I haven't been this excited about an organizing tool in a long, long time. Most organizing products are minimally helpful, but this thing makes me smile every single day. I got a ScanSnap S510 Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Scanner for Christmas, and it has completely changed how I deal with paper.
It is basically a tiny scanner that can handle huge amounts of paper at a time, produce high quality images, and it even allows you to search within your documents with the bundled OCR software. It takes up very little room on the desk, so you don't have to haul it out every time you want to scan something. Just insert the paper and push "go" and you're off to the races!
I use it for incoming paper that I would like to keep around for a while but that I don't need in the original (e.g. utility bills). Then if I ever need to look up something I can find it in seconds and it is already scanned so I can send it as an email attachment immediately.
I also love it for all my graduate school readings. I have a huge filing cabinet full of photocopied articles that I need to keep for reference, but I hate that they take up so much room. With this scanner, I am slowly whittling down the pile so that I can have all my readings in searchable PDF form, AND I can even make back-up copies. Pretty soon I can trade in my huge filing cabinet for a couple of DVDs, and that just makes me say "aaaaahhhhh."
If you have a lot of catalogs cluttering up your home, you can just plop in the pages that interest you and keep them in a folder on your desktop, leaving you free to ditch the originals. This probably will also cut down on your impulse buying from catalogs, which means less "stuff" for your home!
I'm sure there are tons of other uses for this handy machine that I haven't even thought of yet, but using it even just for these uses has practically eliminated paper clutter from my home. I mean it. I have no piles, no giant tickler files, no bits of scrap paper on the fridge. It is fantastic!
Of course, this does not come for cheap. It is listed in the US at $495, but we got it in Japan for about $400. Still, that's a hefty price to pay, but for me it was worth it to eliminate paper from my home.
This doesn't mean you can just dump all your scans into a single folder on your computer and be done with it, but organizing those folders is a topic for another day.
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