by A. South

Created on: January 04, 2010

In an office setting, it can be easy to get buried under mountains and mountains of paper.  Lots of paper use is bad for the environment and can be an environmental nightmare!  Dig out of the paper avalanche with these easy steps.

Step One: Go Online!
Doing business online is the best and fastest way to reduce paper usage.  Memos are a thing of the past thanks to office e-mail.  Get web-savvy and minimize the paper that crosses your desk.

- Online bill pay: not only it is paperless, it’s also automated!  Get rid of the paper and take something permanently off your to-do list with online bill pay, which is available through most vendors.

- E-Invitations: mailed invitations are nice, but they’re expensive, require postage and wasteful.  Switch to electronic invitations for your next business event. They’re great for almost any event.  And to sweeten the deal, people RSVP quicker to online invites than to invitations they receive in the mail.

- Online calendars: in the past, everyone had a desk calendar, wall calendar in their home and office and a small, portable calendar.  Add that up and that’s a lot of paper!  Online calendars allow multiple users to view and add events, great for the office or busy families.

Step Two: Give the printer a rest!
Print items only if they’re necessary.  Make pdf files of important documents and pages, and file them on your desktop rather than your filing cabinet.  That way you’ll have items if you need them for legal or tax reasons, but you won’t waste paper if you don’t.

Speaking of printers, when you do have to print something, do so on recycled paper!  Paper has two sides, print on one, then the other before recycling.

Step Three: Declutter!
You’re much less likely to accumulate stacks and stacks of paper if you get a handle on the clutter.  Try these strategies to make your paper trail vanish:

- Stop Posting It: instead of sticky notes, write ideas and notes down in a notebook.  That way your thoughts and info won’t be scattered, but all together in one handy place.

- See something you like in a newsletter or magazine?  Instead of keeping the whole publication, tear out the article you like and put it in a plastic sleeve and store in a three-ring binder.  You’re more likely to find it that way, and it cleans out old publications.

- Take immediate action when a new piece of paper comes into your office.  Instead of putting it in a never-ending pile, deal with it immediately, then recycle it.

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