The Simple Office:Going Paperless

Another one of my "Stacks" of documents

Stuff, like most people I have a love hate realationship with Stuff. As a lawyer by day, a reader, a collector, and the owner of a scrapbooking paper company, I have collected lots and lots of papers. Add in the fact that we live overseas and are required to file taxes in not one, but two Countries and one State, add in the fact that the kids bring home stacks and stacks of paperwork from school. Add in the mail (which thankfully we don’t get much of) and my un-natural desire to save old magazines, recipes and ideas and you end up with a whole lot of CRAP.

One set of our shelves and one memo board (my side mirrors this)

The company I work for is a big proponant of the 5S system, which works for manufacturing facilities, but is a bit harder to convert into an office. My office at the factory, well that is already clean. It is the home office that has multiple shelves, drawers, surfaces and desks filled with paper.

My Husband's Desk

I am not advocating a full purge (that is a Minimalist plan and not my bag) and for me baby steps are key, but I have taken another step at removing all of the unneeded papers from our home. Stage One is the home office. I spent some $ on a real scanner a Fujitsu Scansnap1500, which is probably more than the average home needs, but I need to scan papers for work and my old flat bed just doesn’t cut it. So, after bringing home my new toy, I scanned in over 6 inches of paper, threw out 5 empty binders and recycled all of the paper. This took just over 2 hours. I then uploaded a bunch to Evernote and stored the rest on an external hard drive. A rough estimate of the pages scanned was around 500 and I easily have another 8-9 binders filled with seminar notes to scan (at least another 500 sheets of paper) plus 10 years of old tax records (which we have kept as we file in multiple jurisdictions and they each require specific records).

The First Stack of Scanned Documents

I estimate if I spend this weekend scanning and then one more weekend organizing the files both “online” and in the hard drive I should be down to only one drawer of physical papers left in the office. This puts me square in line for my goal of cleaning up the office in January. After the “paper” is gone I can work on the rest of the stuff, which is primarily my scrapbook/art supplies. The final step is to load all of the family geneology stuff online into a Dropbox for my sister so she can access the information as well.

The remainder of the house, well that is for another month.

Night Swim At Dairy Farm

This is what it is all about. A weekly tradition of swimming with our friends. Sometimes all of the stress and conflicts that a week brings can be erased by a swim in the dark on a Friday Night.



Thanks to Lisa for making and posting the video!

Space and Perspective

This image is from the "egg" in Beijing. An amazing bit of modern architecture if I do say so myself (cause I am such a critic, but no expert). I am sitting today in Kuala Lumpur and thinking about the month and a half that have just past.

I have traveled to Malaysia 2 times. I have been to Beijing, I have been to LA and Dallas. Total miles logged around 20,000 miles. That is one hell of a huge carbon footprint. It also means that the one thing I love the most-being with my family- was totally a wash. I was with the family 15 days of January.

Good news is February is looking better. After this trip I intend to be home until March 1st, but March will be just as bad. While awesome trips are planned, including my first trip to India, it again stresses my family.

So, what does space and perspective mean, what types of changes am I making this year to slow down and be more deliberate. A few goals I think are in order.

1. Be Financially Independent (save $). I just spent a ton of $ on clothes for myself. I suppose it was needed. I work in a professional environment and tend to have clothes that fit poorly or make me look short and drab. So, now that a shopping spree has taken place, it is time to cut back and save. Jeff and I figure that to retire early we would need enough to survive in a manner that we could be comfortable, plan for un-anticipated expenses and cover the kids college. We are a long way off.

2. Be Present- When i am home, be there, be with the family, not be distracted and give my whole to the kids. Last week it was easy. I just got home from travel so the 2 days I was home it was easy to sit down and do homework, be patient and be there. I hope I can keep it up.

3. Be healthy. A few health issues have been circling around the family. We all need to take better care of ourselves and be well.

4. Be Grateful. Appreciate the blessings I have in life and share them with those I love.

5. Be Proactive. Take things in order and take action when needed rather than procrastinate.

6. Be Organized. Home, Business, Finances, Lifestyle.

7. Be Beautiful. Again, my home, myself, my family, my surroundings.

8. Be at Peace (my word of the year) and if the above come to fruition (or don't) be at peace with what happens and enjoy this life.

More about what I plan and how I plan to reach these goals soon.

handiwork

A big believer in this!

Check out the New Dream Blog... an insightful look at handwork and our current society.

