a great way to capture all incoming data.
Jamie Todd Rubin
John, Steve C., Kayle: I went ahead and created a topic in the Paperless forum where I describe in detail (a) how I do backups and (b) how I protect my data. You can find the topic here: http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/22144-data-security-and-protecting-your-paperless-data/
I think these are important enough to warrant open discussion so I encourage folks to read the post there and then discuss.
Jamie Todd Rubin
Dave, I’m on a Mac so I use the Canon ImageFormula P-150M which has direct integration with Evernote (I love that!) It is portable, can scan 15 PPM, can scan both sides of a page simultaneously and is perfect for what I use it for.
Rebecca
Thanks for this very timely post. This is one thing I have not yet started using evernote for though I’m making it a 2012 goal to declutter all my paperwork and move it to an Evernote based system.
Thanks!
real estate in florida
One of the best things we could have done for our company was go paperless. All of our employees can appreciate it.
Eckes
Do you use Evernote for all of your employees or do you use a different type of software, too!
Deb
I love the flowchart! I’ve been working on going paperless, and this was a stumbling block for me – how to get rid of the other paper that comes in. We have a sheet feeding scanner in my office, so I batch scan things. We can use separator sheets to easily scan a pile of paper no multiple PDFs. I also am loving my livescribe pen or those times when I need to take notes.
Rob
I have been almost completely paperless for almost 2 years now, I dump everything into Evernote and sort it out from there. Problem is that other people always keep handing me stuff on paper, even though I specifically ask them not to. I try to promote the paperless lifestyle as much as I can, but it’s hard going.
At work we have top quality all-in-one copiers, that scan fast, double-sided, but most importantly, to a very small file size, even if it it dozens of pages in color, filesize is rarely above 1Mb, usually only several hundreds of kb, and the quality is always excellent. My scanner at home is just a low-end inkjet, and even though I try to tweak the settings as much as possible to obtain a small file size, I always get these huge files, several mb’s, even though quality and sharpness have been compromised for the sake of bits. So I take everything, also my paper mail, with me to work, and scan everything there. Works just fine, unless I’m out of the office for several days. Than I can’t wait to get back to the office to start scanning that stuff into evernote. I even feel uncomfortable with those papers in the house over the weekend, I want to get rid of it as soon as I can. …
Hi, I’m Rob…and I’m an evernote addict…I need a scan several times a day, and when I can’t scan, I get the shakes.
Mark VanOuse
Jamie, great job and excellent information to help us jump start the leap to paperless.
Jamie Todd Rubin
Thanks, Mark. I’m glad you found it helpful!
Chuck Teller
Jamie – what about the enhancement to your process:
When you scan your postal mail and identify the junk, you posted your images to our service (catalogchoice.org) and we fulfill opt-out requests with direct marketers and other companies that mail you? That stops the waste at the source. Contact me via email if you want to discuss this enhancement to your process. We run the nation’s largest junk mail removal service (http://www.catalogchoice.org). We have recently enhanced our service to process scanned images for people.
Best,
Chuck
Dwight
Thanks for the great tips and recommendations.
Alessandra
I keep telling nyself I have to go paperless but I cannot decide what hierarchy is best for storing e erything: work stuff, home, travel ideas, photos, hobbies, etc. Any suggestions?
Sally
Alessandra,
I think of paperless filing in the same way as if you would have to file paper. I started out with just stuff I didn’t mind “losing” like ideas to decorate my house or recipes. Once I got comfortable with my system, I then applied it to my more important stuff.
Jason Grant
I’ve been doing this for the last 7 years (at least).
Haven’t sent a single piece of snail mail for probably around 4-5 years now.
Even the most arcane of organisations now that require you to ‘sign and post’ something back to them, will happily accept signed, scanned and emailed copy.
Jonathan
Thanks Jamie for sharing and putting the effort in.
Paulo
Writers haven´t created things on paper since wordprocessors are around… but I do get the point
I wish I was as disciplined about not using paper as the author of this post. I have all the tools, but changing the behaviours is not easy.
Captain Kirk managed a paperless Starship in 1963 (or was it 2245?). I guess being closer to the future has not as much to do with technology as one think. Tools don´t do the work for themselves…
DanB
Great post. I work with the country’s largest billers and it’s actually hard for them to move their customers off paper. In other words, when offered a paperless option, most people will not turn off the paper mail. Typically we see way less than 20% adoption so it’s refreshing to read this article and all of the great responses.
Johnny
Thanks for the great post. I am a flow chart wonk, so it was right up my alley. However, I have a PC and a wireless scanner, but don’t understand how “scan to Evernote” is implemented. Also, once you do scan directly to Evernote, are you prompted to tag the file, do you have to move to specific notebook…. It seems like Step 4 needs its own sub-flow chart.
