We have all heard of the "Paperless Office", the idea of eliminating paper from an office environment and going purely digital. But what about the "paperless home"? Would that be possible? Just think how many trees we would save. And those heavy boxes that break your back when you move apartments? Gone forever!
The concept is not new. A quick Google search for "The Paperless Home" retrieves 123 results. One site even promotes a book on the subject. Actually it is an e-Book, which makes perfect sense for the topic. Most of the ideas focus around scanning in documents and archiving them on your home PC. But if you have ever scanned documents before on a scanner designed for domestic use you will know how tedious this can be.
So why not address the problem in a different way?
If you want to eliminate paper in your house, then don't even allow it through the front door.
This would involve taking a number of steps that if you think about it, are not that radical in this day and age:
- Cancel your newspaper and magazine subscriptions. Who reads a newspaper any more anyway? I will never forget the day I stopped newspaper delivery. It took me a while to cancel my subscriptions, I was afraid I would miss spending Sunday mornings in bed reading the paper. But now I get all my news online. And periodicals are switching to web only delivery anyway because that is where the advertising money is.
- Get a Tablet PC with Microsoft OneNote and use it to take notes, scribble and write your blog. I am using one right now. For years I ran around with small paper notebooks, which I had specially imported from Austria. I used them for all of my note taking in meetings, brainstorming sessions, etc. But I finally eliminated the need by switching to OneNote. It takes getting used to, but once you get the hang of it you never look back.
- Subscribe to e-billing if you can.
- Use online banking to pay invoices.
- Don't print anything. I have observed over the years how much paper is wasted when people print out every single e-mail message they get. It is just not necessary.
- Do all of your correspondence through e-mail. I think everyone does this anyway nowadays.
So after you have done all of that you will still have some paper left over: Receipts. Those pesky slips of paper you carry around in your wallet and dump out once a week. I collect about a shoebox full of them every year. I cannot think of an easy way to eliminate receipts, so if you are a "paperless purist" you would have to scan them in and file them, probably not worth the effort, though.
And if you want to be a Radical Paperless Activist:
Take a screwdriver or saw and dismantle your mailbox. In its place put up a sign that informs the mailman that mail will not be accepted in your household. I don't think it is illegal not to have a mailbox. After all, homeless normally do not have mailboxes. We could even come up with an internationally recognized sign that you could hang in place of your mailbox. A huge proportion of mail is junk anyway. But here is an interesting idea that may actually work: Remote Control Mail
But there is some paper I cannot get rid of:
- My subscription to Alpinist. The pictures are just too beautiful to skip.
- Books. Maybe someday publishers will figure out the e-Book thing but for the moment reading a book cannot be done paperlessly.
