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Paperless Office – Where are You?

Written by: Dixie Schmatz

Article Overview: Not that long ago, the buzzword was the coming “paperless office.” What happened to that and what should we do about it?

Paperless Office – Where are You?

I have a confession to make right up front. I print lots of stuff. My computer is filled with thousands maybe even millions of files but I still find many things that I want to keep on paper. Another person in my company hates it whenever someone brings a piece of paper in his office. If I happen to bring one in and start to leave without it, he gently reminds me to come back and take it with me.

Computers have added huge productivity gains to business but there are still lots of gains to go. If you work at a hospital or health care facility, please tell them I am tired of filling out the same form in every department. It addition to paper, it would save them time and money and me aggravation, to buy cheap portable computers, let me fill in my info once and have it available all over the facility. OK, enough venting, this article is about paper.

Every office (well almost every office) still uses it. Recognizing that, how can we manage our use of paper and still be green?

o Print on both sides. Copy machines can do this automatically. If you are a small business with a less sophisticated printer, under print options, you can print odd pages only and then flip the sheets and print even pages only.

o Use recycled paper. The quality now is so much better you can hardly tell the difference. If you have a special paper for your clients, you can keep a stack of recycled paper to use for internal printing.

o Possibly repurpose and definitely recycle any paper you are finished with. You can repurpose it into notepaper/scrap paper. (You could also make a paper airplane but that would not be good use of company time.) Recycling is now easily available and a critical step in reusing resources. – Did you know that office workers throw away (hopefully recycling them) one trillion pages a year?

o Think about whether you really need to print something out to hand to everyone at a meeting. Can you post the agenda on one large piece of paper and save making a copy for each individual?

Printed documents have moved our world out of the dark ages. We need to manage them effectively so we can continue to use them into the far future.

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Article Tags: cheap portable computers, company time, confession, critical step, health care facility, many things, office workers, paper airplane, piece of paper, productivity gains, recycled paper, recycling, scrap paper, small business, stack, time and money, trillion



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Speaking of shipping.... - The US Post Office raised its rates a few months ago, and it's rates for magazines has trebled, I believe, which is going to drive the small press magazine publisher out of business... Anyone deal with shippig on a regular basis, and what do you use? Your in-country regular postal service FedEx UPS DHL Freight carriers and what are your experiences with each one?
Re: 'Thanks' to Whoever Mentioned . . . - Depending on how well you know your clients, you could also sent birthday cards or "get well" cards if their "Out of Office" email message says they're sick.
Great Meeting locations - I strive to meet professionals at their place of business. I've given the Hotel Lobby a try and it's not bad - they do have good coffee and free Internet! I'm going to continue the practice. I've also hand picked a few Starbucks and Tim Horton Coffee shops in the Downtown area that have great decor and are quiet to hold one on one meetings. If I have to meet with more than two people it's usually in their Office as it's more convenient for them.
hot-desk.. what's that? - [quote:kdfr04eq]What I'd really like is an office-share; a hot-desk which is relatively cheap and not normal rates as I would only use it part time. My son has just found himslef one and I'm looking...[/quote:kdfr04eq] I've never heard of a hot-desk/Office-share... what's that mpcoach and how would one use it for generating ideas or spark creativity?
Creativity generation from the Office - Here's what i got from people in the Office: 1. On the Toilet while reading 2. While walking the dog 3. While networking 4. While relaxing on the beach on Vacation (expensive method huh!) 5. While writing in a Journal 6. While reading past entries in my Journal 7. While cutting the grass 8. While jammin on an instrument (several people mentioned different instruments) 9. dreaming (day or at night) 10. while commuting in the Subway (some mentioned that the subway ads gave them ideas)


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