Living paperless in 2025: Tools to replace old-school documents

Switching from being paper-focused with your work to being completely paperless might not seem like a lot, but it’s certainly doable.

That’s especially true when more and more people these days focus on digitalization. There are so many tools you can use to replace those old-school documents, it just comes down to finding the best solutions to fit your needs.

In this article, we will share some of the top tools you can use to work with documents, and even replace some of the old-school documents.

Why is it a good idea to go paperless?

One of the core benefits of going paperless is that you can access documents digitally, online, without having to carry any physical item.
Additionally, digital items can be tracked, backed up and encrypted. Obviously, that’s not the case with a regular, paper document.
Once you go digital, you can remove a lot of clutter. Do you remember the 90s offices from movies that were full of clutter? If you go paperless, that’s a thing of the past.
Plus, if you decide to go paperless, it will make it easy for you to save a huge amount of money.
It has a major environmental impact, because if a lot of people go paperless, we have less waste and a much less problematic carbon footprint.
There’s also the benefit of efficiency. If you’re working digitally, you can search and share documents in seconds. You don’t have to manually go through thousands of paper documents as you try to find the right one.

Using cloud storage solutions

A great way to go paperless is to have a place online where you can store your documents. Tools like Box, iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive help, because they offer you precious online storage space. These tools also sync between devices, you can share files with a link, not to mention they even keep a version history as well. And not only that, you can have 2-factor authentication, encryption and other similar benefits. There are other things, too, such as real-time collaboration that can prove to be extremely useful from a business perspective.

Digital note-taking tools

Many of us relied on those hardcover notebooks that we carried everywhere. These days, we can easily use digital note-taking tools like Notion, OneNote, Evernote, Apple Notes, Obsidian and so on. Their role is to help you ensure that you have a place to write down notes in a jiffy, while also making sure that you keep those notes for as much time as possible. That’s great, and it also shows the true power of having such tools in the first place.

Turn paper files into PDF

Scanning tools are great because you can take those paper documents and transform them into digital ones. You can still keep paper documents once they are scanned, or you can get rid of them. The idea here is that you will have a PDF copy that’s easy to share with anyone. Plus, storing it becomes a lot easier, and you can also turn it into other formats, too. All of this adds great versatility, while showing the amazing value you get from going paperless in the first place.

Digital signing

Is this a thing? Yes, it’s possible to sign documents digitally and not have to worry about physically traveling to a meeting where you sign a document. That can be very good money-wise, because it helps you save a lot of resources. Plus, digital signing tools have become very powerful and complex these days, so it makes a lot of sense to address all these things the best way that you can. DocuSign, HelloSign, Adobe Acrobat Sign or SignNow are some of the top tools you can use in this niche.

Generate your own, digital utility bills

You can use a utility bill generator if you want to generate your own utility bills and not receive the paper bills from the provider. It’s a great part of becoming paperless, and there’s definitely a lot of time to save this way. Use that as an advantage, and in the end, the potential can be nothing short of impressive.

Share digital surveys and forms

You don’t need to share paper forms or surveys these days. There are tons of tools like SurveyMonkey, FormStack, JotForm, TypeForm and Google Forms that can help you do all these things digitally. Moreover, these tools are great because you can easily collect structured information in the online world. Not only is it an effective solution to keep in mind, but it can provide exceptional results in the end.

Smart invoicing and receipts

Smart invoicing and receipts can be a great solution if you want to stop dealing with paper receipts and invoices. It’s just a cleaner, more efficient and professional way of sharing receipts and invoices with clients. With that in mind, you can use QuickBooks, Wave Accounting, Zoho Books or FreshBooks for this type of situation, so try to use that to your advantage.

Task managers and digital calendars

These tools are great because they can replace a paper planner. These automated scheduling tools are using AI to help you better manage how you handle your tasks. It’s actually a great idea, and one that can help save a huge amount of time. Paper planners can be hard to manage sometimes. But these digital replacements are easier to search through, they provide lots of insight, and the experience as a whole is very good. That’s why you want to alleviate the process and ensure it all works effectively.

Collaboration tools

Naturally, when it comes to working without paper, we have to think about collaborating with other people. These days, online collaboration is a lot easier because there are tons of tools to help make that process quick and easy.

Slack is great for communication, Figma offers collaboration for prototyping and design, while Miro is a great collaborative whiteboard for brainstorming. And you can add to these tools things like Notion or Google Workspace. All of these are very dependable, and they can provide amazing results, while also allowing you to save time and effort.

Password managers

A lot of people were writing down their password on a paper document. Obviously, that’s a security risk, because you never know who can access that info. But with a password manager, you never have to worry about that. It’s great because it offers you the safety you need, while also ensuring that you have a great place where you stored your passwords. You can also use these tools to generate passwords, autofill various forms and secure the overall store credentials.

It’s a good idea to go paperless

It’s always a very good idea to try and go paperless, even if it does prove to be quite the challenge. What really matters more often than not is to find ways to go paperless, and then bring that vision to life.

Thankfully, living paperless in 2025 is a possibility, and you can do it without a problem. We highly recommend trying it out and using these tips. You never know, you might end up liking this lifestyle choice, so try to keep that in mind. In the end, you will be happy with the results, and you can rest assured that you’re protecting the environment as well!