Doing the paperwork is actually no fun for anyone! But let's be honest - that's not a good argument for the growing pile of paper on your desk. You have made a lot of plans for the new year: More overview of your documents, more order, no missed appointments and deadlines. Understandably, you don't want to invest more time. So why not do your paperwork differently this year? We'll tell you how you can archive documents more clearly and communicate with authorities more efficiently.
Even if you file your paper documents neatly in a Leitz folder - documents from online shops and telephone providers are almost exclusively digital. Invoices are in the customer centre, in the email inbox or on the hard drive of the PC - that's chaos!
We advise you:
Your documents are in different places. If you are looking for documents for a tax certificate or an application, or if you want to react spontaneously to enquiries, you first have to comb through files and your PC. Scan your papers and save them as a PDF or photo together with your digital documents. The advantage: You have all your documents in one place and can see at a glance which documents you have. You save yourself the time-consuming search in different storage systems. In addition, you already have a copy of everything and are well prepared in case of loss.
Regardless of which security standards you prefer and what your technical equipment is like. You should find a way to access your digital documents from anywhere and at any time. Save your forms on your mobile device, on a USB stick or on a secure cloud service of your choice. This way you can react quickly when you need to spontaneously forward documents or provide important information - whether you are on holiday, at work or at home.
With so many documents, chaos can easily arise - but it doesn't have to be that way! So that you can quickly find a certain document again, name your documents with meaningful terms, such as "contract", "mobile phone" as well as the date and the provider name. In addition, it makes sense to create folders in which you collect the respective documents on certain topics or keywords.
Wherever possible, you should submit your documents digitally. Many health insurance companies and some authorities now only need a scan of the original. Just ask the respective authorities whether you can also send the document as a PDF by email. Sharing digital documents by email or via a shared cloud link is much cheaper and faster than sending a letter.
Set up a fixed date for filing new documents. That way, the pile of received papers won't grow too much in the first place. Keep track of your dates and deadlines for contract cancellations and payments. Use reminder functions for this. This ensures that you remember the date, even if you don't have the calendar at hand.
A hard disk and other storage media can break. Protect yourself from data loss and make regular backup copies at short intervals. This can be done, for example, on an external hard drive. Either do it manually and set a fixed date for it. Or you can use professional backup software. Basically, when you tidy up, name or copy your digital documents, be attentive to what you are doing. Then you can avoid accidentally deleting or overwriting documents.
