(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links) I think a lot of people will agree that having lots of paper documents at home is a hassle. Who would not want to get rid of all this for a better solution?Recently, I decided to become paperless with my administrative documents. It was a long work. But now, I am finally done. All my documents are available as electronic documents now. I have been able to throw away five big document binders!I have used my phone as a scanner and uploaded all my documents to the cloud. Now my documents are accessible from anywhere. And they are safely stored in the cloud.Find out how I became paperless for free in this post. And how you can do it too! Contents show Why go paperless?There are several advantages to going paperless.The first is to
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(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links)
I think a lot of people will agree that having lots of paper documents at home is a hassle. Who would not want to get rid of all this for a better solution?
Recently, I decided to become paperless with my administrative documents. It was a long work. But now, I am finally done. All my documents are available as electronic documents now. I have been able to throw away five big document binders!
I have used my phone as a scanner and uploaded all my documents to the cloud. Now my documents are accessible from anywhere. And they are safely stored in the cloud.
Find out how I became paperless for free in this post. And how you can do it too!
Why go paperless?
There are several advantages to going paperless.
The first is to save space in your home. For me, all my admin documents were in five big (and heavy) binders. I have kept all my administrative documents since I was 16 years old. I am a bit of a freak for keeping that many documents.
I could have gotten rid of many of them. However, I like having these documents available. It has been beneficial from time to time to be able to find these documents. Nevertheless, it takes some space. Going paperless means getting rid of most of these documents. I have kept some original documents. But that is a tiny part of the original pile.
Of course, this is a small thing in an entire home. But I am starting to believe that minimalism is very interesting. I am now trying to reduce the amount I am storing in my house. Having less has several advantages. It is easier to move. And you need less space.
It sounds simple, but needing less space can lead to you needing one less room in a house. And one less room can save you a lot of money over the years. I am far from that since I am a bit of a hoarder, especially for books and technology. But I am trying to improve that.
The second reason is to make it easier to search for your documents. Even well-organized binders are no match for a document search on your computer. I can now find documents faster than before. Moreover, I am also able to look at these documents from any device.
Indeed, the third reason is to make your documents available from anywhere. I decided to store my documents into a cloud service (Google Drive for me). That means I can access my documents anywhere I have an internet connection. It is better than carrying five bulky binders.
Finally, if you store them correctly, your documents will be much safer. Paper documents are fragile. If you drop water (or coffee) on them, they will suffer. And they can burn quickly (let’s hope it never happens to any of us).
If you store them on the cloud or your computer with adequate backup, you will never lose your documents. Since some of these documents can be very important, it is essential to preserve them as best possible.
How to go paperless?
Now, let’s see how to go paperless. The most time-consuming part is to convert all your existing documents into electronic documents. Once you converted your current documents, it just takes a little time to convert the new documents once you receive them.
First, you have to decide where to store them. There are many options:
- On your computer. Save the files on your computer. Do not forget to backup them in a secondary location. It is an easy option. However, you will not have access to your data everywhere.
- On a USB key. Save all the files in a USB stick (or USB hard drive). You should make a second copy of the disk ideally. USB drives are not that safe. Or backup in a secondary location.
- On the cloud. Send all your files to one cloud provider. It is a bit less easy than to store them on your computer. But it remains very easy these days. However, you almost do not have to care about backups. It has the immense advantage that you should be able to get access to them from anywhere.
I decided to save them on the cloud for a few different reasons. First, I will not have any problem with backup. Then, I will not lose my document. I think it is the way to go today.
For storing my documents, I decided to use Google Drive. I was already using it for many things and to save a few documents. It was a good fit for me. And they offer 15 Go of free storage (shared with your mail and photos). This capacity will be more than enough for all my documents.
I am not a fan of Dropbox since I had issues with it in the past. But it is a reliable choice as well. And it is easier to rely on one single provider than several. There are many choices for cloud providers. The best option is probably different for everybody. If you already use Google Drive or Dropbox, use them! Ideally, find something that is free. Let’s save some money!
Now, if you are privacy-paranoid, you can still use your cloud. Use something like Nextcloud, hosted in your home, or a VPS, and you will be able to get access to your documents from anywhere. Do not forget to back up your cloud, though! That is what I did before. However, it takes time to maintain. And after a while, I realized I wanted to save that time for other things. Going to a public cloud is much simpler and also safer.
Once you choose where you are going to store all these documents, you need to find out to do it. There are three main choices:
- Use a professional document scanner. If you are lucky, you can use one that is available at your work.
- Use a personal document scanner. They are significantly slower but still have excellent quality.
- Use your phone. It is the option that almost everyone has access to.
If you have access to a professional document scanner, use it! You can scan your documents by batch, and you can receive the result by mail or on file or maybe even on the cloud.
Now, if you do not have a professional document scanner, you are left with two options: a normal scanner or your phone. Both will need a lot of time since you need to scan each page individually.
