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About ten years ago our son, then in his mid-twenties, announced that he didn’t use paper. This revelation came tumbling out when I offered to buy him a file cabinet for his new home office. I have to admit I was shocked – my son did not use paper! How on earth could he survive? But he was not only surviving, he was thriving in business and still had time to “have a life” with his young family.

Then I asked myself the next obvious question – I wonder if I should stop using paper? In those days I was still actually printing out e-mails. I resolved right then and there to try to live paperless. I cancelled my newspaper and magazine subscriptions and I stopped printing out e-mails. I would call the experiment a “mixed success.”

Ten years later, I print out few emails. I have gone back to reading a paper newspaper and some paper magazines. My association management company operates virtually using mostly Web-based applications. The number of papers I must handle daily has been greatly reduced, but STILL there is paper and I still have to deal with it.

As I see it, there are three fundamental choices in dealing with the stuff that comes across my desk and into my company.

1. Convert everything to paper.
2. Convert everything to digital images.
3. Take it as it comes.

I have decided that I am simply going to “take it as it comes.” I have parallel systems for electronic files and paper files (I use notebooks with sheet protectors.) I just don’t have time to spend converting paper to images or images to paper. The fact is, I am adept enough at handling information either way, and file conversion takes time. Sure, the occasional document gets scanned in to join its digital friends and the occasional electronic document gets printed out and put in sheet protector file with related paper documents.

And what about the boxes of paper archives in the storage unit? They aren’t hurting anything and the rental of the unit is far less than it would cost to scan them in. And, in time, they will die a natural death due through document retention policies. Meanwhile, if IRS comes to call they are there waiting patiently.

The volume of paper is gradually going down and the electronic volume is going up. Newspapers are closing down and magazines are getting interactive. Even accounting is going digital. Kindles are sold out at Amazon.com. Whatever….it is all information and we need to handle it and process it in ways that make sense. Right now, for me, it makes sense to deal with information on its own terms!