8 Things You Need to Know about Managing Your Personal Electronic Information

In this day and age, we are faced with more and more electronic receipts, contracts, bills, etc as the paper ones continue to be phased out. However, what about that garage full of old documents you’ve been collecting for the past twenty years?

As we start to integrate personal electronic information and hard copy personal information, here are eight important things you should know. This list isn't intended to be the final and definitive list. There are lots of other creative ideas that should be considered as well. It's not intended to be a "perfect" list either. Trying to create a "perfect" system will forever keep you from creating a workable system.

This post, for example doesn't address the question of those thousands and thousands of "priceless" digital photos on your hard drive. They aren't backed up, are they? Admit it. It's OK. It's the first step on the road to recovery. 

How to Management Your Personal Electronic Information

1. Know What You Need to Keep and Why.

   Whether you are thinking about paper or electronic personal records, most people tend to save more than they need to. So the first step in developing a personal information plan is to identify what needs to be saved in the first place. In the business world, these kinds of plans are usually called retention schedules.

   Here are some of the basic assumptions you should use when it comes to thinking about what needs to be saved.

   Very basically anything that you currently have, and paid a lot of money for (home, car, large appliances), you should still have the mortgage, receipt, etc. Health documents--same deal. Bank statements or credit card statements, however, you can toss after a year. So go ahead and throw out that bank statement you've had since 1982.

2. Get Rid of as Much Paper as You Can.

   With information about retention schedules in hand, head to those paper files cluttering up your office and basement. Go through all your paper files with an eye toward your new retention schedules. Get rid of EVERYTHING YOU DO NOT NEED. Whether this means sending the paper off to a professional shredding company or sitting in front of your own personal shredder for hours upon hours feeding paper into the “instant confetti maker,” it’s important to destroy unneeded documents that could be compromising to your personal security.

   

3. Decide What to Do With the Paper That Remains.

   Now that you have the paper down to something more manageable, think about whether it is worth digitizing everything (a fancy word for scanning) or just leaving it as is. In the business world, this is often called backfile conversion. Organizations frequently get so caught up with trying to do something about the past that they never get on with managing the future.

   So decide how you want to approach this question of backfile conversion. What you actually decide is probably less important than actually making a decision.

   You should also decide at this point whether there are some core paper documents that would be better off stored off-site, say in a safe deposit box (and likely scanned as well).

4. Clean out your digital garage.

   You may have cleaned the dozens of boxes that were cluttering up your garage for years, but if your computer and email inbox have become the new “storage bin,” then you need to do some spring cleaning. Going through your email inbox to organize mail and delete items that are no longer necessary will not only improve your email system's capacity and speed of operation, but it will also make your digital workspace easier to navigate through. This same philosophy should be applied to all your personal records. Keep your external hard drive up to date and discard old, outdated documents.

5. Create a plan to organize your personal electronic information.

   So, your file cabinets in your home office are now mostly empty. What next?

   An important factor to think about when digitizing documents is organization. This means creating folders on your computer and filing documents in a way that you are actually able to navigate through it. To start with, simple is better than complex. Just keep saying this over and over again.

   For example, you might start with folders structured around the document types mentioned in point 1 above. The point here is that for a simple home filing system, your folder structure should match your retention requirements. This will eventually allow you to get rid of information by date once it is no longer needed. This might mean a top-level folder with names like:

   • Accident Reports/Claims
   • Bank Statements
   • Checks (canceled)
   • Contracts (expired)
   • Contracts (current)

6. Invest in a personal scanner with an automatic document feeder.

   Just do it. If you don't, waiting around for a flatbed scanner will drive you crazy. Think of it as a small investment in a paperless world.

   A nice side benefit of a scanner with an ADF is that you can amaze your friends by scanning old photos at like 10 per minute. You can be popular with your friends by loaning your supercool ADF scanner to them when they are creating photobooks for their relatives to celebrate some special occasion.

   Once you have the right scanner in place and your basic file system in place, make a commitment to scan every piece of paper that comes in as soon as it comes in. Commit also to making an immediate searchable PDF of every electronic piece of information that comes in that needs to be saved.

7. Don't neglect network security.

   Now that you are digitizing your personal information, take another look at those pesky wifi settings. Is access passworded? Again, be honest. Most people don't bother. You can tell by just taking your laptop out into the neighborhood and walking around and watching the available wifi networks change. Note how few of them are secure.

8. Invest in off-site back-up.

   Backing up to an external hard drive sitting next to your computer is all well and good for protecting against hardware crashes, but does nothing to protect you if the house burns down or the pipes leak or…

   Off-site encrypted back-up is usually available for a small monthly fee. It operates in the background. You don't even need to think about it. An example is Carbonite, but there are lots of other companies out there. Just do it.