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!

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What does paperless really mean?

When we say we're "going paperless," what does that really mean? It certainly doesn't mean that we'll never touch another piece of paper again in our lives. It also doesn't mean that a person who wants to be less bogged down by paper doesn't enjoy paper in certain situations. Being paperless, like being organized, is not an absolute destination, but something to work toward and use as a tool to live a simpler life.

To me, paperless means not printing stuff unless it's absolutely necessary, including recipes, directions and especially emails.

It means asking people to send me information electronically rather than hand me a piece of paper with the information on it.

It means reducing my paper mail by signing up for paperless statements and bills and taking myself off catalog and junk mail lists.

It means thinking twice before picking up a piece of literature or a business card.

It can mean lots of other things, but those are good start. What does paperless mean to you?

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Bert 23

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. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

A year ago: NaNoWriMo, change and Halloween

NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, starts November 1, and I'm participating for the third year in a row. (If you are attempting it, too, friend me!) Last year I wrote about balancing the hours it takes to actually write about 2,000 words of fiction a day with all the other things that a person has to do.

Change affects us all, practically all the time, and I love Julie Morgenstern's take on change and organization: “Every time we go through a major change, we experience a breakdown in our organizational systems.”

This time last year I also wrote about the benefits of a paperless, automatic billing. It really does help to stem the paper tide and keep things simpler and cleaner if you can switch most of your bills to this format. Try it, and see what a difference it makes.

Regarding organizing for Halloween, I put together a holiday-themed Organizer's Blog Digest. Check it out.

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


      

Tips and Tools: Electronic information

Receiving, storing and finding information that is printed on paper is a constant struggle for all of us. Most of the problem stems from our worry that if we get rid of something, we won't be able to get it back again. Yet much of the paper we are bombarded with we are likely never going to look at or need, but we have a hard time giving ourselves permission to get rid of it for good.

It is time that many of us realize how much information there can be had online. Not only can you stop paper statements and get your billing information online, but you can access so much more. There is no reason to a keep a paper copy of something that you *think* you *might* need at some point down the line (and probably won't) if you can get it electronically on demand when that mythical day should come. I'm talking about manuals for appliances, restaurant menus, contact information for businessess, maps, directions and those fat prospectuses and quarterly reviews that investment companies send you and you never look at but feel guilty throwing away. Yeah, you can get all of that stuff online. Why use your precious resources to store these items when you can use the magic of the Internet to let someone else store it electronically? And since it's "in the cloud" you don't even have to worry about backing up the data. Plus, information changes so quickly that most of the printed stuff is out of date very quickly. When you look at a piece of paper and ask yourself if you could easily get the information on it should you need in the future and the answer is yes, send it to the recycle bin.

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

Paperless billing and living simpler

Over the last few years, I have slowly switched from traditional paper bills to paperless billing, where instead of getting a piece of mail that you have to open, read, store until you are ready to pay the bill, then file instead you get an email that you have to open, log in to read, and then either go back and pay at a later date or sign up for automatic bill pay (which is extremely convenient). Aside from saving paper, as well as a money for both the service provider and you in the form of stamps, the biggest reason to choose paperless billing is to never have the dilemma of what to do with the bill after you have paid it. Most bills you will never refer to again, and knowing that you can access them online if necessary is, for most people, enough to ensure peace of mind. For those people who feel like they need more control than that, or who track their expenses far more minutely than most, you can always save electronic copies downloaded from your service provider's web site in a folder on your computer (and back it up with the rest of your files regularly).

I just signed up for paperless billing from my electric company, and in the email from them thanking me for doing so, they actually touted "helping you live simpler" as a main reason for choosing paperless billing. I never thought that huge companies would be interested in helping their customers live simpler, but in this case what benefits them benefits us as well.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by G & A Sattler

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