Was that not the cutest picture last week? Little Bella and Dolce aren’t just adorable faces though! They’re very smart little dogs and they definitely keep us on our toes around here. In fact, as a nice follow-up to last week’s blog post, they’ve asked us to write about some great tools that can help save a ton of paper every day. Bella says that if everyone makes an effort to go as paperless as possible, we can save a gazillion trees! Bella likes to exaggerate, but suffice it to say we can surely save a lot of trees by going paperless.

And Dolce has even stopped using her newspapers in favor of the “outdoor facilities.”  Now that’s dedication!

But seriously GLAD WORKS friends; there are some great online tools that can help save loads of paper, time, and money. Here are a couple of Bella and Dolce’s faves.

Evernote:

Do you live by sticky notes?  Do you jot down every fleeting thought, idea, phone call reminder, and errand on a sticky note so you won’t forget? Does your desk at work look like a Post-It factory threw up on it?  Does your “command center” at home look like that too? If this is really bumming you out, we have good news for you!  Evernote to the rescue!

This super cool software gives a whole new meaning to the word “synchronized.”  Not only does it eliminate the need to buy and then throw away all those expensive sticky notes, it also helps you organize various types of information from several different sources into one, central web-based location. It’s like an organizer for your sticky notes  — only without the sticky. A few of us here use it and you can totally tell who just by looking at our pristine, uncluttered desks.

With Evernote, you can clip web pages and archive them for later. You can store screen shots, pictures and text notes all within a customizable storage system. Evernote also organizes things for you by the date it was created, so you can find it easier—if you can only remember when you wrote the note…

What’s also cool is that it runs on a variety of different devices and it’s compatible with Windows, Mac OSX, iPhone and iPod Touch, Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre and Windows Mobile. The premium version allows you to clip Word and Excel documents into the program. Sadly, Evernote isn’t totally perfect. For example, it can’t read your mind, so you have take the time to type your stuff in. (Evernote people, call us! We have a great idea for your next version…)

Invoicera:

Invoicera is  the new hotness in  web-based invoicing and billing applications. It helps send invoices to customers digitally. It saves a lot of staff time, printer ink and paper because you don’t have to go through the process of sending paper invoices to customers. All that stuff can be done digitally, which also saves postage, and the ink and glue on the stamp, and the rubber on our mail carrier’s shoes…the savings go on and on, really. It’s pretty out of control.

Invoicera also allows you to transact globally, in multiple currencies and languages. If you ever have a client who lives in Bahrain, you can bill them in Urdu or Farsi and it will be totally cool. It’s slicker than grease, you guys.

Another thing that’s cool about Invoicera is it gives reports on who has made payments and who you need to rough up a bit for your dough. Just kidding. You would never rough anyone up. You’re reasonable people! Your friend Vinny the Collector on the other hand, oof! Don’t mess with him!

Anyway, those are two pretty big paper savers right there. We’d tell you all about our digitized human resources documents, but Bella and Dolce are all in a kerfuffle. Apparently, someone threw a cardboard tube into the regular trash.

We’ve…we’ve got a situation on our hands.

Come back next week!  We’ll talk about how to  rock out an awesome website for kids!  There's almost nothing we don't do here, seriously.