Paperless reminder: download your statements

As the end of 2011 draws close, here's a reminder for everyone who has even one paperless statement set up for their bank, utilities, credit card or other bills and services: don't forget to download the past 12 month's worth of statements from each place you do business and save them as PDFs to your computer (and then back them up on your external hard drive or cloud back up system!).

Many companies will only allow a year's worth of statements to be acessed for free electronically, and it is your responsbility to go to each company's site and download the information. This step is critical if you need the information on the statements in order to complete your taxes and you will need the statements themselves as back ups in case you are audited. Of course, I am not a legal or tax professional, so if you have any questions about what statements you need and how long you need to keep them, I urge you to consult your own advisors. But the beauty of simply downloading statements as PDFs is they are already in a handy electronic form that takes up no physical space and can be easily searched by your computer's search function.

So, download, save and back up!

Get more help setting up paperless billing and outsource the download step to a professional organizer!

Call Lelah at 818.269.6671

or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

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Gifts for people going paperless

Over the last week or so I've gotten a lot of requests for advice about scanners, which made me think about the best gifts to get for people who have expressed the desire to go paperless. Since going more paper-free myself, I've inspired others in my family to shed their paper files and embrace their digital ones. If you know someone who is trying to do the same thing, here are some gift ideas:

• A scanner. You can't go wrong with the Fujitsu ScanSnap series. I have the S1500M (for Macs) and love the scan quality, user interface and software. Mine is the top-end desktop feed scanner, but for more portability the S1300 or S1100 are great, too.
• The Paperless Document Organization Guide from DocumentSnap. DocumentSnap is a website for all things paperless, and they have some helpful information products to help you jump start your paperless journey. I was interviewed for the guide and think their content is great!
• An external hard drive. Anything over 500GB will be lots of extra storage space to help someone backup their digital data safely and regularly.
• If they have a mobile device, credit at their app store of choice. Droid or PC tablet users might want an Amazon credit or credit at the Android Market. iPhone or iPad owners can always use iTunes credit to use at the App Store. This will allow them to experiment with new productivity/paperless apps like Bento, Pages, Evernote, Remember the Milk, Things, etc. which often cost money.

Finally, give your encouragement. Striving to have less paper in a paper-dependent world can be difficult. Support your paperless friend by sending them links to articles you think they'd like instead of clippings, or perhaps getting them ebooks instead of paperbacks.

Need more expertise on how to go paperless?

Call Lelah at 818.269.6671

or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

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Reviewed: Shoeboxed

Shoeboxed is a web-based company whose website encourages you to "take the work out of paperwork" by letting Shoeboxed take care of all your scanning needs. You pay a monthly fee and you send documents, receipts and business cards to Shoeboxed in North Carolina, and they scan them and import both the scanned image of the piece of paper and extract the information on that paper into a database of contacts, receipts or documents for you.

I'd heard of Shoeboxed for years, but had never tried their service until I took a paperless office webinar with San Francisco-based professional organizer Joshua Zerkel, in association with Shoeboxed. He explained how the service works and participants were invited to do a free trial.



Since I'm interested in all things paperless, I wanted to see how the service worked first hand. I signed up for the free trial and sent in about 50 business cards. I have a desktop scanner, and I've found that with business cards, the scanning part takes seconds, but then going in and adjusting the fields in the software to accurately show the data on the business cards can be time consuming. I thought if I could avoid that, it would be great. It took about 4 days for them to receive the envelope in the mail, and slightly over 2 weeks for them to process the batch of business cards. I thought I had read somewhere that it would 5 days to process the items once they received them, but I wasn't really in a hurry. Once they notified me that my business cards had been processed, I visited the website to check out the results.

A view of one of my contacts.

I was really impressed. The information they extracted was complete and easily exportable. The scanned images of the cards were clear. That was important to me as I often write notes on a card to remind me when and where I met the person who gave it to me. Best of all, I realized I had all this valuable information digitally and I didn't really have to do anything. Sure, I had to collect the cards and take them to the post office, probably 15 minutes of prep time. But if I had attempted to use my desktop scanner, it would have been easily an hour of following up to make sure the data on the cards was all imported correctly.

In short, so far I'm a fan of Shoeboxed. I even signed up to be an affiliate for them, so if you use one of my Shoeboxed links to sign up for the service, I will get a small commission.

A few more notes: they have different plans you can join at. I joined with the "Lite" (ie: cheapest) plan, because the volume of things I have to scan is not that heavy, and I also have a desktop scanner that works well for me when scanning documents. I'll probably use Shoeboxed mostly for business cards (I collect a lot from various networking events). However, I'd recommend if you are interested you join at the "Classic"or "Business" level, and that you sign up for a year as you can save money that way. They provide you with prepaid envelopes and they will return your hard copies to you after they have scanned them -- if you want. I recommend that once you get your papers scanned, just let them shred the hard copies (your only option with the Lite plan).

