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First, I suggest you get a Fujitsu ScanSnap or other straight-to-Evernote scanner. Seriously, because once you start doing that you will realise how little you
by frossie 16y ago
First, I suggest you get a Fujitsu ScanSnap or other straight-to-Evernote scanner. Seriously, because once you start doing that you will realise how little you actually need to keep in paper format.
What remains depends on your life situation I suspect, but for ideas, here is what I do:
Some papers are truly important. I like to put those in one of those expanding files with multiple slots and a carry handle. I have one for my personal papers (will, passport, birth certificates etc), one for taxes and one for the house documents. These should be stuff that if the house is on fire, you want to grab and take with you.
Having taken care of the stuff you don't need in physical form, and the really important stuff you must curate carefully, that leaves a bunch of other stuff. In my case that is mostly product manuals and warranties, and personal and travel memorabilia. While I am not a hardcore GTDer by any stretch, I do follow it for filing: get a filing cabinet, a good label maker, hanging folders and file folders, and file the hell out of everything. For example for product manuals, have a hanging folder for kitchen appliances, put each separate manual in a file folder, label the folder with your labelmaker, insert file folder into hanging folder.
General clutter guidelines apply, like handle everything once, think about whether you really need this ever again (this is where scanning really helps you, as you don't have to agonise too much about the decision), etc.
- ydant 16y agoSearch for and download those product manuals and put them in a digital shelf. You never look at them, anyway, do you? Most manuals can be easily found on the web these days. Unless I plan to resell a small electronic, I don't keep the manuals. Small electronics I keep the box, manual, everything, but in a box in a closet. It does help resale vlaue. Otherwise 100% agree. I'm just amazed you're a scanner, but you keep paper manuals.
- frossie 16y agoI'm just amazed you're a scanner, but you keep paper manuals. Don't worry, I understand it sounds peculiar. One reason I keep manuals is for when I re-sell the product later, like you said. I also freecycle a lot of stuff, I feel it's nice to give people the manual. Also they are not zero-effort to scan - some of them are larger than letter size, you have to take the staples out if you have a feeder-scanner and so on. Given I can fit them all in one filing drawer, it doesn't seem to be worth the hassle. And if that is all you are filing, it is actually faster to pull the manual out of the drawer than it is to look for it on a computer, print out the page with the diagram you want, and so on. If it helps, I generally throw out boxes. I used to keep them for resale but it got out of control, so the only boxes I keep now is for stuff where the box comes with special packing inserts that I would need if I had to move - that means computer cases and monitors basically.
- ydant 16y agoOk, but I've never had to scan them - it's been literally years since I haven't been able to find a manual online. We all have our quirks. I just hate paper/clutter. More than I love books, which means my book collection is in limbo...