Going Digital with Paperwork, Movies, and Music
After squeezing everything into out suitcases for our return to the US, Martin and I were instantly relieved that there were a couple of things we wouldn’t have to be lugging back and forth. We began streamlining a couple of habits about a year ago to keep our back-and-forth lifestyle more organized. Not only have these efforts made it easy for us to have access to everything we need, but they’ve also meant less clutter in our home and at times, fewer wasted resources.
To start, we quit buying cds. They cost a few dollars more than downloading music from iTunes or Amazon, which was a little redundant since we download all of our music onto iTunes anyway. We imported all of the cds we already owned, and we haven’t looked back since. A lot of people hesitate to download music – don’t! If you back up your computer regularly, you won’t lose your music. From personal experience, iTunes is quick to help you with any music you’ve paid for and lost. Skipping cds meant we could also skip the cd players (not that those would be going into our suitcases!). It was just one less thing we had to buy.
And once we were hooked on downloading music, we made the switch to getting dvds online, too. I splurged and got Martin an Apple TV for his birthday last year, so all we have to do is plug this little box into a TV or computer, and we’ve got all of our favorite shows and movies. It’s really easy when we go to a friend’s house, and we never have to worry about scratched disks again. And if that weren’t enough reasons, dvds in the US and Europe run on different zones. So a dvd from Germany wouldn’t even be compatible in the US. I’m okay with buying two cookbooks – one for the US, and one for Germany, but not two copies of the same Star Trek Deep Space Nine.
As for books, we’ve been making some of those digital for a while, too. Audiobooks are a traveler’s dream. They’re cheaper than English books in Germany, and they don’t take up space on your shelf when you’re done. We’ve listened to stories together like Marley and Me and What We Eat on long flights and train rides. Our fix comes from Audible.com, and we know it’s working. My bookshelf is nice and slim.
We are scanning maniacs. Anything we might need gets scanned. Anything we don’t want to haul gets scanned. We know we can just print a page of our pdfs if we need to. (We haven’t yet.) We usually find that most of those papers we were so certain we’d need weren’t all that important after all. Glad we discovered it digitally!
Finally we make sure every paper is in its place before we go so if we need something that wasn’t scanned like a receipt or warranty, it’s really easy to walk our families through our filing system from thousands of miles away.
So there you have them – a nice handful of the tricks we use to make our house functional wherever we may be.
Speaking of which… see you in Denver tomorrow!
April 24th, 2009 at 6:09 am
Don’t you miss actually reading, though? I feel like audiobooks are okay once in a blue moon — like for driving on a long road trip — but to use them altogether instead of regular books? It’s not reading a book at all, it’s just listening to a story being told, and I feel like you miss out on the entire reading experience and the mental stimulation that goes along with it.
I know it’s not an option for you, but for any of your U.S. readers who may not have access to well-stocked nearby library but are looking for a better option that buying new books, I HIGHLY recommend PaperBackSwap — you post booked (paperbacks, hardbacks, and even audiobooks) and when someone wants one, you ship it out to them. No cost to participate, just the amount of postage, which is low since you can use media mail. Then, you receive a credit for sending a book, and you can order a book. When you’re done with the book you received, you send it to someone else, and the cycle continues. It’s kind of like a country-wide library, with no 3-week due date, and perfect for people like me who live in one location but have permanent residency elsewhere. Seriously, check it out! PaperBackSwap
April 24th, 2009 at 6:20 am
Ooh I like the scanning idea. I have begun to HATE all the paperwork that has accumulated in my filing cabinet. Stuff I hardly ever look at. How nice would it be to have it all on my computer?!
I also have an alternate suggestion to the audio books, though they are a fabulous idea too! Have you seen the kindle? It’s amazon’s wireless reading system. It’s about the thickness of a pencil, has 3 G wireless so you can download new books to it almost anywhere, and tt comes with 1.4 Kb of storage space, which will hold about 1500 books (just in case that’s not enough space amazon has a place to store your books on their servers too!) My friend has one and she took it with her when we went on travel once. It actually weighed less than the paperback book I was carrying!
BTW, I love your blog! I read it everyday! :)
April 24th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Isn’t technology wonderful. We have many cds but have been buying music on line and downlowading to itunes. Each person in the family has their ipod. We have a docking station ( Harmen kardon) which has great sound when you want to listen to your ipod music aloud.
thanks for visiting my blog
Have a great day!
Darlene
April 24th, 2009 at 9:51 am
I set Evernote to pick up all the documents I scan in. It indexes all the information and backs it up online. It has saved me more than once in the few months I’ve been using it.
I really like being able to access it from any computer. So if I was visiting MIL and DH was talking about a sketch he did for a project, I could just pull up my Evernote acct and print off a copy.
So far the free version is giving me plenty of space. I plan to start scanning in kids drawings too.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Great ideas Katie!! Thanks! Have a safe flight.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
I still have to do reading using books. Audio books do not work for the deaf and hearing impaired. I guess E-books would be an alternate. I have never tried it though so I don’t know what it is like. I think it would tire my eyes out more than a regular book. Same goes for listening to music. Can’t use the headphones to listen to music. So I am out of luck on that part too. When we watch videos, movies etc. I have to make sure they are closed captioned or I have no idea what is going on there. Many of the conviences for the hearing world does no good for the deaf world.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Hi Katie- Thanks for stopping by today! Love your ideas on saving space. You have really pulled out all the stops figuring out how to live small! Kudos to you, girl. Have a great weekend.
~Misti
April 24th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
I’m with you–we don’t buy CDs either except on itunes and the apple tv is fabulous.
April 25th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I like the scanning idea, but I’m afraid my old computer would crash (again) and it would all be lost. Ditto the music. My husband downloads tons of music, but also has soooooo many CDs. I want to get rid of them, but he is attached to them. I like your ideas and you are lucky that both you and Martin agree on them.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Apple TV sounds GREAT! :-) Super ideas for accumulating LESS! Which sounds really good right now since I have a ton of boxes all around me from moving. :-)
June 27th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
@Jen, you can pick up an external hard drive to back up your computer to. My DH & I each have one and mine is set to once a day backup – during the night when it won’t slow down what I’m doing, although it can be set to back up more frequently. Size: about 1.5″x4″x8″ so not very big.
When my computer crashed & died permanently (it was very sad) everything was on my external hard drive and was loaded onto the new computer and it was like nothing had changed, my email outbox still had the emails I had sent before it happened, my desktop picture, all my files, everything was there.
And if you ever needed to evacuate your place quickly they unplug in a second and you can grab & go and still have all your information with you.