Papers are the number one struggle I see people dealing with \u2013 there’s always more of it.\u00a0 It never stops coming in, the mail is delivered almost 6 days a week.\u00a0 There’s no escaping it, despite how we’ve been hearing predictions of being a paperless society.\u00a0 This does not mean that we cannot reduce our paper consumption, although there are considerations to doing this.<\/p>\n
I’ll admit that I was resisting going paperless.\u00a0 I would check my banking account online and they’d ask me if I wanted to go paperless and I’d say no. I liked part of the idea of it, how much did I need those statements in paper?\u00a0 Yet, it was comfortable and familiar to have them waiting for me in the mail.\u00a0 I don’t trust completely that my computer isn’t going to suddenly do something it shouldn’t (whether a corrupted file or a more serious overall computer malfunction).\u00a0 One day working with a client, we ended up talking about this, and when I told her I wasn’t getting my statements electronically, she looked at me quizzically and asked “why not?” I hadn’t thought that<\/em> much about it and I struggled to put words to my reasons \u2013 I was just not changing the way I’d always done it.\u00a0 Within a week, I logged on and changed to getting my statements electronically.<\/p>\n This is the only occasion that I’ve personally gone paperless though (personally, as my husband has several accounts we share as electronic).\u00a0 I download my statements and check on things.\u00a0 I don’t need to worry about computer issues since my account with the bank keeps all my monthly statements for a few years – therefore if something were to happen to my files or my computer, I can just log back in and get them downloaded again (if I even need to have a copy on my computer). There could even be an argument that I don’t need to use the space on my computer for these files once I’ve reconciled things.<\/p>\n There are other accounts that I’m still attached to having a hard copy \u2013 something I can put in a file and have access to. I do look at these papers periodically.\u00a0 If I were to set up getting them electronically, I would just have to spend time logging in, reviewing, and printing out.\u00a0 What’s the point of them being electronic then? Paper is being used either way, and to get them automatically in the mail saves me time and energy.\u00a0 I\u2019d rather spend that time and energy in other ways (and the post office gets some support too).<\/p>\n I\u2019ve talked before about e-mail and how that too can become clutter.\u00a0 I avoid giving my e-mail address out to every vendor that wants it (not professionally), as I too often feel overwhelmed with email.\u00a0 There are times I don\u2019t look at my electronic bank statement promptly simply because I have so many emails to review. If you\u2019re one of those people with hundreds (or even thousands) of emails hanging out in your mailbox, getting statements electronically could make them easier to miss \u2013 which becomes more critical when they\u2019re actual bills that need your attention.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also the way to be freer of papers \u2013 to set up auto payments for your recurring bills.\u00a0 This makes sense in that it saves you even more time and energy.\u00a0 You tell certain (or all) regular bills to be withdrawn from your account and on what day.\u00a0 This can be also be accomplished by your bank\u2019s online bill pay option.\u00a0 You save the paper of the check and envelope.<\/p>\n Have you moved toward being more paperless?\u00a0 If not, what exactly is it that is you are resisting?\u00a0 Until I figured out that answer for myself, I didn\u2019t change.\u00a0 There\u2019s no right answer, but finding your own, personal solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As with all decisions, whether you go more paperless it needs to make sense and work for you. Simply because it\u2019s available to set up accounts as \u201cpaperless\u201d does not mean it\u2019s right for you \u2013 there are pros and cons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,5,20,25,22,15],"class_list":["post-675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organizing","tag-behavior","tag-household","tag-paperwork","tag-postaweek2011","tag-productivity","tag-resources"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-aT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":679,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}