Ralph Carlson Blog

Last week I exposed one of my flaws that I am trying my best to fix- the problem I have managing paper in my office.  Well Manfred has my solution.  He has found a way to eliminate those pesky piles of papers.  I am elated but I am not sure that his solution fixes everything for me.  First of all, it’s a piece of equipment – a nifty one I have to admit but it’s going to run me $400 and second when it eliminates the paper, it creates computer files – again they are search able PDF’s, but I’m back to the filing problem again.  If I had to $400, I’d probably jump to it because Manfred has moved me to a better place with my emails.

Here is what Manfred recommends:

The Fujitsu ScanSnap

The first and perhaps most important aspect of my paperless workflow is my trusty Fujitsu ScanSnap. I have been using my S500M (that’s the Mac version) for a few months now and have praised it in the past. I also just recently got a demo model (full disclosure here) from Fujitsu of the rockin’ awesome S510M [Amazon, Info.] I never thought I could get excited about something so traditionally mundane as scanner before, but I really, really love this device. In fact, the ScanSnap is probably my favorite piece of consumer electronics not made by Apple. (Check out the video.)

It’s certainly a step in the right direction if I want to clean up my act paperwise.  Is it worth $400?  I’ll have to think about it.  What do you think?

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I am not talking about what others may judge to be my flaws, numerous as those may be. Right now I only want to talk about those behaviors that I recognize as flaws in myself but seem unable to eliminate.

An example is the way that I organize the paper in my life. For example, I am completely unable to file things. If I create a file folder (either a paper file or in the computer) and store the item, two months later I can’t find it. As a result I make piles of things on my desk, on book shelves, in baskets and when I need something I go through them until I find it. It’s a workable system and maybe if I were single I wouldn’t view it as a problem or a flaw to be fixed. My wife is organized, tidy and able to throw any object that gets in the way under the bus. Without her example, I might never have decided that my system is flawed. But with her continued comments on my system, I am able to understand how inefficient and unattractive my system is.

My difficulty is changing myself. I now have paper folders for each category of expense during the year and once my bills are paid, they go into the ‘for file’ pile which gets filed periodically. Bills yet to be paid go into the ‘to be paid’ pile and then move to the ‘for filing’ pile.

So there is a kind of organized chaos in a portion of my office relating to the bills. It’s the rest of the paper is beyond my control. This means such things as recipes, articles, garden ideas, catalogs. Things that I would like to keep but have no idea how to organize.

In the back of my head I keep thinking that maybe Leo or Manfred has the solution but who has the time to search for it. I am too busy looking for that article on blogging.

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