I have too much stuff, we all have too much stuff, and with this in mind I have been working to fix my situation. I used to have well over a thousand Cd’s (now the equivalent rests on a couple external hard drives), I used to have hundreds of DVD’s (their equivalents are also resting on those same drives). These simple actions have cleared out a lot of the volume and weight of the totality of my ‘stuff’, but there is still more I can do.
As with most people, over time, my life was starting to take on more and more complexity, and much of it related to things which shouldn’t have carried that much oppressive weight upon my life. Consequently, I have done some pre3tty simple and commonplace things like migrate much of the paperwork, documentation, bills, and invoices into the realm of the computer/internet world. This is often the stopping place for many people, and to be honest, this is a good place to stop, in that to migrate all of your banking and credit cards onto the internet certainly is convenient. I decided to go a bit further…
I ran across a few articles online about ‘going paperless’. IF you look today, you might find hundreds of blogs and websites covering this simple idea. I even found a blog which covered the idea of making a school classroom (presumably a high school classroom…) into a paperless environment. In any case, I have read through many of these sites, and have learned a lot of the tactical skills involved in becoming more adept in this quest.
Here is where I start to differ from some of these well intended people. If you look, you will see lots of almost religious paeans toward how ‘going paperless’ will save some trees… This seems to be the primary, and all encompassing reason for doing this… I don’t get it. Since the trees used for pulp paper production are part of a well regulated industry, ‘going paperless’ for this reason is about the same as going breadless in order to save some of the wheat plants…
I am getting into a more and more paperless existence simply because it is making my life better, simpler, and allows me to have more control over all of the little documents which are part of everyone’s life, as well as do rid myself of all of what would otherwise be a lot of clutter. I am a bit agnostic about saving some trees, at least in the sense that the actions I have just alluded to. Otherwise, I am for trees, I even celebrate Arbor Day (it was on June 1st…). Beyond the tree issue, I have succeeded in ridding myself of other things.
Yesterday I mentioned that sooner or later almost every piece of media we own will ultimately be rendered into some form of digital data. I am working to get there as quickly as I can, since there are a number of real, practical advantages. First of all, for me, is the idea that with all of these forms of data at your fingertips, that there will be some emergent forms of using these differing forms of information and entertainment.
This can come in many forms, for instance, even now; I have access to all of the documents which contain all of my ‘important information’ on every computer I own. They all are automatically kept in synchronization and allow me to have access to my car insurance, or my college transcripts at a moment’s notice (anywhere).
In the near future I might be able to do this will almost all of my music, movies, magazines, blogs, and books…all on the same platform. So, as a few questions to throw out there…would this make all of one’s personal media less valuable or more valuable (by virtue of its ubiquity)? Will there be some new forms of using all of these different forms of information (read: somewhere beyond mash-ups…)? Will this lead to more and more people taking on a more ‘peripatetic’ personal style?
http://www.impactlab.com/2010/04/15/going-paperless-is-not-as-green-as-we-might-think/
http://unclutterer.com/2008/02/18/going-paperless/
http://lifehacker.com/5330558/the-complete-guide-to-going-paperless
http://smallnotebook.org/2008/09/24/going-paperless/
