Today I was reading my 4 month old baby daughter a book on my iPhone and showing her a bunch of flash cards.
With new technology coming out every day making our lives simpler and more complicated at the same time, the need for paper is becoming smaller and smaller. Look at the changes that have happened or are happening:
- Email replaced snail mail
- Sales pages replaced sales letters
- Advertising online replaced flyers
- Blogs and other news sites replaced newspapers
- The iPad, Kindle and other Ebook readers are replacing books
- Digital cameras replaced printed photos
We are moving towards being a paperless society, and I have been thinking about making the ultimate leap and going paperless. I mean not keeping any bit of paper I don’t need.
There are some pieces of paper you can’t avoid keeping. I have to keep the registration slip for my car, there are some receipts I need to keep and some bits of paper are practical to keep (like my trust deeds etc). But the idea of removing every bit of paper from my desk, my bag and my house is very enticing.
I am definately considering it and want to make the move either this year or next year. Man it would feel good to purge myself of all paper.
So how could you do it? I wrote down a few things I would do to make the move to paperless.
Create An E-Filing Cabinet On Your Compuer
Create a folder on my computer and scan all the important documents I need.
Most important documents you don’t need hard copies of. Bank statements, health care info, superannuation statements, car receipts, school reports etc. For most of these things a scanned copy in a filing cabinet on your desktop would suffice.
Back Everything Up
I would get Mobile Me and back everything up so that if my computer died I would still have everything. I would also get an external hard drive too.
Replace Books With The iPad
I would get an iPad with iBooks and replace all my books with the iPad. All my books would be in one place and there would be no paper
Import DVDs onto Computer
Let’s face it, DVDs are on their way out. I would convert all my DVDs into digital files and store them on a hard drive that was connected to my TV so I could watch whatever I wanted when I wanted.
The Cost
I estimate the cost to be:
2 x Wireless hardrives = $1,200
1 x iPad = $600
Repurchasing Book Collection = $3,000
So really it would cost me about $5,000 to go completely paperless….if I could afford it then I would do it in a heartbeat.
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