Comment by L3viathan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by L3viathan | Hacker News Reader

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I use paperless-ng to go mostly paperless, but I keep the paper:

I bought a simple self-incrementing stamp, which I stamp all incoming documents with. When adding the document to paperless-ng, I set the document's number accordingly, and finally I file the paper away purely sorted by ID (so I have a (physical) folder titled 1-101, one 102-231, etc.). When I need the original to a document, the lookup is very fast, and when I know I won't need the original ever again, I don't stamp it and tag it as "digital only" in paperless-ng.

Although I have not used paperless-ng (extensively) so far, I have been using almost the same method for many years and could not be happier. When I receive a document, I do the same every time:

  1) Stamp it with the pagination stamp.
  2) Scan it.
  3) Dump the scan into a single large digital folder.
  4) Dump the original into a physical folder (titled as you do).

It relieves the mental burden of categorising since you do the same every time – stamp, scan, dump. And repeat. In the very rare case you need to find the original it's also superior, thanks to OCR and the sequential numbering being represented on the scan.

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