It seems like people have been talking about the paperless office forever. Ask almost anyone about their effort to save trees and the response is usually that there is more paper than ever.
The cost of working in a papered environment.
Paper
Printing, ink, toner, maintenance
Storage space
Postage
Printing again, and again, and again…
Paper waste disposal
Not to mention the poor trees who give their lives so neanderthals can print out their emails in order to read them.
So what is the answer?
There is no excuse for not ditching paper as there is a plethora of tech on the market to enable us to do this. From smart phones to iPads to wafer thin and impossible light laptops, they are all geared for us to read unaided by paper.
So we have to tools to be paper free, but why is it not magically happening. To quote a wise person. Where there is a will, there is a way. We have to want to make it happen. The problem is we are basically lazy and resistant to change. We need to have the will to change. “I can’t change, it’s too difficult” I hear you say. Don’t worry, it’s not a difficult as you think.
Think about your customers and design a paper free system which adds value to them. It’s time for a digital strategy which aligns to your business goals.
Set up an electronic document signing system. It’s much faster, cheaper and, you guessed it, paper free.
Set your office printer free (shock horror). If there is no printer, you can’t print. Simples.
Create electronic documents from any inbound paper. Better still, say no to any paper documents and ask for electronic copies. People soon learn that you don’t do paper.
Get rid of all those filing cabinets and liberate your work space. Scan and store documents electronically. If we can manage our banking and tax online there are no excuses as to why we need to keep paper.
Change your will and change your life and save the planet one sheet of paper at a time.
Yes you can do it, but it has to start with you.
Carl Munson