Let's Go Digital With 'Less Paper'

Ugh...how sometimes some typical jobs entail piles of paperwork, more filing and extra filing cabinets.

One typical company, after keeping score of box files in cabinets for a decade, finally moved the load of documents to the archives. That’s the documents’ destiny...either for reference purpose, if any document required anytime or for destruction sometimes later when decided.

It looks weird when you’ve latest computer, multi-functions scanner and appropriate access to store, search and retrieve documents, still your desk is occupied with document trays, stacks of papers and the floor around chair is all messy with leaning box files side-by-side or one on top of another. Lousy looks, isn’t it?

Let me give a vivid description of a senior accountant’s cluttered office desk. He works in an ISO-certified company, but his working style is all lop-sided. His computer screen laced with yellow, post-it stickers, desktop full of loose papers, jumbled statements, clipped bills, unrecorded receipts and unlabelled punched files...some recent, some old, some less relevant and some mere antique of no significance. In between the wall and filing cabinet, the space is stuffed with bundles of assorted papers and used, battered envelopes that give unsightly appearance.

O yea...his office is equipped with two printers, next to each other...one latest and the other outdated. More to this, there’s a scanner, paper shredder next to waste bin, and additional laptop for more convenience. Even with all these amenities, his lethargic attitude makes his work style more traditional and muddled.

Besides using Microsoft outlook for internal communication purpose and sending priority files as attachments, majority of corporate managers and office secretaries take fancy in unwanted printing and distributing sets of copied documents, manuals or spiral bound elegant reports.

In one case, a senior manager, after emailing his message, along with respective attachments, to concerned recipients, instructs his assistant to make copies of documents, staple it to sets and distribute accordingly.

After distribution, with a freaky tone, the manager takes extra pain to call all those recipients to inform them about his stuff through email and dispatch. What a waste of effort and energy!

In a workplace, minimal filing is okay, and the rest should be all scanned, stored, accessible and searchable. With these easy tips, one doesn’t require filing cabinet or layered desk drawers. On a safer side, it’s preferred that one uses a fireproof box or steel safe to keep very important documents, files and other testimonials of significance.

Oftentimes, managers make garbage of their spacious offices, with their tables flowing with disorderly papers, sometimes important documents all scattered. In all hurriedness, they toss some files into cabinets or drawers, and keep junk mail cornered somewhere without shredding it.

Let’s become minimalist, go digital and make our office environments pleasingly efficient with ‘less paper’.

Image source: pharmamanufacturing.com