Ask Flex / Drowning in paperwork
How do you get rid of paperwork?
Scan what you need to keep, let go of what you don't, and switch bills and statements to email so less paper shows up. Work through one small stack at a time, and check what has to be kept before anything gets shredded.
One small stack at a time.
Start with one stack
Ten minutes. One shoebox, not the whole closet.
Scan with your phone
On an iPhone, the Notes app scans a page into a PDF.
Name it so you can find it
The date first, then what it is.
Stop it at the source
Turn on email statements for bills and bank letters.
I'm clearing out a paper pile. Here's what's in it, with private numbers left out: [list the kinds of paper, like bank statements, old bills, manuals, letters]. For each kind, tell me what I should check before I let it go, and where the official rule would be if there is one. Don't guess at a rule. Then give me a simple way to name scanned files so I can find them later.
Before you paste work stuff into any AI, check what your company allows.The Paper Pile Word Search
Nine office words are hiding in the pile, plus one bonus word. A two-minute breather.
Find the words Learn this in the Lab, free
A free group where you learn to use Claude for the repeat parts of your job: email, reports, forms. Start with a 15-minute chat that maps what Claude can do in your job.
- Free
- No coding
- Works in Claude
How long should you keep mail?
Most of it, not long. A few kinds, years. Flex has a page on it.
What if I keep avoiding paperwork?
Shrink the first step. One envelope, opened, counts. Flex has a page on it.
What if I'm drowning in junk mail?
Turn it off at the source so there's less to sort. Flex has a page on it.
Want to hand this to Claude?
Start in the Lab with the free 9-to-5 Job Triage: a 15-minute chat that maps what Claude can do in your job. Everything inside is free.