If you struggle to stay organized, you’ve probably found yourself wondering if the Neat Desk might help curb your paper clutter problem. Although the Neat Desk is significantly more expensive than a regular desktop scanner, it’s amazingly fast and comes with sophisticated software designed to help you organize all your important documents into manageable electronic files.
Installing the Neat Desk is not terribly difficult, although I did not like that it required me to turn off my antivirus software temporarily. I had to look up how to do this online, then restart my computer to get it to work. So, this extra step was a bit of a nuisance.
Once I managed to get it installed, figuring out how to use the Neat Desk was fairly intuitive.
There is a digital “cabinet” with separate folders for home and business documents. You stick your paper to be scanned in the appropriately labeled slot on the scanner and push the “scan” button to get your digital file delivered to the folder of your choice. You can scan documents individually or as a stack. I managed to scan groups of five with no problems, but haven’t tested it with thicker stacks of paper.
The Neat Desk worked very well for scanning the stack of business cards on my desk. Out of 20 cards I tried as my first test, only two had small errors I needed to manually correct in the contact database and they were both designed to be very artistic layouts for a business card. When I tried scanning receipts, I had no errors unless the receipt was really wrinkled or faded. Scanning magazine articles worked with no problems.
I really liked using the Neat Desk to scan and organize collections of my son’s artwork and the various recipes I’ve accumulated. This is the type of paper clutter that drives me crazy, but I always feel guilty when I attempt to purge any of it.
With the Neat Desk, it’s easy to see everything at a glance. The Neat Desk scanning speed slowed noticeably when I switched to color scans of my son’s artwork, but it was still quite a bit faster than my current scanner.
Overall, I would recommend the Neat Desk for home business owners, anyone who manages their household finances using a program like Quicken, or mothers who just want to find a way to cut down on some of the paper clutter that comes with having an active family.
Disclaimer: A sample Neat Desk unit was provided by the manufacturer for the purpose of preparing this review.
Photo credit: Neat Desk
