Going paperless: one year later

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As I’ve been packing for my move, one thing that I haven’t been packing is papers. About a year ago, I posted about going paperless after I ordered a Fujitsu ScanSnap, the amazing little document scanner. I haven’t discussed the outcome of my paperless quest since then, but here’s the verdict (and I’m typing in all caps for the first time on my blog because this is just how emphatically I feel about it): BUY A SCANSNAP AND GO PAPERLESS NOW. THE IPHONE HAS NOTHING ON THE SCANSNAP. IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

The utter awesomeness of having everything available digitially didn’t truly hit me until I started packing for the move. I have one single thin folder of papers that can’t be scanned for one reason or another (e.g. a certified birth certificate that has embossed). Everything else fits on a thumb drive: receipts and tax materials for the past seven years, copies of loan papers, business cards, user manuals for various products I own that aren’t available online. . . . you name it.

Once I got these “official” papers all scanned, I started scanning various mementos of sentimental value that I didn’t want to throw away: old clippings from college, concert and sports tickets, the original copy of my valedictory speech at my high school graduation, bad poetry and song lyrics over the years, etc. These are things I didn’t want to throw away completely, but don’t deserve box space. The same goes for things like paper take-out menus for favorite restaurants. With experiences like Cover Flow in OS X, I even have the same experience of flipping through a shoebox of mementos or a stack of take-out menus.

So — in case I wasn’t clear, you should get a ScanSnap. That’s all I’m saying.

Published by Chad Dickerson

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3 thoughts on “Going paperless: one year later”

  1. Funny timing. Based on your earlier recommendations my S510M arrived just yesterday. 🙂 Looking forward to getting rid of most of the contents of a very large filing cabinet.

  2. Love the ScanSnap. I have the S300M and just did a massive declutter/scan-a-thon.

    I have to admit, there were times when I was scanning tonnes of pages that I wished I had sprung for the S510M. Hopefully on an ongoing basis the S300M will be OK.

  3. I’m very curious about this machine. I assume it’s best to get the fastest one you can afford if you have a lot of documents to get rid of. I would love to eliminate my file cabinets!

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