Yes, it’s true. I actually get paid to come up with smarmy headlines like that!
However, my own efforts at alliteration notwithstanding, this post does contain some great info, and I would like to thank the wonderful Debra Moorhead for tagging me with what she is calling A Paperless Meme.
In short, Debra is asking us to discuss the many ways that we live without paper, and in today’s world of environmental care and awareness, I was more than happy to dish on how paper is something that my office largely does without!
By reading Debra’s original post and checking out the other people that she has tagged, you will undoubtedly get some great ideas about how to prune the paper habit. For me, I came up with a bunch of ways that personal progress can be effectively accomplished without cutting down a single tree:
1) eBooks – Far be it from me to tell anyone that they should give up the “curl up in a chair” value of a good old-fashioned book. However, thanks to websites like Mobipocket and software like eBook to Images, reading an eBook no longer means that you have to park it in front of your computer monitor for 8 hours at a time!
What’s that? You say you want some free eBooks? How about this one, or this one, or a whole pile of them right over here.
2) Audio Books – Are you a die-hard multi-tasker? If so, then audio books are for you! You can listen to them while you exercise, while you clean your house, while you drive, even while you take a shower or a bath!
Audio Books come in all sorts of cool subjects, and you can start by checking out Amazon.com’s list of personal development audio books, or just cruise on over to Audible.com to check out one of the largest collections of audio books available on the Internet.
3) Cellular Phones – What? Use your cell phone as a personal growth tool? Oh yes, Grasshopper!
I use my cell phone to send myself text messages when I think of important things that I want to remember. I use it to keep notes when I am away from my computer, and I even use it to record audio messages to myself if I don’t feel like doing all of that typing.
All of those practices take the place of writing things down on paper, and consequently having to keep track of those pieces of paper later on down the road.
4) Email – When was the last time you sat down and wrote a real letter? You know the kind I mean. You break out a piece of paper and a pen, toss the letter in a paper envelope, go stand in line at the post office to get a stamp, and then send it off to your recipient. Once the letter arrives, the recipient will then have to decide whether to keep that piece of paper for its enormous sentimental value, or just toss it in the trash, adding to the growing landfill problem that our environment already has.
Thanks, but no thanks. Email is faster, cleaner, and more easily archived. If you truly feel like giving someone a written record of the fact that you exist, send them a birthday or a Christmas card, or maybe even a present with a hand-written note. However, when it comes to frequent correspondence, save the time and the trees by sending that love electronically.
5) EverNote – In a word – awesome! This program not only has every feature you could possibly imagine for keeping written records of everything under the sun, but 95% of the features are fully functional even in the free version of the software.
I won’t list out the dozens of simple ways that EverNote can help you keep track of things in a paperless office while also maintaining a high level of productivity, but I will say this: only 2 programs start when my computer starts; my web browser, and EverNote. ‘Nuff said.
Kill Some Trees!
Yup, after all that great stuff I just said about having a paperless personal progress program, now I’m going to go right back and give you 3 good examples of things that are worth a tree or two (provided you plant 2 or 3 in their place, of course!).
Written Down Goals
No, not typed out. Not recorded with your voice recorder or on your cell phone. Not morphed into cutesy little graphics that decorate your computer or your website. WRITTEN DOWN – as in pen and paper. If you want to truly “turn on” your subconscious mind and make it into a 24-hour per day idea machine for attaining your goals, then write them down! Do it every day. In fact, do it a few times every day. Actually, just write an essay every day about your glorious goals. Once you’ve attained your goals, do it all over again with a new set of goals.
In fact, buy yourself a nice pen while you’re at it. You’re going to need it!
Gratitude Journal
If you aren’t writing down the things that you have to be grateful for every day, then guess what? You aren’t grateful enough! Did you wake up this morning? Yes? Then you have something to be grateful for. Every breath you take, every piece of food that you eat, every vision of beauty that you see – every everything that doesn’t actually kill you has value. Write down your Gratitude bits every day and watch as more things to be grateful for miraculously start showing up in your life!
Vision Board
Do you have pictures of the things that you want scattered throughout your home and/or office? Is your vision board so huge that you have to argue with your significant other about where to put it because he/she doesn’t want pictures of race cars, huge mansions, piles of money, and big-screen TV’s to be part of the decorative motif of your home? No? Do it, and then sit back and watch the fun begin as those things start to show up in your life. Then your significant other will REALLY have to rearrange the furniture!
Hi Aaron,
I love this one-liner:
“Did you wake up this morning? Yes? Then you have something to be grateful for.”
That is A-W-E-S-O-M-E!
I am so very grateful for your thoughts – keep up the great work!
