I’ve been struggling for the last several months with the amount of paper I produce.

I’m not fanatically “green” or anything… although I firmly believe that we are called to be wise stewards with our planet and its resources.  But simply from a perspective of bulk, I produce a lot of paper.

I’ve been trying to move away from that somewhat.  I’ve started receiving bank and credit card statements via email rather than in a paper format.  But I still have the problem of where to store all this.  My file cabinet is full, and receiving a statement by email only to print it for filing is counterproductive.

What to do?

I’ve recently started using Evernote.  This is a phenomenal program for organizing and storing my notes, illustrations, to-do lists, pictures, and so much more.  I’ve only been using it for a few months, and have already decided that I need to upgrade to Evernote Premium.  That allows me to save any type of file to Evernote instead of just a few types, and a lot more.  It’s only $45 a year.  Well worth the price, in my opinion.

But since I wasn’t that familiar with Evernote yet, I had no idea what I could do with this amazing piece of software.  Until I purchased the ebook, Evernote Essentials.  This little manual has helped me incredibly!

But was Evernote the tool I needed for this project?  What about bank and credit card statements?  How about receipts?  Tax info?  Can it do what I want it to do?  Hmmm…. I think this just might work!

Here was my dilemma:  I can get my statements to Evernote easily.  I can just send them to Evernote straight from my email inbox.  In fact, I’m sure there is a way to do that automatically using rules in Outlook or something.  But what about receipts and other documents?

I was stumped.  I had no idea what to do.

And then ran across this post on Michael Hyatt’s website.  Here, he explains how he uses a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner to enter these things into Evernote.

After a bit of research, I decided to purchase this scanner as well.  It has lots of incredible features.  It’s portable.  It can scan things at a resolution of 600/1200 dpi.  It can scan both the front and back of a document at once.  And it can scan directly into Evernote.

Wait… what?

Yeah.  It can scan directly into Evernote.

I like that.

That means that I’ll be able to eliminate a lot of paper from my lifestyle.  That means that I’ll be able to empty out my file cabinet substantially.  Sure there are things I will keep a hard copy of, such as tax returns.  But most of it will go.

This process will take me a while to perfect, I’m sure.  But I feel confident that once I get things streamlined, it will go very smoothly.  I’m rather excited about the whole process, actually.  It wasn’t exactly cheap to get everything and get it set up, but the time and effort it will save, as well as the paper, will pay off in the long run.

How do you manage your files?  Do you have a system that works well?  You can leave your thoughts in the comments.

Disclosure of Material Connection:
Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links”. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.“