I once had an excellent tutor for an admissions test who told our class that it was his goal to help us do as little thinking as possible (i.e. reduce stress) while maximizing our score.
This might sound like he wanted us to just do things the easy way. Actually, that’s exactly right, and there’s no shame in it. In a way, the philosophy of that tutor I had matches the philosophy behind document management software. At work, you want to complete all your tasks with the greatest results in the least amount of time with the least amount of stress. There’s no shame in that.
Like Tylenol, document management software can provide relief from headaches, but without the side effects. It makes work easier by allowing you to share data instantaneously from anywhere in the world.
This offers much more than what email collaboration gives you; it’s the ability to see the input of your colleagues in real-time on a document that you are working on in a group. You can monitor the progress as it happens, helping you to make sure collaboration isn’t limited to a line of cubicles.
Document management software helps you stay organized and eliminate clutter. If you have thousands of files to organize for hundreds of clients or notes extending back several years, you need to have files that are easily searchable.
When you need to find a certain sentence used among thousands of pages, using a physical file cabinet is obviously impractical. As we mentioned in our last blog post, we have story after story about how one of our customers was able to avoid a messy situation because they had records about their transactions, taxes, and communications.
Another advantage that document management software provides is the ability to backup numerous files that you already have on your hard drive, flash drives, and CDs.
This can provide a huge boost to productivity because you don’t need to fumble through numerous flash drives. My dad had a mug on his desk that he filled with flash drives. I would give him a hard time and he knew it was slowing him down. Since then, he’s relied a lot more on the Cloud, which has helped him avoid panning for that tiny gold speck of data.