To go along with the other Spring cleaning posts, “Avoid March Madness: Time to De-Clutter and “Clean Up Desk Chaos”, here is another way to remove the unnecessary paper and electronic documents that are slowing your productivity down as well as increasing protection and legal risks. Now you have a solid foundation for starting your document management solution.
- Make sure that your policies regarding documents and records are universally clear and understood throughout the organization. Does everyone know the retention schedule? Are there any documents regarding past projects? Don’t keep documents for too long, it could cause legal problems.
- If you don’t have a strong retention policy, it’s time to write one. Identify what should be kept, how long it should be kept and how it should be secured.
- Look for ways to digitize documents and automate any processes. Cut down on paper in the office by not printing to begin with.
- Don’t keep sensitive information longer than necessary. Only keep it if there is a legitimate need. Can anyone access these documents? Add security measures if needed.
- To dispose of those documents correctly, make shredders available throughout the office and next to the printers/copiers. Keep those documents in a secure location until you shred them.
- Remove any digital photos that you don’t use, images that are blurry, etc. If you have DVDs and other CDs that don’t work, the time has come to throw them away. Contact a professional for this service.
- Add labels to digital files to make searching for them easier. Index the files into a centralized location.
If you are feeling overwhelmed with cleaning out your documents, contact InStream and allow us to help you get organized. We have a state of the art conversion laboratory, run by two experienced and skilled technicians. With over 60 years in the conversion service, we can create digital images of a variety of paper documents.