How to create a better office environment with furniture, supplies, and products

I recently mentioned the “paperless office” in a post I did about the need for office computer printer ink. 

I've seriously considered a paperless (or at least less paper filled) office before but now a super great post, Paperless Office Experiment, at Productivity501 got me thinking more about if this is a possibility or simply a wild dream.

Personally, I’d love a paperless office but I have three issues:

1. When it comes to keeping records I’m ultimately the most anal person you’ll meet. I’ve got two computers, a great pda, and far too many file cabinets. Which system do I trust the most? None of them. My pda has blitzed me before losing valuable information (even my high quality pda) it just happens. Computers, well, we all know that they’re unstable, and all it would take to get rid of my file cabinet files is a match, mold, or more rare a flood or earthquake. (Not so rare when I lived in Humboldt).
2. I like paper and so do you. For whatever reason I like my homemade, old school print-out weekly schedule better than my pda calendar and far better than say, Outlook. I like to manually cross stuff off. By “so do you” I mean almost everyone else in the waking world. Case in point. Today in the mail I got my social security yearly review deal. Was it on a disc? A computer, did they send me a website link? Nope it was printed on paper. Almost no one is willing to send you stuff electronically. My son’s birth certificate is on paper, my magazine articles – paper, my old 401k info from when I was a company girl; paper. I could scan this stuff. But again, don’t trust technology.
3. Paper, even recycled paper is fairly inexpensive and more recyclable than other technology right now. Notice the “right now.” Did you catch my biodegradable laptop post? That is the future folks but the future alas is just that. Right now I can recycle paper and pretty easily. I can also buy recycled paper making my paperfull office less of an eco-burden.

With all that said I still want a paperless office. Here’s why.

1. As much as I like paper, it piles up and drives me insane. Sometimes I feel like my whole life is spent sorting.
2. Paper is a drain on natural resources. If you used recycled paper that’s far better but most people don’t.
3. It would be so much easier to streamline business to business communications. Mark Shead at Productivity501 mentions this, “One of the things that has hindered the adoption of paperless technologies is the fact that they concentrate on the “paperless office” instead of focusing on a “paperless workflow,” which is a very good point. If I want to send something like a W9 I can’t always send it by Adobe because not everyone (for whatever reason) accepts the filled in form. They want it signed and filled in by me. I fill it in, scan it, save it, and send it. Too many steps. A good paperless office would theoretically cut down on this.

Anyhow, this post is getting long. But I’m going to keep thinking about this and you should too. What is your office doing to streamline, cut waste, and be more productive in a shorter amount of time? Is becoming paperless or at least using less paper part of your plan. It is part of mine no matter how much of a paper advocate I may seem to be. I’d really prefer this route.

I’ll be back in the future with more ideas and thoughts about this. I’ll even start a paperless office category so we can keep track. What are your thoughts on this?