Jamie Todd Rubin
Johnny, I use the Canon P-150M scanner for my Mac. On it is a programmable button. You can configure what program is opened when that button is pressed and where the scans are sent. One of the default options that came with the scanner software was Evernote. So, I slide the pages into the scanner, push the button and they are scanned. A few seconds later a new Evernote note window pops up with the scanned PDF already attached. I have to give it a title, and I can also tag it.
I can see how this should have probably been called out as a separate step on the flow chart, but I’ve been doing it this way for a while and it seems like all one step to me.
Johnny
Oh, that is quite handy. Thanks for clarifying. Cheers.
Ben
Jamie,
Have you heard about the Canon P-215 scanner that just recently came out in mid-November? I was just about to order the P-150 model like you have but then did some more research into what else Canon had and found this one. It looks very similar to the P-150 and has a built in card reader (which I don’t know if I really need since I will be using it for more personal use). It’s about $40 more though so I think I might just order the P-150. Any thoughts on the P-215 model or anyone know more about it?
Ben
Thomas
Hi Johnny, I am on a Windows PC and Android phone. I have a HP inkjet scanner (basic) that I scan to a default “Reference” file on my desktop. I have set my system up that my “Reference” file automatically syncs with my default Notebook, named “!nbox” in Evernote. I follow the GTD methodology, so I just Tag and move scanned items to appropriate Notebooks in Evernote from there.
I basically use Evernote as my GTD trusted system.
Robert Jones
I am just re-undertaking going paperless. So far I have a wireless all-in-one printer on order — for scanning etc. I have a Windows-based tablet and a new Apple iPhone. when I last took on this project I was using PaperPort and downloaded tons of stuff which seemed to work very well. But I found the cloud services almost impossible to use easily with PaperPort. So I dragged all the folders and files to Dropbox and was very happy until I read this blog. I have also been using Evernote free version for notes and a small amount of PDFs. I love having access to everything no matter where I’m at on Evernote or Dropbox, but now I realize that Evernote with their search capability on PDFs is might be a better resource for me. so I just upgraded Evernote to premium and thinking through whether to move over all my Dropbox folder’s into Evernote and dropping the Dropbox premium service. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.
Don Hunter
I am so glad to be living in this day and age. I cannot imagine dealing with paper and filing systems, say 30 years ago. For 20 years I’ve been in human resources so dealing with paperwork has always been my plight, but now I really don’t have that problem. In my most recent job I completely went paperless. I used Evernote and dropbox to pull it off. You’re right Jamie, some people try to force you to deal with their paper, but I found it easy to take pictures of notes or documents on my phone and store them or deal with them later. Not having paper splattered all over my desk has really cleared out the cobwebs in my brain, if I can say that.
I got so excited about a paperless lifestyle that I started helping anyone else who was remotely interested. In fact, I wrote an article recently on some common pitfalls some of us run into when trying to change over. http://www.papererasers.com/?p=282 This is all part of my new plan to start working in a field I can really love. Helping people and companies go paperless is a simple joy of mine which has led me to my latest endeavor. We offer mail in, on-site scanning and cloud storage services.
Again, I say “Yeah” to this day and age! No more paper is really something we can achieve.
Linda
Great article. Would love to try this. Thanks for the great explanation on getting started!
Jamie Todd Rubin
Thanks for the kind words, Linda!
Patty
Loved your blog. We are diligently trying to go paperless in our business — all of our invoices for repairs in the home are generated on computer, then emailed directly to the customer. However, as the administrator for this company, I am deluged with paper, from insurance policies to taxes. I have Evernote and really like it. However, I am unsure about the filing or labeling process, to make sure that I do not “lose” certain files withing the program. Any suggestions about categorization?
Jamie Todd Rubin
Patty, I don’t use a sophisticated categorization system and depend more on Evernote’s considerable search capabilities instead. See my response to Stephanie just a few below this one for more details. And thanks for the kind words!
Steve B
Im. Deer to EN am am moving to paperless for all work. Ran into a HUGE obstacle: typing on my iPad has gotten so delayed as to make EN unusable. I’ve seen many similar complaints when researching the problem is there a fix on the way?
Stephanie
Hi Jamie,
Thanks for that awesome post! I’m a new user of evernote and loving it. I know the possibilities are endless, but can you give me some ideas on how you got started to actually organize things in notebooks? Do you have a catalog of topics you created that you can share? I’m struggling with how to organize all of the different manuals along with inspiration for my art and basic everyday to do lists. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Jamie Todd Rubin
Stephanie, thanks for the kind words. My organization method may not be what most people do. Going paperless saves me time and I don’t want to lose that time in having to constantly tag and retag and have an endless collection of notebooks. My method, therefore, is pretty simple:
1. I have a handful of notebooks for very wide categories. I have a “Paperless Filing Cabinet” and in that goes everything that used to get filed in the actual filing cabinet.
