Paperless Office: I Can Find Anything Quick
by: Dill Ward, Real Estate Investor / Agent
As a real estate professional I value organization. As a geek I appreciate the ease of doing so using technology. I shudder at the thought of standing in the driveway of my next deal without every document that's ever come across my desk at my fingertips. I love having the ability to quickly thumb through my thousands of contacts to find just the person I'm thinking of who can help me problem solve. In my business, buying distressed property means having to make decisions very quickly as competition for the best deals is fierce. I use my mountains of carefully sorted data to mine and my clients' benefit.
How do I do this?
First, every single paper object that becomes in my possession gets assessed to determine if it contains data to be captured. If it is approved it enters the system to an "inbox" where it waits for a scanning/paper reduction session. Every few days I sit down with the folder and work through piece by piece. I determine what information needs to be recorded and decide where to store it. I use my Fuji S300M portable document scanner exclusively to convert paper to pdfs. It's super fast, portable powered by my laptop and scans every size document.
Second, naming folders & files something detailed is the most important part of the process when archiving data. If you can't remember "how" to look for it, forget it. What I do is make separate folders named as detailed as possible, business cards, receipts, contracts, photos, research, bills, even concert tickets. Last say goodbye forever and send it through the shredder.
There is nothing I can't retrieve at a moments notice. Of course this takes constant discipline. Keep with the system. Just like working out, it's hard at first but soon it's easy breezy and you'll reap the rewards of your effort by being more organized, more efficient and most importantly reduce your stress.