We’ve come to think of the homemade and handmade as having some kind of
mystique: as if only our grandmothers or a special class of craftsy people can
mend a hem or can some jam. Our hands have an inferiority complex. In reality,
there is no exclusive society that allows in only the dextrous: those of us who
are rather clumsy can still knead dough, top-and-tail beans, and weed a
garden.

Whole post here

I believe that the basic instinct of our lives is to get in touch with those things that matter to us, some of us are connected by smells-sights-sounds- others are connected by touch. I could never let go of printed books for the tactile nature, nor could i give up my quilts.

Speaking of Handiwork, a few pictures of the Class I just did at Scrappingville in Kuala Lumpur.


Nilla sewing away!

Sam's stitchin'

Sharon's finished page



More pictures here

letting go

When I write this blog I often focus on the financial side of my simple journey. What I don't focus on is the soft side, the side of Simplicity that I really probably most need. That is living for the moment, in the moment. Being at peace. rejoicing in the moment, not getting worked up about what will happen, or if it is fair, or who did the lion's share of the work last night and who read the paper. (just keeping it real here). I pray for peace. Peace for myself first for I do believe if I am not at peace then how can I work for peace with others?

Letting go of Christmas (the cat not the holiday) is a good example of this lesson.

Christmas was our stray cat found at our old condo a year after we moved to Singapore. She was a 6 month old kitten, hungry and skinny but approachable and very loving. From the first time we saw her and took food downstairs to her, to the following two days where we watched her (to make sure she didn't belong to someone) she worked her way into our hearts. We brought her home the next day, took her to the vet to have her checked out and cleaned up and let her into our lives. It was fun having a kitten around the house. She caught any stray bug or lizard that worked its way into our house (and at our current Condo on the ground floor that included a bird). She was all cat and all play. Christmas was not the kind of cat that withheld affection. She was all about love all the time. Finding her on Sunday, broken and battered, near death was excruciating. She was silent, until Jeff and I saw her and called her name, at which point she started to cry. It killed me.

Jeff took her to the Vet and they did all they could but the real choice was known when we first saw her, we would have to let her go. The rest of the day was one filled with what happened, did we fail her, did we not hear her get hurt, could we have saved her if we found her earlier? What did we do wrong? These thoughts circled my brain and I know Jeff did the same. The truth is, nothing short of keeping her locked in the house would have protected her. Nothing we could have done would have made a difference. Christmas was an outdoor loving kitty, she loved being able to sit in the grass and watch the world go by. She loved chasing lizards and bugs, she loved just sitting on the edge of the patio and taking charge of her world. This was a horrible tragic accident and it was just that, an accident. There was nothing I could have done.

So, I now struggle with letting go. Not letting go of the great fun memories of my little kitten. Not letting go that Christmas had a better three years of life with us than she would have had as a stray. Not letting go of the fact that she brought love and joy to me and my family. But letting go of the pain. Letting go of the doubts and misgivings we had about our responsibility for her death, letting go of the tears, letting go of the negative thoughts.

Living life fully, for me, means feeling the pain, understanding that it hurts and then letting it go. Living in the moment means knowing that holding onto the pain doesn't make me a martyr, doesn't make me better than you, doesn't make my life richer.

Living fully means rejoicing in her life. remembering the joy. being with her in spirit. memorializing her life. That is about now. that is about love. that is peace.

An Oprah quote for the day

“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.”

Buy Nothing Day and my Compact Pledge

I figured on Buy Nothing day it is fitting that I sit down and ink out my Compact pledge.

For those who don't know, the Compact was a group of people that started in San Fransisco a year ago and pledged to buy nothing NEW for a year. The word spread and now people all over the world are looking at taking the pledge or at least finding out what the group is talking about.

The groups has a blog and is also a Yahoo Group

1) to go beyond recycling in trying to counteract the negative global environmental and socioeconomic impacts of U.S. consumer culture, to resist global corporatism, and to support local businesses, farms, etc. -- a step, we hope, inherits the revolutionary impulse of the Mayflower Compact; 2) to reduce clutter and waste in our homes (as in trash Compact-er); 3) to simplify our lives (as in Calm-pact).

The group has agreed to follow two principles (see exceptions etc. on the blog).#1 Don't buy new products of any kind (from stores, web sites, etc.)#2 Borrow, barter, or buy used.