If you have a good scanner already at home, you should probably use it. You are probably already able to use it, so you should have no issue scanning all documents and saving them where you decided.
Finally, if you do not have a scanner available (or do not want to use it), you can also use your smartphone. You may think it is crazy to scan with a phone. But recent phones have great cameras. If you have a very old phone, it may not be great, though.
Many mobile applications can scan a document with excellent quality. Or you can buy a scanner. But I would recommend using a phone so that you can do it for free! And you already have a phone. So it will not take you anymore space!
How to scan documents with a smartphone
I have looked at many applications. Unfortunately, most of them are bad or even terrible. And some of them are not free. Since I am using Google Drive to store the documents, my first choice was to use the Google Drive application to scan them, but the quality is just terrible. It is useless.
Maybe it is because of my phone. I do not know. Some people have reported that they have good results with Google Drive applications. But the documents are not readable when I use the Google Drive application. If you have good results with Google Drive, go for it!
Fortunately, I found CamScanner. This simple application is really great for scanning documents. And it can upload the documents to Google Drive directly. It is available for Android, iPhone, iPad, and Windows Phone.
The application can detect the page automatically. Then, it will remove the skewing of the page. It will only keep the relevant part. And the image will be enhanced for better text quality. To get the best quality, you should scan your document on a well-lit surface with a single color. You can then upload it to the cloud or send it by mail. There are many features. If you follow the same process as me, you will not need any premium features. So this will be totally free!
Scan a document with CamScanner
Once you are in the application, you can scan a new document with the camera icon on the bottom right. Then, you will take a picture of your document:
Once you have a good quality, you can take the picture. CamScanner will then detect the contour of the document:
More than 90% of the time, the outline will be correctly detected. For some complex documents with color, it may not work. In these cases, you can move the contour yourself. Once you are satisfied with the contour, validate it. CamScanner will then process your document.
As you can see, from a warped document, the final document was put back straight. The text is enhanced to look better. You can also play with several options. However, I have scan more than a thousand documents, and never have I needed the other options. The Auto option is just great.
You can also create an account and store your documents on their cloud. You need a premium account if you want to save a lot of documents. However, I did not want to use yet another cloud provider. And since I am happy with Google Drive, there is no reason to change. I have not used any premium features of the app. But the application being so great, I have no doubt they have many great features.
My paperless process
Usually, I do not scan one document at a time. Let’s follow industrialization techniques. I do a big batch of papers together. Here is my process using CamScanner for a set of documents:
- On CamScanner
- Scan every document, one after another
- Select all documents
- Upload all documents to Google Drive
- Delete all documents when I have uploaded them
- On Google Drive
- Move documents to the correct folder
- Rename all the documents
This process is the one I have found out to be the fastest. With this, I do not have to rename the files on my phone. Since my fingers do not seem to be able to work on a phone, this is good for me!
To not get burned out, I recommend doing long scanning sessions. I did many 45 minutes sessions. I was doing the scanning while watching TV shows. It is quite a long process. But still better than I imagined.
Now, when I receive new documents, I store them until I have around 30 and then process them all. You could, of course, scan them as you receive them. It depends on your way of working. I prefer to do a batch of them at once.
Which documents to keep?
In the end, I still kept a few documents. You may say I am not paperless. Since I got rid of about 99% of my documents, I think I still deserve the paperless title. If you do not think so, you can call me paperlite! It is a minimal set that does not take a lot of room. I do not even need a binder for it.
Here are a few things I decided to keep:
- My work contract
- My apartment lease
- A few insurance contracts
- All my diplomas
- A few certifications
- A few various contracts
Overall, it is not a lot of papers that I keep. I do not even need a binder for them. It will depend on you and how much you think you may need the original. Maybe you will not need to save any of them.
Of course, even if you save the original document, do not forget to scan it too. This way, you have a copy, and you can also easily access them.
My paperless review after one year
It has now been more than one year since I have gone through this whole process.
Overall, I am thrilled to have done this! It saved me a lot of space at home. And it also saved me a lot of time when I needed to access these documents. I think this is the most significant advantage.
Now, I can access my documents from my computer and my phone. And I can access them from anywhere. If I need a printed version for some reason, I can always print some of them at work directly from my computer. It is a great advantage of being paperless!
And I do not mind scanning a batch of documents from time to time. I believe this is better than merely accumulating and sorting more and more papers over time.
Going paperless was a great thing for me!
Conclusion
There you have it! I am paperless, and I advise you to do the same before you accumulate too many documents. Using CamScanner on your phone and storing your documents on the cloud is very practical. It is easy to do, and has many advantages. If you want to save some room in your home, it is a good starting way.
Of course, other mobile applications can do this. And you may find a better one for your situation. The important thing is to reap the benefits of becoming paperless.
How about you? Are you paperless already?