Three for Thursday: Going Paperless

Welcome to my blog feature – "Three for Thursday."  You may not see an installment every Thursday, but when I can manage it, I'll be sharing three cool – er – somethings.

I've been drowning under a sea of paper.  The bills come in faster than I can file them and my filing cabinet is filled to the brim.

I've already acquired the key things required to go paperless:  1) A high capacity shredder, 2) A totally awesome scanner ("Scan Snap S1500M") and 3) Enough external hard drives to back up the Library of Congress.

So, this is the year that I get serious about moving towards a paperless existence.  I'm not there yet and probably never will be, but I certainly need to move much closer to paperless than I am now.  I came across three helpful resources that I'm referencing in the process of going paperless.  Here they are:

1) "Conquer the paper piles" from Consumer Reports.  This article has some excellent tips about what to keep and how long to keep it.

2) "7 Steps to Building a Paperless Financial Organization System" from The Mortgage Messenger.   A good look at some of the key steps involved.

3) "How Paperless Offices Work" from How Stuff Works.  This is a high-level but comprehensive look at going paperless, both for homes and businesses.

And as a bonus:  "Frictionless Work:  How to Clear Your Life of Non-Essential Tasks" from Leo Babuata of Zenhabits.  This article will give you perspective and incentive on the benefits of going paperless.

So, my scanner is ready to get fired up.  I'm taking a bit of time now before launching into it to figure out how to organize the information so that i don't end up with a zillion scanned images with no way to find the information that I need.  If anybody has any tips on document management schemes or software (for the Mac), please share!

Have you attempted going paperless and succeeded?  Failed?  Please share in the comments.  Happy shredding!