Since deciding to go paperless I’ve had some research done and I’ve plotted out a few steps in my head. The first of those steps is elimination, which I think I can take care of this weekend.

First thing tomorrow morning I am going to: Sign up to stop credit card offers, reduce my junk mail, and opt-out of catalogs.

I think that will be a good start. At least it will eliminate some clutter and save some trees. I still haven’t decided if I am going to eliminate mail further through a paid service – I’ve heard good things about Earth Class Mail.

I’m still mulling over a few techniques I’ve found to handle my existing documents.

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While going paperless, I thought it’d be nice to consolidate everything online. I’ve already pretty much eliminated Microsoft Office by using Google Docs – why not move my finances from Quicken and QuickBooks to an online solution?

Well there is no “Home and Business” edition of Quicken online, and the online version of QuickBooks only works with Internet Explorer. WTF was Intuit thinking? Microsoft was even worse – they don’t offer an online version of Money at all.

After some research I found there was… nothing. Unbelievable. Every day I read about stupid websites and failing online startups and I find it hard to believe no one has made an decent online accounting package.

I think it’s about time someone got on that.

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Today I left work early to get all my tax stuff together. I’m the kind of guy who has to dig through closets and sort through piles of paper strewn on the floor to find everything needed. Taxes drive me crazy enough; I shouldn’t be making it harder on myself.

Yes, my physical world lacks organization. But my electronic world is immaculate. You want a copy of that email about that thing we saw at that place some time back? No problem, I’ll have it to you in ten seconds. You want a copy of my W2 from 2006? Too freakin’ bad.

So I’m going paperless. I just made this decision about five minutes ago as I pulled an old document out from under a rusty hammer in the closet we keep all our tools in. How did it get there any way?

Any way. Aside from a computer, a scanner, and a good backup system I’m not sure what’s involved in becoming completely paperless. Though I have a good backup system at home (a 1TB Buffalo Network Drive) it may be time to get off-site backups. In addition to that, I have to consider searchability of the documents I store – I hope OCR technology has improved a lot since I last used it.

I still haven’t found everything I need to file my taxes, but I ‘m close. I’m just a few calls/faxes away.

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