In Part Two of this series, we examine your document scanning “workflow”.

A workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps. (Wikipedia)

And when you’re going paperless, you need to embrace a systemized approach to storing your documents. A scanner can’t do it alone.

In Part One of this series, we examined scanning in a document using ScanSnap Manager’s Profiles. Let’s say we set up our profile, and scanned all of our documents, which are now tucked away with automatically generated names into our “staging area” folder called “Awaiting Filing” in an easy to work with location, such as the Desktop.

Quick Look on Mac OS X Snow Leopard is the key ingredient here, because it quickly allows you to see your file without opening it in an application. Using Quick Look, your arrow keys, and your Enter key, you’ll be able to fly through your scanned files, rename them, and file them to your liking.

(Windows users, I’m not sure what to recommend, but a quick search turned up something called maComfort which emulates the Quick Look functionality).

Steps:

1) Open your “staging area” folder – in our example “Awaiting Filing” on the Desktop.

2) Enable Quick Look by clicking on the eye icon.

3) Use the arrow keys to move between documents, and hit Enter when you’re on a document to trigger the rename function.

NOTE:  Consistent naming convention are a must. My files are named “year-month-day description”, i.e. “2010-03-08 Bank Statement.” For words I type over and over again, like “receipt”, “statement”, or “invoice”, I use TypeIt4Me to speed up the process and eliminate errors.

4) Once you’ve named all your files, open up two Finder windows. Keep the “Awaiting Filing” window on the left and a working window on the right. Drag your renamed scanned files one by one into their target destination.

You’re done!

Have other paperless workflow techniques? Post ‘em as comments. We’d love to hear them.

If you’re not a user and devotee already, invest in one of the Fujitsu ScanSnap series of document scanners. I can vouch for ‘em myself.

A Fujitsu ScanSnap is like Paris: when people talk about it, you can’t imagine it living up to the hype. But when it’s your turn to take a look, all expectations are completely surpassed.

Here’s a tip for those using a ScanSnap: stop using the Quick Menu. That’s for noobs (techie for newbies). Use Profiles instead.

In ScanSnap land, a Profile is just a named group of settings. Nothing to be frightened of. Profiles allow you to scan a document and have it saved and named automatically in a location of your choosing.

This facilitates an efficient workflow which will allow you to scan and file a big stack of documents in no time at all. We’ll look at Profiles in Part 1 and the workflow in Part 2.

The following instructions are for the Mac: (any Windows user who would like to add their own instructions in comments or as a guest post lemme know).

1) Turn off Quick Menu by right-clicking the ScanSnap icon in the Dock, and unchecking “Use Quick Menu”.

2) Launch the ScanSnap Settings window by right-clicking the ScanSnap icon in the Dock, and selecting “Settings…”.

3) Add a new profile by clicking on the “Select a Profile” drop down, and choose “Add Profile…” Choose a good name, like “Legal Docs”. You can create different profiles for different needs.

4) You’ll see a bunch of tabs, from Application on the left to Compression on the right. For the purposes of scanning typical office documents, here’s my suggestions.

5) Under the Application tab, select Preview. The reason for this choice is that Preview loads quickly and is a lightweight app, unlike Adobe Reader.

6) Under the Save tab, choose a folder to dump the new file to. I like to put them into a folder called “Awaiting Filing” on the desktop. Think of this folder as a “staging area”. Once you scan your docs in, you will process them (in Part 2 of this series).

7) Next, click on the Scanning tab. For “Image quality”, select “Best (Slow)”. For “Color mode”, select “Auto Color Detection”. For Scanning side, select “Duplex Scan(Double Sided)”.

Once you get comfortable creating and working with Profiles, you can create different ones for different purposes, i.e. scanning in color photographs or your kid’s artwork.

You know how much time and effort goes into maintaining your paper files? Those days are over for many, and can be over for you too!

This webinar is sponsored by Rocket Matter and Fujitsu and is free to attend. Plus, we’ll be raffling off a ScanSnap S300 to a lucky attendee! Fujitsu scanners are considered the best, and we thank our friends there for this exciting promotion.

Date: Thursday, September 24th, 2009
Time: 12PM – 1PM EST

Space is limited! Click here to reserve your Webinar seat.

Description:
Rocket Matter and Fujistu are proud to host a free webinar on How to Become Paperless, hosted by Ernie Svenson and Dane Ciolino.

Lawyers are increasingly challenged to keep track of information that is growing at unprecedented rates. The emergence of digital information has only served to increase that challenge. Lawyers are learning that processing information stored in paper is costly, cumbersome and exceedingly inefficient. The solution is to transition to a paperless practice, which is challenging—but not as challenging as trying to manage both paper and digital information.

What You’ll Learn:

• You’ll discover which paperless transition strategies work, and why.
• You’ll find out how to create and use digital signatures.
• You’ll understand what you can do now to start processing digital information faster and more reliably.
• For those of you on Twitter, follow our conversation with the hashtag “#rmwebinar”!

Your hosts will be practitioners Ernie Svenson and Dane Ciolino:

Ernie Svenson is a solo practitioner in New Orleans, Louisiana who started the well-known ‘Ernie the Attorney‘ blog in 2002. Shortly after that he also started ‘PDF for Lawyers‘ to provide tips on how attorneys can use PDFs in the practice of law. He has been completely paperless since 2000, and since then has taught many legal seminars on how to make the transition to a completely digital workflow.

Dane S. Ciolino serves as the Alvin R. Christovich Distinguished
Professor of Law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. His
current scholarly and teaching interests at Loyola include
Professional Responsibility, Criminal Law and Contracts.

Professor Ciolino graduated cum laude from Rhodes College in 1985, and
magna cum laude from Tulane Law School in 1988, where he was inducted
into Order of the Coif and selected as Editor in Chief of the Tulane
Law Review. After graduation, he clerked for the United States
District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, and practiced law at
Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York City, and Stone Pigman Walther
Wittmann LLC, in New Orleans. Since joining the faculty at Loyola,
Professor Ciolino has served as reporter to the Louisiana State Bar
Association Ethics 2000 Committee, as chairperson of a Louisiana
Attorney Disciplinary Board Hearing Committee, and as a member of the
following Louisiana State Bar Association committees: the
Professionalism Committee, the Lawyer & Judicial Codes of Conduct
Committee, and the Ethics Advisory Service Committee.

Together, Ernie and Dane have started a company called ‘DigitalWorkflow CLE’ to teach lawyers everything about becoming paperless. Their website is atwww.digitalworkflowCLE.com.