About two months ago, I moved into a new building. Emptying my file cabinet of its seemingly endless supply of legal pads, I realized two things. First, I was using a lot of paper. Second, somewhere in that blur of yellow and blue lines, there were probably a few good ideas. There were probably a few important notes I'd scribbled down during a meeting and promptly forgotten about.

I decided then that I would try an experiment. I would not allow any paper in, on, or near my desk. If I needed paper, I would have to stand up and walk across TechSoup Headquarters, get a single piece of paper from the supply room, and walk back to my desk.

The first step was easy. Google Notebook has replaced the legal pad as the place where I turn to jot down a quick note between meetings. When I have time later on, I deal with the note or move it to the appropriate section. There's still far more chaff than wheat, but the search feature makes it easy to find what I'm looking for. And by using the share feature, I can keep coworkers up-to-date on a project's status or get input from them.

But I still found myself running to the supply room a few times per day. I needed to draw. My legal pads hold triangles representing organizational structure and crude attempts at project flow charts. I draw to explain ideas to myself. Enter Dabbleboard.

Of course there are many online whiteboards, but Dabbleboard stands alone in its ability to make my scribbles look good. When I draw a triangle, Dabbleboard recognizes the shape and creates a real triangle. When I draw an arrow, it makes an arrow. With a few tweaks, a quick sketch can be cleaned up and dropped into a PowerPoint slide. I haven't had reason yet to collaborate with others in Dabbleboard, but it looks very easy. It only requires you to send your colleagues a URL; they don't even need to create Dabbleboard accounts.

After two months, I've decided to call my experiment a success. I'm using a fraction of the paper I was using before, and without changing my habits or style of note-taking, I've become more organized and can collaborate and communicate with others much more effectively. My old legal pads have settled into my new file cabinet, waiting for the next move.

For some more serious thoughts on paper use and conservation, check out Jim's recent roundup of paper statistics.

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Discuss This in Our Forums

How many notebooks do you have in your file cabinet? What tools do you use to keep your notes efficient and useful? Do you use any note-taking or Whiteboard sites to collaborate with your colleagues? Share your tips with others in this Emerging Technologies forum discussion.