Paperless? Just as it sounds; no paper. The thought of going paperless as a Private Investigator or Security Professional may sound scary. Almost everything we do requires a paper trail. Trust me, I had the same thoughts at first, but after several months on living the Paperless Lifestyle I would never go back. Going paperless reduces clutter and reduces stress! Stress you ask? Yes, Stress! Organizing all of your documents into a searchable, online database such as Evernote.com reduces the stress of searching for hours through piles, binders or filing cabinets. It’s the greatest thing I have done for myself and my business. Getting Started… There are several steps you will need to take to get started on your paperless journey. The first step is planning your attack. I’m a huge advocate of “plan your work; work your plan”. If you are like most people, you have a system you use to organize your documents. For example, you may not want to store your business receipts in the same place as your household documents. So before you begin scanning documents, you want to make sure you get them in the right place. I use a couple apps to organize my paperless world. I prefer to use Shoeboxed.com for my business receipts and Evernote.com for everything else. I also have a Dropbox.com account that I only use for specific, shareable business documents. Shoeboxed.com accepts digital receipts from your scanner, smartphone or even the mail. They have a team of humans who manually verify each receipt for accuracy. They are an excellent company I have put my trust in for many years. Evernote.com is a great place to scan your miscellaneous items to. Evernote turns all of your scanned PDF’s info searchable documents you can access anywhere. Let’s say you scan your grocery loyalty card into Evernote. All you will need to do at the checkout line is open the Evernote app and search for the store’s name, loyalty card, etc. Dropbox is basically an online “my documents” folder. I use Dropbox to store documents related to specific business projects I am working on. Each of these apps have a FREE version that will work just fine while you get your feet wet, but I recommended the premium versions for ease of use and storage capacity. The next step is the “purge”. The purge is by far the most time consuming step in converting to a paperless lifestyle, however, it is also the most rewarding and liberating. The purge is the process of taking all of your existing paper documents and converting them into digital, searchable PDF’s. My purge started with 3 piles of paper. The first was the largest pile which i named “scan and shred”. This pile was comprised of documents that did not need to be kept after being scanned into my online database of choice. Documents included: old bills, instruction manuals, recipes and greeting cards. The second pile I named “scan and keep”. This was a relatively small pile. The documents in this pile were birth certificates, car titles, etc. The last pile I created was strictly a “destroy” pile. The documents in this pile were very old bills, credit card offers and other documents I had no business keeping. When I began my purge, I made sure I had all of the proper tools. I recommend purchasing a ScanSnap scanner, a good shredder and recycling bin. Once you have all of your piles sorted… Let the purge begin!! When my purge was complete, I carried out 9 garbage bags of shredder waste, 6 bags of recyclable paper and 2 trash bags of miscellaneous garbage. I didn’t know how much larger my house could feel without all that paper laying around. The final step in going paperless is preventative maintenance. This is also the most important step. You have completed your purge and are reaping the benefits of paperless lifestyle; now you have to maintain that lifestyle. You will need to put a system in place to ensure that you aren’t having to re-purge over and over again. I started by contacting all of my financial institutions and switched my paper statements to email statements. Once I receive the email, I just forward them to my included Evernote email address and they are automatically backed up on the server. The next thing I did was purchase a small mail sorter which I organized into the same 3 categories I used during my purge. You have to be very strict with the physical mail however. My rule is 2 days or 1 touch. If I touch it, I must commit to doing something with it. If it has been in the bin for more than 2 days then it has to be addressed. You can figure out what works best for you. Supplies… I touched on a few supplies you will need to go paperless above, but I wanted to explain my recommendations just a little further. The most important device you will need is a good scanner. The scanner is the backbone of a paperless lifestyle. The scanner I use is the ScanSnap C1300i. I really like this scanner because it is small and compact. It is capable of scanning the front and back of documents at the same time. It can also be programmed to scan directly to Evernote. I purchased my ScanSnap scanner from Amazon.com. The next important item you will need is a good shredder. I am personally using the Fellows 99ci. It is a medium, professional grade shredder capable of shredding multiple documents at the same time. I strongly recommend investing in a good shredder the first time around, otherwise you will end up like I did with a bunch of broken, cheap shredders. You will be shredding a lot (especially during your purge). In closing… There is a liberating feeling once you clear out all your paper clutter. The key is to buckle down and press though it. Take breaks, but stick with it. For more tips, search paperless online. There are many resources available to help you begin and maintain your paperless journey.

As always, maintain a dedication to excellence and pay attention to the details.

Steven A. Williams, P.I.