Stephen Martile
Personal Development Made Simple
http://www.stephenmartile.com
AWESOME as always, Aaron, thanks so much! I especially needed the tip about the cell phone – I’m going to try that right now. And I loved what you added under “Kill Some Trees.” This is an issue I intend to blog about as well – some things are worth it and I just don’t get the same connection to my subconscious when I’m typing as when I’m writing things out. I guess all in all, this subject too, will come down to balance and perspective.
Again, thanks for participating, I appreciate you.
Excellent article, Aaron… and not just because of that fantastic ebook resource you linked to! 😉 (thanks!)
It’s really amazing, considering the amount of data we’re producing, just how little paper we actually use. It’s not going out of style anytime soon (my notebooks never crash or lock up on me), but eventually we’ll probably be done using paper altogether.
Downloading EverNote now to give it try. Thanks for that pointer as well!
Stephen,
Much obliged for the positive feedback, and I’m glad you enjoyed the post so much!
It is so easy for people to forget that just waking up at all is worthy of gratitude, and so many people wake up with so much more than just that. I for one believe in giving written thanks for it all! 🙂
Debra,
Absolutely my pleasure to participate, and thank you so much for the great idea!
Balance and perspective are indeed concepts that we should all keep in mind, and I was glad to be able to write about both sides of this coin in such a positive manner.
Thanks again for the inspiration, Debra!
Hi Aaron,
The digital age certianly has, in someways, helped the enviornment by reducing paper such as with email and ebooks.
Because of the convience I find that I send more emails than I ever did mail letters. It sure keeps communicating with friends miles away easy.
I still love to hold a book, but I also love ebooks since I can keep a bunch as attachments on my yahoo account that I can access anywhere. At least anywhere I have internet access.
Save a tree…hug a tree. 🙂
Dean,
I’m with you! My preferred source of reading books is to actually do that – read a real, 3-D, paper book! However, there are plenty of instances where an eBook is either easier, more practical, or simply more convenient, especially if you can read it on a PDA.
I use the eBook to Images program to transfer eBooks to my iPod, and since it has a backlight, I don’t even need to have light to read, which gives me more opportunities to read than I would otherwise have had.
For me audio works great, but otherwise I like the touch of “good old” paper. –John
Aaron, thank you so much for this wonderful new post. Upon reading it, I immediately grabbed my pen and starting writing out my gratitude list, goals and dusted off my vision board. It has gotten my day off to a very powerful beginning!
How many times have we been told that the daily execution of these very simple tasks will successfully engage and stimulate our subconscious minds to manifest the things we desire in our lives? Why do we continue to discount it and avoid its practice?
The answer is simple…we have become technological snobs and have turned our noses up to the rudimentary, tried and true methods of old, in our relentless pursuit of the next, greatest avenue for enlightentment and the attainment of our goals. While there is certainly nothing wrong with keeping up with the latest advances, let us not forget about the practice of the basics that is, after all, absolutely necessary for the manifestation process!
Intellectual “arrogance” has made fools of us all and it is high time that we got back to the basics and discover for ourselves why, for eons, this message about writing out our goals and gratitude list on a daily basis has been repeated over and over, again.
Thank you, Aaron…I got it. This is that day!
I love your writing, and only recently am I starting to do a bit of it myself. This post was great, paper can surely be a burden but it has its place and you gave it credit where credit is due.
I especially like the last three ideas, and in particular the ‘Vision Board’ with the goals and wants plastered all over the place, so they’re never out of mind. I’ve been using things like that for a while now and I noticed immediately a wonderful change in my motivation because I never felt lethargic… I never felt like procrastinating when everything I wanted to work for was RIGHT in front of my fingertips!
Keep up the great work, and I hope you don’t mind if I link to you on occasion! 😉
Lyman,
That’s a great point about notebooks never locking up or crashing! 🙂
Our world is certainly moving towards a much more paperless model, but I hope I’ll always be able to bust out a pen and paper if I really want to. 🙂
Thanks for providing that awesome collection of eBooks on your site, Lyman!
John,
I’m an audio person myself, as well. I’ve listened to FAR more educational or empowering audio files than movies, DVD’s, or online videos that I’ve watched.
Everyone has their own success system that works best for them, and as long as we use the ways for taking in and remembering the information that serves us, then we’ve accomplished the mission!
Hugh,
I am so glad that you got so much out of this post!
You are absolutely right that we are constantly looking to technology and the latest advances in order to put us on the right path, and to keep us there. The truth of the matter is that all of these things – whether highly advanced, or “old school” – are just tools for us to use.
The REAL accomplishment of our goals comes from consistently staying focused on them, and being grateful for every experience along the way.
Thanks so much for your comment, Hugh!
Jason,
I appreciate the positive feedback on my writing, and I’m glad you liked this post!
As you indicated, keeping those goals right in front of us is a powerful process because we never lose sight of what we are working towards.
It’s so easy to fall off track when our lives get busy, but by practicing daily acts of writing down and looking at our goals, it’s just not possible for us to forget what it that we’re supposed to be doing! 🙂