One of the first steps in organizing your home should be document management. Most of us have a variety of financial records, receipts and other important papers sitting around which need to be preserved for some amount of time, be it tax time or indefinitely.

But keeping up with all of this paperwork can quickly become overwhelming and frustrating without a solid filing system that not only preserves your documents but also makes them easy to locate at a later date. Nowadays, most people are moving to an electronic storage and filing system which has many benefits over the standard office filing cabinet.

For electronic document management you will first and foremost need some type of scanner. The best kind to buy would be a document scanner but if your scanning needs are only occasional you may be able to get away with a portable scanner or a standard flatbed device. In addition to speed and better doc handling, the other benefit of buying a document scanner over the other types is the associated software which usually has organizational features built into it. Otherwise you will need to develop your own filing method or identify an online system to do it for you.

The first step to establishing an electronic filing system is to start the scanning process. Even if you are familiar with how to scan document I still recommend you read through your devices manual to see exactly what it can or cannot do. Most document scanners allow for output in multiple formats like PDF and Excel so it is better to know what you want ahead of time rather than realizing you should have done things differently 50 documents in.

If your scanner comes with an organizational system within the software then you should use it. Having an electronic copy of all of your documents is great but even better is having a way to find a particular document later. As with spending time reading the scanner manual, thinking about the best organizational method for your documents prior to scanning is time well spent.

Even after you have scanned all of your paperwork you may decide that you want to keep the originals as a backup for some period of time. Since you can now access all of the data electronically you don't need to store the originals in a terribly organized or accessible place as they are simply there as a last resort.

But if you feel comfortable having just electronic copies, make sure that you do have a backup of your digital files somewhere, like on an online service or a separate device. Just in case something were to happen to your computer's hard drive you want to be prepared.

Trust me, if you spend the time to scan and be well-organized with your scanned documents then you will really see the benefit of this type of a system. Document location and retrieval will be much easier if you take the time to logically organize your images and files from the start. This involves not only naming the image files as you scan but also naming the file folders you will deposit those scans into on your computer's hard drive.

Going paperless is the way of the future. What are you waiting for?