I’ve talked for ages about how I’m going paperless, to the point it might as well be a New Year’s Resolution. But after month after month of scenes like the one above, I’m fed up enough to fulfill my own wish.

In the past, there were a few stumbling blocks in my way, that have all been recently resolved.

First, more and more companies are archiving statements online in .pdf format, and allowing completely paperless billing solutions. This will cut down drastically on the amount of papers that actually need scanning, and reduce my endless procrastination on what before seemed a hopelessly unattainable goal.

Second, I bit the bullet and acknowledged that our HP All-in-One printer/fax/scanner/copier is actually good enough to do the job, if I don’t put overbearing time constraints on this project.

Third, I broke down and invested in a redundant storage solution. After tossing a number of ideas around and reading reviews, I went with the D-Link DNS-321 NAS, and two 500G hard drives in a RAID 1 array.

Lastly, I was informed that our city dump has an absolutely enormous shred-it-yourself shredder to get rid of all the resultant unneeded paper.

I’ve still got some dread about wading through years of paperwork and sheet-feeding endless bills and receipts, but possibly eliminating the need for a file cabinet is truly exciting. The key is going to be whether or not I can scan papers and dispose of them faster than they are coming in the house.