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Going Paperless


Angury

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Once again I am getting ready to move house; the third time in two years. Having packed and re-packed the same things, finding random pieces of paper under my bed and unopened notebooks lying in the corners, I've decided to [try and] go paperless.

 

I recently bought the Notability app for my iPad and this started off my journey. I am now able to scan documents using just my phone or iPad, edit them online which includes writing on them with my Apple Pencil (:exc:) and store everything that is important in my life on Google Drive where I know they won't become lost. Even better, I can take them with me everywhere just by carrying my phone.

 

I started by scanning all my important documents on to Google Drive. Some of these are documents I need a paper copy of anyway but I'd rather have both. I then changed all my magazine subscriptions to online-only, and my bills to paperless (which most of them are anyway). I am currently studying a part-time LLM in Mental Health Law so I now upload all the books I need as eBooks - which again I can edit using my Apple Pencil (:exc:). I read all my lectures online and save them on my Google Drive. I've started reading almost all my books on my Kindle although do prefer to keep paper copies of my favourites as I like having a pretty bookshelf. 

 

Finally, I've turned to Google Calendar for my everyday life and this fantastic app called Notion for basically everything else; to-do list, recipes, finances, inspiration, books to-read etc. And now I feel so light. :D I never realise how many unread magazines and notebooks I have until I start to pack, but I hope this will help to keep all that hoarding at bay. I've also found it so, so much easier to keep everything online.

 

Anyway, I wanted to hear other people's experiences. Are you guys paperless? Half and half? How do you organise your lives - diaries, calendars.. nothing?

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I am the opposite of paperless. I write everything down in notebooks (sometimes with coloured pens which is extra satisfying...), I have different types of post-it notes for reminders, a physical calendar on the wall for important dates to remember, a physical diary to keep track of meetings etc. I find it hard to read for long from a computer screen, so if I have to read a long article I print it and I've never read an entire e-book. I have literally just bought a second hand kindle though, so the last two things are going to change!

I do also have meeting reminders and things on my laptop and phone, I just feel better having a physical copy as well.

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I'm the same as Hayley.  I prefer to have things on paper.  They just seem more important or something that way.  I have notebooks everywhere.  I've just started researching a book and I could put everything on computer, but it doesn't feel like I've done anything if it's not on paper.

 

Edited to add: At work I'm a typist.  I type doctors letters, print them and send them out.  Even though they typing on to computer is the biggest part of it, I don't feel I've done any work if I don't have paper copies of letters on my desk waiting to be sent.

Edited by bookmonkey
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One thing I would suggest is that you keep a backup of anything important and don't rely solely on a cloud service. Although it is very rare, they can lose things and you could find yourself stuck without being able to retrieve what you need to.

 

I'm sort of half and half, I use google calendar and have done for years. One of the things I like best is that you can set recurring tasks to automatically populate in the future. I am terribly forgetful so this helps to ensure I pay my bills etc when they are due each month. I also like the fact that I have it set up to send me an email each morning of what is due that day. Despite this I still tend to write daily to-do lists with the little things I need to do when I'm not working. I also keep loads of notebooks with various things in them. I have tried quite a few electronic ways of keeping notebooks but I can never stick with them as easy as I can an old school notebook.

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Interesting replies.

 

Do you guys read back on the things you have written in your notebooks? I found that my notebooks just stacked up in my room and were never read again. Whereas if I uploaded a document on my google drive with ideas for writing, I was more likely to check it on a regular basis.

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I am going more and more paperless - I rarely read paper books and all my news subscriptions are now digital as well. I use my phone to make lists of things I need to do rather than writing things down (although I still write things down at work as I don't always have my phone on me). For the first time this year I didn't buy a paper diary, which I don't really miss - I do still have a paper calendar though and one at work for writing everyone's holidays on! 

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7 hours ago, Angury said:

Interesting replies.

 

Do you guys read back on the things you have written in your notebooks? I found that my notebooks just stacked up in my room and were never read again. Whereas if I uploaded a document on my google drive with ideas for writing, I was more likely to check it on a regular basis.

 

I some times do flick back and re-read some of the stuff I've written a year before.

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I do read things from past notebooks, definitely. If it's things I've written in a big A4 notebook though, I take out important pages and put them in a folder, I don't keep all of the books. I think I'm actually more likely to type something in a word document and forget about it, than write something in a notebook and forget about it.

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  • 1 year later...

I know this is an old topic but I wanted to add something. I'm still very much a physical notebook kind of person but this year I got all my old notebooks and scanned them using my phone. I did this mainly as I am trying to clear out as much clutter as I can and I wanted to try and keep a copy of my journals. It works surprisingly well, the filesize isn't too big and they are perfectly readable despite my terrible handwriting.

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