Going Paperless

I guess I can say that I went paperless in June of 2008. That’s when I stopped printing my journal. I had already stopped handwriting my journal entries and began typing them. I would type the entries into Word and at the end of the month, print the file out and put it in a binder. Now I just have a collection of files, with a yearly file that I have stored on my NAS device. NAS is a network attached storage, for anyone who might not know that. I’m even revamping that system. I’m going to start converting the files to PDF for better accessibility in the future. There is no point in archiving things if you can’t access the archives.

That’s what my journal is, an archive of my thoughts on a particular day. I have some archived here on this blog site. Most of my thoughts are on my NAS device. My plan when I convert them to PDF is organize them in groups of five years. I have made a start by scanning in some of the files that I had printed out and lost the electronic copies. I even included some handwritten entries for the first few years of my journaling life. I came to journaling late.

I never used a diary, just lined paper in a binder. It was a big and as small as I needed it to be. I haven’t quite decided if going paperless with that part of the journal will include typed transcripts of the words or not. I have to admit that I am leaning towards not. I can create images of my handwritten words and include those in the PDF for the first volume. I think I may just do that and let it go. if anyone is interested in reading that, after I’m gone, they can decipher my handwriting. I don’t think it is that bad.

Going paperless means that I will have an entire shelf in my bookcase free for other things, like more books or even knickknacks. It will reduce clutter in the long run. That’s my goal, to make my life less cluttered. Going paperless will help with that. There is still room for paper, don’t get me wrong, but my journal doesn’t need it. I don’t really need to have my journal printed out. I can keep them in the computer as PD files. That de-clutters my shelves and gives me more room. That’s actually my goal here. I want to diminish the clutter in my life and going paperless will help me to do that. Not only will I get rid of some clutter, I’ll save some trees at the same time.

About pebblepup

I am not one who is comfortable talking about myself but here goes. I enjoy writing, family history, and reading. I decided to do this blog because I wanted to try something new. I decided to make it a weekly blog because I wasn't sure that I could keep up with a daily one, and monthly seemed like I was writing a magazine. I think I did ok with my choices. You'll notice that there are not a lot of graphics on my site. That's because there are graphics plastered everywhere on the Internet and those sites sometimes take forever to load. This blog is a place where you can kick back, relax and be ready to be amused. At least I hope I willbamuse you. This blog is on a variety of subjects from my ficitional cat agency, the FFL, which is monthly, to instructional blogs to editorials, which are my opinions only. I admit that I don't know everything and could be wrong -- I frequently am. Now, stop reading about me and read what I have to say!