The paperless office

May 10, 2015

I've been trying for years to make my job paperless. All the required technology is there:

• review features in word processors (allowing to add comments and to track changes),
• PDF annotation software,
• smart note-taking software like org-mode in emacs or evernote, and
• good scanners for the occasional paperwork you might end up with.

However, after about 8 years of trying, I have come to the conclusion that my attempts don't classify as succesful. What is blocking my pathway to succes? Let's first talk about my achievements.

Achievements

I managed to have meeting organizers send me all meeting documents electronically without the usual paper bundles that are sent to most of my collegues mail boxes. I admit: this is not my achievement alone, but my contribution is significant. I tried to get the same done with my newspaper, but in another rant you will have read that success was not mine.

I taught my co-workers not to e-mail documents, but to put them on a share an send links to the document folders by mail instead. This saves a significant amount of storage space and backup costs.

What's still missing?

One should be able to not copy a document to annotate it. Instead, one should be able to take a link to the orginal document and then save a file with annotations only. Of course, this way of working could be hindered by someone changing the original. Smart snapshotting could solve this issue.

E-reader devices are not yet powerful enough to annotate documents with hand-written high-quality notes. However, we'll get there within a few years.

Disappointments

People cannot be stopped from bringing late meeting documents. Instead of adding them to the electronic meeting folder, they just bring paper copies. In many cases the electronic version is even never added to the meeting documents! You cannot but take notes on the paper copy and rely on scanning them later yourself.

Company policies try to minimize copier and printer costs. Therefore my distance to the nearest by printer/scanner combination has increased significantly. I have to walk 40m and go to the floor below to print/scan. That doesn't seem a big deal, but it's a hurdle (e.g., I need to lock my office to go to the printing/scanning room). In addition, I'm not allowed to have a printer/scanner nearby. This is not beneficial for scanning the paper documents you receive at meetings.

Though I'm very systematic in archiving documents on my computer, still, it's not easy to find notes again. Even the search feature doesn't get me to the notes I know I have made before. My mind (and memory) seems to be very visual. I usually do remember taking hand-written notes on something.

Conclusion

I decided a year ago (for the reasons mentioned above) to start taking paper notes again. If you keep a decent index, it works. However, I still struggle with paper documents I receive from people that have missed the digital age.

Therefore, recently I decided to start using a binding system with rings that allows mixing note paper and meeting documents. It requires an expensive perforation device. But: it works. I hope that this 20th century technology will save my day.