Every person who is a member of the Compact has taken the pledge to mean different things for themselves and has established their own set of guidelines and specific "exceptions" to the rules. For some, craft supplies are allowable expenses and not against the pledge. For me, that can not be the case as I buy stuff I never use. Others agree that the purchase of new canning goods in order to can home grown produce is an acceptable deviation from the pledge as it is a matter of health and safety. All agree that basic human needs and health care are always an exception.

So first, time line I plan on taking the pledge for one year. I plan on starting 12-1-06 and ending 11-31-07. I won't beat myself up if I fail, but I am going to try my best to succeed. I am doing this for the following personal reasons.

1. I am a habitual consumer. I buy things that I don't need without second thoughts as to why I purchase it. I seldom go to shopping malls, because if I do, I buy stuff. I balk at buying things that cost more than $100, but will easily spend twice that on a combined purchase.

2. In contradiction to reason number 1, I really don't like shopping; I was never much of a mall rat.

3. I believe that Singapore and Singaporeans are both caught up in the Shopping for hobby, conspicuous consumption, branded label society that values the name on your jeans or the label on your purse more than the person who wears the jeans or carries the purse. I have found that I tend to look down at people who are not smartly dressed now and I want to change that behavior.

4. My children expect gifts, all the time. "Mommy, I want you to buy that for me." They get it from TV (although we don't watch lots of TV) and they get it from their friends and classmates.

5. Our world is finite. Our resources are finite. I travel as part of my career so I want to save resources elsewhere. I want to leave a better environment for my children. Oh, and I finally saw an Inconvenient Truth. Go see it. Then see it again and then go to the website. After you see the movie don't tell me if you don't think similar thoughts about our world.

6. I want to give my children and my family a healthier life. I want to prepare more homemade foods, less processed foods, more healthful whole foods. I can do that buy supporting local businesses and farms.

7. After 8 years in Asia, (on what was to be a 5 year plan) we can see the end of the tunnel. I want to save funds to pay off our burdensome student loan debt and be debt free (except the mortgage on the rental home in the US) in 3 years. In order to achieve this VERY ambitious goal we need to apply 35-40% of our salary to loans every month. And, once we are debt free I want to start a retirement account. Yes, I am 40 and my retirement account is well, not very much. That is the disadvantage of working as a "contractor" and overseas at that. So, it is time to build the nest egg.

So that is why.

Now, here are my personal guidelines for the year.

1. Don't buy anything I don't need!
2. Buy items that I need used, second hand or free at places like Freecycle.
3. Exceptions for basic clothing needs including our trip home to the US in January where we stock up on Children's and adult sock, underwear and basic clothing items like shirts and pants for work.
4. Purchase as much local produce and products made in Singapore as possible. If not made in Singapore, produced as close as possible (Malaysia being the closest choice).
5. Borrow or Barter when possible to reduce purchases (even those used)
6. Exemptions for health care items, personal care items must be only basics and do not include "designer makeup" and the like.
7. Eat as many meals at home as possible including taking lunches and making homemade versions of many convenience foods in order to be more frugal and healthy.
8. Continue to declutter my home and follow the 7 Things ring.
9. Exceptions for the home office will include basic office supplies, postage and papers but will not include "trinkets or gadgets".
10. Exceptions for craft supplies is linked directly to the publication of the Book and will not include personal scrapbooking supplies for one year.

As one fellow compacting blogger stated, the goal is not to deprive myself or my family, but rather to simplify my life and step away from my consumer behavior. I do not require my spouse to take part in the pledge, but will help him when I can to reduce his footprint.

So, last few days in preparation for my big step. I will tell you how it goes.

Seven Things

I am coming late to this party, but I love this idea. Giving away or clearing our house of 7 things a week. This really fits with my overall goals for the year, so I will give it a shot.

I have already signed up for Freecycle, I regularly give away to the Salvation Army here, and I am a champ at recycling... so now, it is a perfect seague into my comming year.

So, here are the basic priniciples from the seven things project. The below is cribbed from her site and is my own modifications.

She started on 7/7/06. Since I am joining late, I intend to get rid of 7 things a week until the project ends on 7.7.07.

The guidelines: I will sell, donate, give away, or recycle seven things every week.

Every Saturday, I will post the Saturday Seven, list of the seven things I got rid of that week (along with pictures when I can) and an explanation of how long I've had these things, why I continued to hold them and where they went.


So, I am making my stack of Seven things for tomorrow!