Some useful information, some anecdotes, some rantings, and some inspiration
from my quest to make my family and perhaps the world around me A Little Greener Every Day

The purging of my office is coming along slowly but surely. I need to look at each piece of paper that has piled up and decide if it needs to be kept, scanned and gotten rid of, or plain ol’ gotten rid of. The papers that are going, I need to decide if they should be shredded before being recycled.

Last Thursday when the recycling truck came by, there was a huge amount of paper to be hauled away. While it’s good to recycle the papers, my goal is to go as paperless as possible by the end of the project.

One of the things I need to learn is exactly which important documents need to be kept as hard copies. The rule of thumb used to be to keep 7 years of financial documents, but with so many records being kept electronically and easily accessible, I’m sure a lot of that has changed.

In addition to business type papers, there is a lot of paperwork from my two boys. Report cards, special projects, art work. Should I scan the end of the year report cards in that have the entire year’s record and shred the original or keep the hard copy?

The busy holiday season has left me with little time to spend working on my project in my office, but I’m trying to do a little every other day or so.

Any advice about keeping or tossing papers that you can give me, I’d be happy to accept.

Image: Muffet