Effort-free, box-it-up paperwork management

[Ask Bjørn Hansen]

On Aug 22, 2009, at 0:27, James Laver wrote:

> My flat is a tip, my desk is atrocious and my crate of paperwork
> (unsorted of course) is getting out of control.
>
> I want to fix it because I can't go on like this, does anyone have any
> experience in sorting it all out?

Fujitsu ScanSnap.   At least on OS X there are a bunch of programs  
that'll help you organize and do OCR after that (Devon OfficeThink or  
some such is one).

For me those seemed like way too much trouble; so I use an encfs  
mounted partition where I order stuff by $year/$type/$specific/ 
$document_name; for example "2009/Banking/American Express/2009-05  
American Express.pdf" or 2009/Expenses/House/2009-03 Some Contractor,  
fix this or that.pdf".

It works very well.  The ScanSnap scanners are amazing.   I've no  
hesitation scanning a 200 page tax return or whatever with it; it's so  
speedy.

I scan into an "inbox" directory and then after each scanning session  
I go through the files and rename them and put them in their right  
place and then shred what can be shredded and file the rest is very  
broad categories in a big filing box (per year).

The idea is to still have the physical documents; but it's so unlikely  
they'll be needed so don't spend too much time fiddling.

I have a ScanSnap S510M - there's a new S1500(M) version out.



  - ask