♦The computer, Internet and e-mail can reduce the amount of
paper piles in your home. That means less time spent organizing paper files! First,
BREAK THE HABIT of printing everything, whether
it's just to read or to save. Think of the printer ink cartridge costs you'll save!
♦If you need a
reminder not to print every email and document on your computer, do this:
Put a quarter in a piggy bank every time you decide to print a document.
After a while of doing this, you'll realize you have enough savings (in
quarters) to take a nice vacation. And you'll be more aware of just how much
you needlessly print documents.
♦Instead of
printing every email or document, invest in CD's or floppy diskettes (as long as you're keeping a computer with a
floppy disk drive). You can copy your special e-mails into electronic files on your
computer. Then save these files onto a diskette or burn them onto blank data
CDs.
♦CDs
hold LOTS more data or photos than diskettes and have a longer shelf life than
them too. Of course, DVDs hold even more than CDs (but they don't come in the
same standard formatting as CDs do.). Whatever you
do, DO NOT (or rarely) print
your e-mails (just print the ones that it's vital that you print and file a hard copy
of). Printing creates more paper to handle, re-read, file, etc. Your time and
space is more valuable.
♦These
CD-R below will do just fine for storing data and photos. As long as you don't
finalize a CD-R, you can add more to it until it's full. Memorex is a reliable
software name brand, unlikely to cause you any glitches with this product later.
♦But it's
still a good idea to make two identical CD-R as backup of important data and
photos. That way if something does happen to one CD, you've got the other one
still. You should do the same if you use diskettes or DVDs too for this purpose.
♦If your
data is really valuable to you, consider storing a third CD-R with the
information in a bank safe deposit box so it's out of your home in case of fire,
theft or natural disaster.
♦Another
great item to use to store or back up data and photos is a travel drive (flash drive,
jump drive, etc.). You can read more about
portable travel drives here.
♦Another
good tip to clear paper clutter is to scan letters and other paper items using a scanner
into electronic files on your computer. Then transfer these files that storage media as
well. Go here to read more about scanners.
♦You can
even scan photos too into an electronic media format (not a bad idea if you keep
way more photos than you can display ever). Then you can discard those old
deteriorating prints. In its place you can create all types of digital photo
albums and slide shows.
♦Make sure
you shred original papers that you scanned and no longer need hard copies of in
your paper files. Also shred items like credit card offers that you receive in
the mail and aren't using. Shred anything with personal or financial information
that a thief could take advantage of. Go here to
read more about shredders
(which can shred paper, credit cards and CDs) .
♦If you
don't feel like shredding every item one by one as received, put a "shred
basket" somewhere in your home office. Then shred this basket of papers once a
month.
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(also called "bankers boxes").
Then stack the boxes on a shelving system that allows you to access each box
separately without having to move any other box.