Going Digital

I really want to go completely digital with all of my paperwork, to-do’s, calendar entries, tickler files, bills, photos, and music.  I wish I could eliminate my entire file system at home and sell my file cabinet.  Anyone who knows me well knows that I love to get rid of things I do not need anymore.  I have a two-drawer file cabinet and it’s almost full.  I clear it out every year in January, but it’s still a lot of paperwork (that I wish I could get rid of).

Here are some tips to going as digital as you can (if you are like me and want less “stuff”(especially paper) in your house):

1.  Go paperless.  Switch to electronic bills for all of your accounts, this will eliminate any statements being mailed to you.  You can usually do this with all credit card accounts, mortgages, utilities, car payments, etc.  You will have access to all statements on-line.  If you need older (archived) statements most companies will make them available to you as needed. 

2.  Pay bills on-line. Set up all of your accounts on a bill-pay program, either on their sites or on your bank’s website.  It’s easiest to set them all up on your bank website that way you can pay them all in one place.  You can also set up automatic payments to any bills you want to, it makes life so much easier and gives you less to think about.

3.  Scan.  Scan all of your important documents and keep them either on your hard drive or somewhere on-line, like Google Docs (which I love).  You can also scan receipts using NeatReceipts, which is a pretty cool product.

4.  Utilize on-line calendars.  I use Google Calendar and it works well for me.  I can see all of my appointments and to-do’s and I receive email reminders in the increments I set.

5.  Save digital photos on-line.  I have an account with Shutterfly and I save all of my digital pics on their site.   They have free storage and I know my pictures are safe.  I can also order prints inexpensively and also create photo books for each year.  The easiest thing to do is to start creating a photo album at the beginning of the year and add to it as the year progresses.  By the end of the year it will be easy to add those last holiday pictures and then order your photo album.  Digital photo albums are great, the pictures look good and they take up less room (always a plus).  

6.  iTunes Music.   I still have a few CD’s, but most of my music is on my iPod and iPhone.  I would like to save all of my CD’s on my iTunes account and only use my iPod or iPhone to listen to my music.  You can easily hook up your iPod to your stereo at home or in the car to listen to your songs at all times.  We really have no need for CD’s or CD players anymore. 

7.  Print to PDF.  When you are on a website and you want to “print” your receipt or confirmation, etc.  You can “print to PDF” instead of actually printing it out on paper.  I use Cute PDF and I love it.

8.  Use Evernote.  Evernote is a great site and iPhone app that you can use to record anything…ideas, to-do’s, reminders, you name it.  You have the option touse voice record (which is great if I’m in the car and can’t type), text, or pictures.  So you can keep track of things in lots of different ways.  It is a great tool for jotting things down digitally.

That’s about it for now, but there are more and more ways we can go paperless and that is my goal for 2010.  I want to be as paperless as possible by January 2011.  It takes time, but once you make the transition the time, space and money you save will be worth it!

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