It is almost a Zen-like thing to me. Anything that comes across my desk that I may need to keep for the future I scan into Evernote. The OCR function within ScanSnap is what makes this useful. Scanning is one thing, but to scan and make each document searchable by keyword is just too good to be true. This functionality gives you the ability wherever you are to see if you have paid your renewal for something, or when you booked a plane ticket, what your kids’ report card was for History last year etc.

The other problem my wife and I have is that our bank accounts are in joint names and we get double copies of all bank documents and statements. By scanning to Evernote, we can file these statements and throw out all the pages we’ve received knowing that if the accountant needs something, we can quickly search by account number and get only the relevant pages. It takes that situation where one page is missing out of 24 and you have to run around finding it out of the equation. Very neat.

We bought a ScanSnap for home and another for work and linked them to one Evernote account. This really helps with work documents that come into the house. We simply scan and throw out the originals. When we get to work, we can simply print them if needed or enter the relevant amounts off the screen into the accounting software.

We love our ScanSnap and with both our daughters away at college, any mail that comes to them mid-term we scan and email. This is great for things like voter registration and university administrative matters. We love it!

Rob