Paperless in a Paper Centric Biz Part I – My Relationship With Paper

 I used to work for Kinko’s (now FedEx Office).  I worked for Kinko’s back in the day when it was a hippy-dippy-dog-on-the-floor-copy-shop.  We compiled (copied) course texts for the local university and other education institutions.  We also made copies of people’s stuff – lots and lots of copies.  I tell you this because I know paper.  I know how it feels, how it smells.  I can still feel the heft of a ream of Xerox branded 20 lb, xerographic paper with an 85 brightness.  I am fondly nostalgic of those sensations just as I am fondly nostalgic of cracking open a new book purchased off the shelf of an actual bookstore. I’m really dating myself here, but remember how cool to the touch and delightfully aromatic the old ditto duplicates we used in school were? It may seem weird but I have a deep love of paper – and I think our society does, too.

It used to be that when something was committed to paper, a kind of legitimacy was created.  This thought, this idea became tangible.  It moved from the realm of the abstract to the concrete and could be shared by making copies of it and then saved eternally for posterity.  It is hard to believe that I’m using the past-tense to describe a business that remains a multi-billion dollar industry.

I think one of the most common reasons people of my generation hold on to paper (yes, I’m talking primarily about baby-boomers, here) is because of this sense of possession and ownership.  I own a book.  It sits on my shelf.  I can reference it at my convenience.  Example:  I subscribed to National Geographic and would often read them cover to cover.  I kept them – for years.  Why?  This is going to sound really shallow but in some ways a bookshelf filled with NatGeo mags and my English Lit books was an outward expression of my intellectual accomplishments (almost like a diploma).  I think I was trained by my parents and grandparents to do this as books and paper and the furniture in which we stored them were some of their most valued and prized possessions.  Financial institutions and the government perpetuate this idea of legitimacy through the tradition of hard-copy record retention as a means to prove who you are and what you own and how much (or how little) taxes you owe.

So what does this have to do with going paperless?  From a psychological standpoint, I think many people identify busy-ness with paper.  The more paper on my desk, the busier I must be and the busier I look to others.  Again, the presence of paper legitimizes what I do.  I was always a bit distrustful (and slightly envious) of those who kept their desks completely free of clutter and paper.  In my mind, they didn’t have enough to do if their desks remained that neat and tidy all the time.  Thankfully, I’ve learned to get over that. 

I think it also has to do with mastering technology and trusting in electronic and cloud-based storage systems.  My father-in-law is in his late 70’s.  He knows how to search the internet and read emails.  It took him years to learn how to create an email.  All he ever did was just reply to people who sent him emails.  When he finds things on the internet that he thinks my wife and I might find interesting…he prints them and hands them to us.  I KNOW, RIGHT?!!!!  I’ve shown him several times how he can just email us the link to the site he is referencing but he refuses to do it.  He doesn’t trust it.  Not only does he print stuff off the web for us and other family members – he prints stuff off the web for himself and files it…reams and reams and reams of paper every year.  Paperless isn’t even part of what he sees as a valuable pursuit.  The value is in the paper itself.  Although my father-in-law could be viewed as an extreme case, if you’re having trouble going paperless, I think it’s worth exploring where your own relationship with paper stems from.

If you’re interested in the steps I’ve taken to go paperless, please check out Part II of this Blog by clicking here.