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ZDNET's key takeaways
Paper is a river. Manage the flow, not the pile.
One nook, laptop, and scanner can tame daily clutter.
Shred, label, and scan right at the point of entry.
For some reason, there's an awful lot of paper involved in going paperless.
My wife and I have been attempting to go paperless since well before the pandemic. While we have successfully scanned a tremendous number of our business and personal documents, we never seem to get ahead of the flow.
There's always more paper. But now, we have a new plan.
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Our previous attempts to tame all the paper worked from the paradigm that there would be collections of paper that needed to be scanned and processed. But that's not the case, is it? Not really. Paper isn't something that's static. It doesn't just sit there.
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Paper is a flow. Paper is like a river. More comes into the house every day. Some days, when we're diligent, more gets tossed than comes in. But even if we fill a couple of trash bags with shreddings, more still comes in.
We've set up scanning stations before. We even had employees work entire seasons to scan the company's older paperwork. They were set up with a workspace, computer, and scanner. Paper got processed, but the flow kept flowing.
What we need to do is divert the river. Stop the flow at the source. To that end, we just finished building a new scanning station right at the front door. Rather than letting mail and receipts come into the house, it lands on a designated hotspot at the scanning station.
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Then it gets scanned and filed on the server. If anything is immediately actionable, that gets emailed right from the front door. And then the paper gets shredded.
We're a few weeks in, but so far it seems to be working. Let me tell you how it all works.
Setting it up
We lucked out. Right next to our front door is a little nook just big enough to hold a bookcase. Even better, there's a power socket right in that space. So we were able to set up a bunch of electronic gadgets and keep them powered, all nicely integrated into the cubby.
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We started with a folding bookcase that we're using as a standing desk. We bought the bookcase at a local wannabe Walmart, but you can get a similar one here on Amazon. The benefit of this is that the shelves are just the right height for my wife to work at them, and the back is open so cords can drop down and be out of the way.
The bookcase not only stores the gear and makes it available for easy standing desk use, it also stores a variety of shipping and mailing supplies so we can rapidly package stuff up if we have to send it out.
This works for small items. For big shipments, we still use the workbench or a large table to pack up big items. It's a good balance.
The gear
Our new scanning station integrates a fast-feed scanner, a smaller receipt scanner, a label printer, a shredder, and a Mac.
I'll start with the Mac because it's a repurposed 2015 laptop. We went back and forth a lot about whether to use an older Mac mini and mount an inexpensive portable monitor on the wall, or just use the laptop. Denise felt that the laptop ultimately took up less space. Because she can tilt the display, she can optimize it for clear reading.
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But, of course, a 2015 MacBook Pro is obsolete. It's not getting updates, it's Intel based, and it's much slower than the gear we're using today. Then again, a laptop that's gathering dust on a shelf is far less expensive than, say, a thousand-dollar entry-level MacBook Air.
After all, we only need it to run the ScanSnap software for our ScanSnap scanner, the scanning software for the receipt scanner, a printer driver to print to either the label printer or our big laser printer, and some software. Our receipt scanner isn't made anymore, but this Epson model should do well for quick receipt scanning.
We limited the software used. We have a copy of Word installed. Denise uses this to format labels for the label printer. I actually own a license to Office 2016, so I was able to install it. But as soon as I entered my still-valid license key, Microsoft shunted me over to Microsoft 365, which insisted that I use one of my allotted Microsoft 365 Word installs.
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Because of how old the machine is, and all the potential problems with Chrome extensions, we uninstalled Chrome. We limited the device to Safari. We're not even running a password manager. We are letting that machine's Apple keychain manage the few passwords we need. We only log into Amazon (to either process returns or verify shipments) and Gmail, so there's very little web activity.
We also connect to our local in-house document file server, which is where all the scans go once they're processed at the door.
Our workflow
I need to take a moment to discuss pronouns here. By "our" in "our workflow," I mean Denise's workflow. And by "we" as in "we built this," I mean Denise built it (although I got the computer tweaked and made some brackets). Denise makes all our business flow happen. Without her, I'd still have years of receipts crushed inside an ancient MacPlus carrying bag (true story).
In any case, there are two main workflows: the In workflow and the Out workflow.
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In workflow starts when pieces of mail or receipts enter the house. They go into a purposely small to-be-processed bin to be handled within hours, or just get handled right away. The envelope is removed. It might or might not be scanned, depending on whether it seems important to capture a return address or postmark.
The document is scanned, given a date and short description, and stored on the MacBook Pro for later uploading to the server. Then the paper is shredded with our inexpensive little shredder. We chose this model shredder because it fits on top of a thin trash can, which is the only one that will fit in our little nook. For bulk shredding, you might want something beefier. We have a big one in the main office.
Then, once scanned and shredded, if that document appears to need immediate action, it's forwarded to one of our email addresses.
Receipts are scanned in small batches. After a handful of receipts pile up, Denise pulls the receipt scanner out of its custom-designed 3D-printed tray and scans them in. As with the other pieces of paperwork, they get dated, filed, and eventually uploaded to the server.
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If we get a number of items in from a vendor for a project, Denise prints labels that go on the items or packaging, as appropriate. That way, we can track everything. If there's a return, we can find all the pieces.
When something is being returned, we either use the label printer or the laser printer, print a label, and prepare that to go out.
It's all done while standing in our little scanning nook. And because it's all done on a rusty old Intel MacBook Pro, there's no easy way to get distracted and read an article or surf social media. We just do it and get it done.
Customized brackets
One of my favorite uses of 3D printing is solving unique organizing problems. Often that involves designing and printing custom brackets. This project required two (so far).
The Fusion model is shown above the 3D printed part as it's used on the scanning station. David Gewirtz/ZDNET
As you might imagine, with shelves acting as work surfaces, space is at a premium. My wife wanted two brackets: one to hold the little receipt scanner securely and out of the way, and one to do the same thing with the little USB hub that connects all the devices to the Mac.
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So I sat down in Autodesk Fusion and created two designs. One allows the scanner to simply drop in on top and be securely stored on the wooden beam at the back of the shelf. The other does pretty much the same thing with the USB hub.
Now, they're functional, secure, easily reachable when necessary, and out of the way.
Reducing paperwork chaos
We've had this setup operational for about two weeks, and it's definitely optimizing our paperwork flow. I'm sure we'll need to tweak it over time. I'm also sure there will be some edge cases where this workflow doesn't work. But it seems to have reduced a substantial contributor to clutter, while at the same time making sure we keep up with the constant flood of paperwork.
That's a win.
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What about you? Have you tried setting up a document station to stop the flood of paper at the source? Have you been able to use older computers or repurposed gear for this kind of task? How do you handle the daily inflow of mail, receipts, and documents in your own home or office? Have you come up with any clever workflows or DIY customizations, like 3D-printed brackets or organizers, to make it all work more smoothly? Let us know in the comments below.
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