I just liberated myself. I have never done this before and I can’t tell you why. I hope it works out. If it doesn’t, I will just have to go back to my old ways. I hope no one catches me. After all, I am the DigiDame.

For the first time ever, I scanned all the paper work I usually take with me on a trip. I used the Scanner Pro app by Readdle on my iPhone. I am sure it is available on all smartphones. It is also available on the iPad.  I never used a scanner before. Not even the cutting edge, super-duper one in my office.

I leave today for Croatia. Before today, I would pack all my papers in the same carryon bag as my cosmetics. It didn’t matter how heavy it was, I had to take every last piece of paper. I didn’t want to leave home without all of my reference materials; just in case I needed to act on something while I was away.

This has been going on forever. I go nowhere without my lists. I always carry a spiral pad with me and take notes for both personal and business reminders. There is no way that I can take care of all the things I do without jotting things down. I speak to so many people in a hour, it would be impossible for me to remember all of the promises I make.

It is also impossible to take notes digitally. I just can’t type that fast. Pencil and paper are the most efficient, flexible and easy to deal with. I should know. I am in the service business and my job is to get things done. My lists have lists. Some days I look at my lists before I go to sleep and see 68 Things To Do. Multiply that by every work day and you can see why I am a busy all the time.

One could ask why I don’t just transcribe my daily notes into any of the fabulous apps that are available just for this purpose? That answer lies somewhere between why I haven’t taken off the weight I promised I would and why I haven’t read the three books I purchased on Amazon a few months ago.

Last night I got serious, because my daughter Whitney noticed my big bag of work I was packing up at the office before having dinner with her. “You are still carrying that thing? Look at me. I run an international business and all I carry is my iPhone, wallet, and keys.”

When I got home I started to scan. I couldn’t believe that I could do all these things on my iPhone.  Scanner Pro captures the image of the document with the iPhone camera and processes it to look like a scan from a flatbed scanner. The scan detects paper borders, crops unnecessary parts of the image, removes shadows and saves the result as a PDF file. Scans are stored locally on the iPhone and can be shared via email, uploaded to Dropbox or Evernote.

I have to go now. I just thought of two more things to scan.