This is the second in a two part series of articles helping people to organize their papers and go digital at home. For the introduction and first three steps, please visit:  http://iotrak.com/resources/article/personal-document-management.

Step 4: Scan and Shred Your "Important" Documents

Step 3 (Scanning a redundant digital copy of my "Most Important" files) gave me some valuable experience with my scanner.

By this point, I knew how my scanner worked, what caused it problems, how to scan as quickly as possible on it, and how to save and organize the files on my computer so that I could find them later.

I glanced at the four boxes of "Most Important" papers yet to scan, glanced at my little page-per-minute Canon MP460 flatbed scanner, and quickly decided that there has to be another solution.

It turns out that there is a much, much better way. It is called outsourcing.

If I had to make four boxes worth of photocopies or printed pages, I would never do it through the printer on my little Canon MP460. I would take them to Kinkos and have them done in hours.

Applying the same logic, why would I try to scan four boxes on that same little Canon MFP? It was good for a few pages at a time, but a few boxes at a time would punish the machine and waste an awful lot of my time in the process.

Office depots like Kinkos are great at printing and copying projects, but they don't typically specialize in scanning.

Most cities do, however, have businesses that specialize in turning paper into digital files. They are called "Scanning Service Bureaus."

Some tips on getting your personal files scanned by a Scanning Service Bureau:

• Some only deal with large runs of business documents. If they explain this to you and say that they can't help, realize that you simply need to find a Service Bureau that is more consumer-friendly.
• Service Bureaus have huge, fast, automatic document feeder scanners that can scan an entire box of paper in an hour or less, typically with much higher quality images than you can get off of a home scanner.
• Much of the cost in scanning files in a Service Bureau is involved in indexing (capturing data about a file and naming it) and prep (removing staples, tape, and sticky notes so that the sheets can fly through the high-speed scanner without scratching its expensive lenses). If you have a few boxes of personal files to scan and don't mind pulling the staples and renaming/organizing the digital files yourself, you may be able to negotiate a really good deal from the Service Bureau! Don't be afraid to ask, and listen carefully when they tell you how they need your paper files arranged to save you money.
• Ask about shredding. Scanning Service Bureaus typically offer shredding for a nominal fee, and they can automatically shred your documents after they have scanned them if you'd like.
• If you find an exceptional Service Bureau, be a good consumer and remember them! You may find yourself needing similar services for your business documents at some point in the future, and that is the bread and butter for most Service Bureaus. Tell your friends, post an online review, or keep them in mind for a business project that comes your way in the future.

As a side note, If I had not brought my documents to a Scanning Service Bureau, this would have been the time to invest in a more powerful scanner.

A small automatic document feeder scanner with at least a 25 to 30 page per minute capacity would be my personal minimum starting point. If you are looking at a scanner, make sure that it is supported by your computer's operating system. As of the time of writing this article, there are far more scanners that will work with Windows XP and Vista than with Windows 7 or Mac OS X, so make sure that you do a little research to make sure that the scanner you want will work with your computer!

Step 5: What's Born Digital, Stays Digital

My next step towards simplifying paper's grip on my life was to reduce the amount of paper coming into my home.

• Sign up for e-billing and e-statements. Not only are e-statements better for the environment and easier to get into your computer, they also make it more difficult for someone to commit identity fraud by stealing an account statement out of my home's mailbox.
• Process physical mail immediately. Most of my mail is unsolicited junk mail. It gets a quick glance and then gets shredded as soon as I come in the door. Important documents go into a tray to be scanned, filed electronically, and then shredded the next time that I am at my computer. The important thing is to keep the clutter from building up to the point where it becomes a major project.
• Don't Print. I am not saying that I never print, but I will say that I only print when I absolutely have to. Instead of printing, most modern computers have a built-in way to save documents as PDF files, which are easy to file and send electronically. For the past few months, an iPad has been a huge help in reducing the amount of pages that I print. If I need to bring a document with me, I simply PDF the documents on my computer and sync them to my iPad using a program called iAnnotate PDF. This program even lets me take notes and make highlights on my PDFs, just like I would if I were using a paper document.
• Buy e-books if you can! Do you have access to a Kindle, an iPad, a Nook, or some other e-reader? Why not buy the books that you are reading as e-books instead of as paper copies? E-books are more environmentally friendly, are often less expensive, and are much easier to travel with. There are other benefits as well. Notes taken in an e-book can be undone don't ruin the original copy of the book, and it is much easier to search and find a word or phrase in today's electronic publications.

Step 6: Backup Your Data!

If you do not back up your data, having a hard drive crash is just as destructive to your records as having a major fire in your home.

With large USB drives available for under $100 and dozens of inexpensive backup programs available on the market, there is no excuse not to back up your data. I use the built-in Time Machine program on my Macintosh computers to perform hourly backups on them. For the few files on my Windows and Linux computers, I use the free Dropbox program to sync them in the background to a secure web server with minimal fuss on my part.

Whatever program or system you use, do something to protect your data!

Conclusion

We've covered a lot. Now it is time to get started.

To make it easy for you to get control of your personal paper clutter, download "Six Steps to Reduce Paper Clutter in Your Home." This handy reference, provided for free by E-Z Scan by i/oTrak will help you to get started going paperless, one easy step at a time!