Six (small) steps towards a paperless office

As members of a consulting firm, Nick and I get to see plenty of small and big businesses from industries that often have no connection with each other. Of course, every organization finds a unique path towards its goals. However, to paraphrase Leo Tolstoy’s famous opening line for Anna Karenina, all professional mistakes are alike; each successful business is successful in its own way.


One easily fixable, yet quite common, inefficient practice that NVSBS has observed over the course of its consulting career is relying on paper for document storage. Our previous post offered some solid reasons for switching to the most efficient alternative – Paperless Office. Today, we present you with a passport towards a successful future:

Practical steps towards a paperless office.
1. Buy a network-ready scanner. We particularly recommend the models that come with an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) for convenient scanning of multiple documents. Canon MX340 is an acceptable example; we use it for our NVS Business Solutions office. In addition to scanning, MX340 has faxing and printing functionality, although we recommend forgetting about the latter for the sake of your paperless future.
2. Choose your file storage device. This can be a computer on your network particularly devoted to that purpose, or you can establish an online storage through services like Google Docs or Sky Drive.
3. Set up a back-up system. We advice you not to rely solely on your flash drive. A combination of local and remote (online) back-ups is mandatory. In a relatively simple case, you can set up automatic nightly back-ups to an external hard drive, and then also back up twice a week to an online backup system. Some ready solutions for this step towards a paperless office are the Time Capsule by Apple for Mac users and the Mozy, an online service that is good for all operating systems and starts with $5 per month for business users.
4. Install a second monitor on your desktop computer. Though this is not mandatory, a second screen will oftentimes save you from the temptation to print while making concurrent work with two or more documents more effective.
5. Tune up your indexing system. What that means is start organizing your computer's files into a comprehensive system of folders, get into the habit of giving your files meaningful names and make sure that your employees know how to do those things as well. A unified indexing system will bring down searching time for your documents to seconds.
6. Stop printing. Yes, now that you have gone through the steps above, you should have less incentive for it. There are some times when you really have to print something. Do think twice before you do that next time, though.

Have you tried it? Are you having trouble during the implementation process or do you want to celebrate your success at getting your document storage system more reliable and efficient? Maybe during the process of turning paperless, you even gained some knowledge that you would like to share with the world. In any case, we welcome and pay close attention to any comments that we get. And, if you want to automatically receive further advice on professional and small business success, or if you want us to check out your blog too, subscribe to us. After all, it's for you that we write.