2. I have a couple of other notebooks: One for managing my writing life (contracts, correspondence, etc.); another for blogging ideas. There may be a few other miscellaneous ones as well.
3. I do use tags, but only where I want to collectively group things together into a batch. So for instance, I’ll tag notes related to my homeowners association as “HOA”.
4. Beyond that I depend completely on Evernote’s search capabilities. Since scanned documents for Premium users are full-text searchable, I can just type in what I’m looking for and it usually comes up in the results list the first time.
5. If I search for the same kind of thing frequently, I’ll create a Saved Search. I have a saved search for things like “Blog Topics” and “Story Ideas”
That’s pretty much it. So far, Evernote’s search capabilities have served me well. I let the search engine do the work and keep my organization to a minimum.
That said, I suspect that is NOT how most folks do it. You should check out the Paperless Lifestyle forum as there are some good discussions on this subject over there.
Rebecca
What a great posting! I’ve been trying to go paperless for a year, and am only about a fourth of the way there. I obviously need a better scanner, and a faster decision-making process (I’m guilty of tossing papers aside in that “I’ll think about this later” mode, which really doesn’t work – lol).
Jamie Todd Rubin
Thanks for the kind words, Rebecca. I’ll admit there are times when my own pile of paper accumulates for a day or two. There are kids to attend to and life sometimes gets in the way. But I always have that check point when I get home–checking the mail (something of an obsession for most writers, I think)–and then going through my pile of paper and getting it scanned it. I might ignore it from time to time, but I always know it is there.
Jamie A
Brilliant post, thank you so much! Please could you share a bit about the organisation of your filing system. You must have this very fine tuned; tell me more? Thanks!
Jamie Todd Rubin
Thanks for the kind words, Jamie. If you scroll back up a few replies in your browser, I just provided this very information in response to Stephanie.
Jamie A
PS Meaning your Evernote filing structure. Thanks again!
Sally
Jamie,
What do you do with catalogs that come in the mail?
Jamie Todd Rubin
Sally: if my wife doesn’t want to look at them (I rarely do) then they just get recycled.
Salim
Jamie, many thanks indeed for this terrific description of your system. Clearly, the paperless world is going to be a life-saver in the years to come. A suggestion for the Writer in Mr. Jamie Todd Rubin: How about writing a manual/book describing all these steps – and beyond – for a newbie like me? I would need to save a paper copy of your autographed book though!!
(I am just starting to muddle thru learing about using Evernote on my PC).
Martha
Thanks Jamie!Great Post! Your informaton came at the perfect time! I am going paperless in 2012!..Wish me Luck!
Jill finch
You are an inspiration. Being an obsessive paper collector I have now gained the confidence to cull, condense and confine my collection. Thank you for the tips. It works!
Stew
I’ve been promoting the paperless office since 1987, esp among law offices. Many now are, like you scanning things as they arrive in the mail, routing them to the atty/paralegal who needs them.
Personally, retired, I gather lots of info and am _mostly_ paperless. I use many folders for email (TBird), save attachments to folderized system on an NAS (attached storage). Most things I receive in paper that are worth keeping scan on Fujitsu Scansnap 1500 – 25p/sec, both sides at once – very nice tool to get things into PDF (or colorful jpegs) quickly.
However, as I look at Evernote, it’s handy for those with modest info needs. There have been note storage and indexed searching software for decades … and always the limitations end up biting the user in the butt, because they have their whole life in it.
For instance, I keep notes in WP docs – about a dozen that are 150-500 pp long. Plus thousands of pdf’s, .docs, xls and other fiels that I search with Google desktop, if my filing system is amiss. Normally I can quickly find them in folders (I use descriptive filenames), or a short Windows search in a populous folder.
So, I’m nervous that Evernote could possibly manage all I need. I would like to hear from some heavy-duty info users.
Thanks for your contributions to the paperless movement.
S
Alec
Great post. It’s inspired me to go as paperless as possible. Thanks!
Jeff Statz
Super post, Jamie. Even better, your helpful reply comments. I empathize with the paperless struggle, and the flow chart assist has helped. Thank you!
seo
Hey there! Quick question that’s completely off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My website looks weird when browsing from my iphone 4. I’m trying to find a template or plugin that might be able to resolve this issue. If you have any suggestions, please share. Many thanks!