By Breanna Banford, Social Marketing Specialist, Xerox Enterprise Business Group
With mobile technology and new innovations, the ways of the past sure have changed. Instead of writing love letters, we send texts and Facebook messages. What will our grandchildren look through to recall the past budding relationship of grandma and grandpa 50 years from now?
We’re living in an age where paper seems to be disappearing as new technology lets us do more online, using mobile technology and the cloud. Yet, I still use paper in a lot of ways. I write my grocery lists and to-dos on Post-it notes. I print out longer documents like whitepapers so I can read, highlight and take notes on the pages. I read paperback books – I can’t seem to transition to an e-reader yet! A lot of these are typical ways people use paper. The trouble is I feel like I get lost in my hardcopy notes and different online versions.
I consider myself a fairly organized person, but sometimes I feel like nothing syncs correctly. I have 3 sets of to-do lists in my office – a secondary Outlook calendar for managing future actions, my virtual sticky notes for weekly reminders and Post-it notes for immediate actions (I really enjoy physically crossing items off a list – I feel more accomplished). Clearly, these processes are a bit out of control, but I have yet to find a program, app or process that does what I need, which is appropriately show long term, short term and immediate to-dos in a way that works for me.
I seem to be stuck in the middle of the digital era, but still tied to paper. It’s possible that scanning my notes with a solution like Xerox Scan to PC desktop could be an advantage to better syncing and editing my notes. I could even buy a tablet, so I can at least take digital notes, but I hear there isn’t a perfect way to sync documents back to your laptop, especially in a enterprise environment.
How are you bridging the paper to digital gap? Do you still rely on paper – how is it necessary in your day-to-day?
Love this post!
I try to use as little paper as possible. I put my grocery list on my android notepad and take it with me to the store. I use the Starbucks app to take note of my coworkers 15 word coffee orders.
Depending on our fields, I feel as though we can completely get rid of paper. I have clients who won’t let me bring paper to meetings. I love it. They ask that everything be sent in advance and they bring their laptops/tablets into a meeting.
I think you make a good point Breanna about crossing items off a list. It feels great!
I think we’re moving more and more towards our new digital era. When I need to take notes about a phone call or meeting, I try to do them digitally or send myself an email with them so I can add a task to it in Outlook.
Having said all this, my penmanship is terrible. Doctors look like caligraphists in comparison. So all in all, if you need a solution to force yourself to use less paper and take more digital notes, see what you can do to worsen your penmanship!
Thanks for your comments, Ross! I often look for ways to simplify the challenging aspects of my life and the digital vs. paper conflict is everlasting. I will be curious to see the progress or the transition that takes place as I become more digitally connected and how I implement new solutions or technology.