The paperless office is a concept that has been around for quite a while. For most it has been largely unrealized. I have already talked about ways to reduce junk mail and paper bills in previous posts, but how do we get rid of those remaining pesky papers that still sneak into our home. For that matter, how do we handle those stacks of papers we already have?

The answer is the Scan ‘n Shed Method. This process requires scanning, shredding, and making searchable PDFs from any paper documents where a hard copy is not required.

Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500

The first piece of the puzzle, and the most critical, is the scanner. There are many scanners on the market but the only one that is worth looking at for this purpose is the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 (S1500M for Mac). A flatbed scanner will not do. You may look at the price of this scanner and think, “$500!?! I can get by with the scanner I already have built into my all-in-one printer.” Forget it! Spend the money and ensure that you actually USE this system. I, personally, have a history of buying gadgets to solve a problem and not using them after the first month because they do not work as they should. This scanner exceeded my expectations. I’ve had this little workhorse for several years (I actually own the previous model S510M) and I still use it at least weekly because it works so well.

Here are six reasons why you owe it to yourself to buy this scanner. First this scanner has a small footprint (about the size of a piece of letter paper) when closed. It takes up very little desk real estate. Second, the ScanSnap S1500 has a 50 sheet feeder. Say good-bye to one-sheet-at-a-time scanning. Third, it automatically detects two-sided documents and scans both sides at once. Forth, it is fast. 20 pages per minute in color, more in black and white. Fifth, one-button-scanning. Load the paper, hit the button, scanning begins automatically. Finally, the sixth reason you need THIS scanner, is the automatic creation of searchable PDFs. This last one is HUGE! This scanner comes with great software including Adobe Acrobat Standard (which costs $300 by itself). The included software is almost worth the $500 by itself, plus you get this great scanner in the bargain.

Once the documents are scanned, they are run through OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software that allows later searching and saved as a PDF. Later I can search for “ABC Company” or a date or amount and find the document I’m looking for.

You have the option of saving the PDFs with a custom file name, but honestly, I just let it pick a name for me (usually a date with a serial number) and search the content of the files when I’m looking for something later. On my Mac, Spotlight works like a champ for this. I highly recommend this time-saving method of auto-naming files, especially if you are just starting and have large numbers of documents to scan.

Fellowes Powershred W-11C Cross-Cut Shredder

Once the documents are scanned, the next step is shredding them all so that your personal information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Make sure you get a shredder that is big enough to prevent constant emptying and that it has a large enough sheet capacity that you can shred things quickly.

The last step in the process is to make sure that these PDFs are getting backed up. You can either back them up to an external hard drive or do what I prefer and use an online backup service. I personally use Mozy.com for this. $5 per month for unlimited backup on a single computer.

Go out and buy yourself the ScanSnap S1500(M), get a decent shredder (if you don’t have one), and make sure your PDFs are getting backed up. Before you know it, you’ll have a single file drawer filled with original documents that you have to keep and the rest of your office will be paper free.

Originally posted at uselessclutter.com