My primary backup is a pair of Time Machine backups: a Time Capsule and an external hard drive. You’ll want a very good backup regime in place, otherwise you could find yourself on the losing side of an argument with the taxman when seven years of receipts disappears with a stolen or damaged laptop. Most paper documents would fit neatly into the existing structure, while others merely required the addition of a sub-folder here and there.įor those who are less borderline-OCD in their PC usage, I’d strongly suggest creating a logical folder structure before you go anywhere near a scanner – otherwise you’ll end up with a mess of files equivalent to putting all your papers into a single cardboard box in the loft. I was fortunate there: the majority of my documents were already stored in electronic form, and my Mac is organised into folders and sub-folders borders to within an inch of its life, so this was a straightforward process. Having documents on your computer is no use if you can’t find them, so some thought is required about how to organize them. My paranoia about identity theft meant I shredded absolutely everything containing any personal data at all, even a name and address. – six shredder loads (which took time but had an excellent feel-good factor) – three large sacks of papers ready for the bin-men This took about eight hours total, done over a couple of days. There are times when going back a year or so might be useful (for example, plugging in figures to a comparison site) knowing how much I spent on gas in 2001 probably fell into the less useful category. With things like household bills, I’d simply filed each one as it arrived, but never taken the time to discard old ones. Step two was to review my existing paperwork to decide what needed to be scanned and what could be discarded. If you’re outside the UK, you’ll need to do your own research – do report back in the comments. Tax forms? Receipts? Here in the UK, the taxman is perfectly happy with scanned copies, requiring them only to be legible and to show both sides of the document where applicable. The title deeds to your house? Obsolete: lenders and solicitors simply check the online property database to ascertain the legal owner of a property. There were many more documents you’d imagine you might have to store in paper form but in fact don’t. Passport, driving licence, car registration, car tax – those were pretty much it. There are, I discovered, vanishingly few documents one is required to store in paper form in the UK. This was a surprisingly refreshing experience. My first step was to investigate the legal niceties.
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