If you have more questions about Shoeboxed, let me know!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Elegy for a sticky note

Over the weekend, I lost something very dear to me. I won't bore you with the chain of events that led to the demise of all of my Stickies, but on Saturday morning, I started my computer and they were all gone. Just gone, in an instant. When I realized this, I wasn't hit with a wave of panic or regret at not having backed them up (though I wish I had). It was more like a sense of emptiness, of loss. The information on my dozen or so notes wasn't entirely irreplaceable. Sure, I had a running list of usernames and passwords on one note that I'll miss, and a list of interesting names that I turn to when writing, but those can be rebuilt. Rather, I was struck by the loss of my to do list, and how odd it felt to be on my computer without that touchstone of orderly tasks and ideas waiting for me to visit, to delete and add, to bold and highlight.

I've already started rebuilding my stickies. They are a really useful tool. I mourn for my lost information, but I look to the future and know I'll be okay.

If you also use Stickies, don't forget to include them in your regular back up. From Wikipedia:
Backup data: Stickies keeps all information in a self-contained database. The database can be backed up by copying the file StickiesDatabase which is located in a user's Library directory (i.e. ~/Library/StickiesDatabase)

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Preparing for an emergency

With a wildfire burning less than 100 miles from here in Santa Barbara, I’m reminded of those things everyone knows they should do to protect themselves in case of emergency, but few of us rarely actually accomplish. We put off doing these sensible things, since a part of us always hopes we won’t need them because there will never be an emergency. Not to be clichéd, but the old saw “hope for the best, but prepare for the worst” is actually pretty good advice. Obviously, we all hope there won’t ever be an earthquake, flood or fire that affects us or our loved ones, but no one can ever know what the future holds. 

So here’s a short list of items that you really SHOULD take care of, not someday, but now. If you do one a week for the next five weeks, you’ll be done, and except for some minor maintenance, you’ll have the peace of mind that comes from knowing you are prepared for something less than pleasant to happen.

1. Okay, let’s start with an easy one--smoke detectors. Take a moment and make sure you have the proper number of smoke detectors in your home and that they are in working order. Here’s some great information on smoke alarms from the U.S. Fire Administration: http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/downloads/pyfff/smkalarm.html
2. Next, make sure that all of your vital documents (deeds, birth certificates, insurance policies, etc.) are stored somewhere safe, such as off site at a safe deposit box or in your home in a fire safe box. Here’s a good guideline of what to keep where: http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/news/newsreleases/2009/march-26-2009/keep-valuable-documents-safe  Along these same lines, I cannot stress enough how important it is to back up your digital files as well, such as photos, videos and documents you may be keeping on a home computer. If you don’t already have a backup system in place, such as an external hard-drive, I highly recommend you create one immediately. If you can, make a second backup that you can store off site, or use online storage, just in case your external hard-drive gets destroyed in an emergency.
3. For insurance purposes, it is smart to read your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance policy and make sure you understand it. If you have valuables, such as art or electronics, that may not be covered, consider extending your insurance. Once you understand what you are insured for, make an inventory of all the items in your home. A visual inventory, either photos or video of the items, is a good idea. You may also want to keep receipts and make a spreadsheet or other database of the items in question with information like when you acquired the object and what you paid for it. None of this information will do you any good if it is destroyed in an emergency, so make multiple copies and keep them with your documents off site, and give a copy to a friend or relative to hang on to. Consider also backing up the information online via web storage. Remember that when you make an improvement to your home, or if you make additional major purchases, you’ll need to update your records accordingly.
4. Next, consider what area you live in and what the most likely disasters to affect you might be. I live in Southern California, and earthquakes are always at the forefront of my mind. Fire can affect everyone, either wildfires or residential fires, and flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, frost and heat take their toll on thousands of people every year. Make sure you do research into the disasters likely to affect your part of the world and plan accordingly. FEMA has some great information on its website about different hazards.
5. The last thing I want to mention is in some ways the hardest: estate planning, which basically means what you want to have happen to your stuff when you die. This refers to your will, trusts, dispersal of your money and property and all of that legal stuff. It can also refer to your wishes regarding your body and funeral. It is never too early to start thinking about these things. Especially if you have children or have had a life change since your last will such as a marriage or divorce, you want to make sure that your wishes are backed up by legal documents. This is a pretty huge topic, so don’t be afraid to ask for professional help. Making sure your wishes are known and recorded will ensure you peace of mind and also be a burden lifted from your spouse, children or family upon your death. Please, make sure your affairs are in order as soon as possible. Here are a couple of good online resources for estate planning: SmartMoney and CNN Money

So that’s a lot of preparation for something that may never happen, but it is really important to do. If it is difficult for you to prepare for something unpleasant, think about how much safer and easier it will be for your family in the case of emergency if you take a few steps right now. Get help, from a family member or friend, if you don’t feel like doing it alone, or hire a professional to make a home inventory and get a lawyer to help you with estate planning. Good luck!

Creative Commons photo posted to flickr by 91RS