How to use your Document Shredder effectively.
Updated: 6:31 p.m. EDT, November 15th, 2006 - ThoughtsGarden.com
By knowing how to use your shredder effectively you will save time, effort and also increase the life span of the shredder's cutting head.
Shredders don't come with a plastic bag. Lining your shredder's bin with a well fitting platic bag has many benfits:
- It becomes easier to throw away the shredded bits of paper.
- All loose paper particles (paper dust), is contained in the bag. Making the room less dusty.
Follow all cautionary instructions mentioned in your document shredder's manual:
Tip #2: Remove staples before shreddingAvoid shredding stapled wads of paper. Use a staple remover and then feed small chuncks of paper in to the shredder.
Tip #3: Don't feed more documents than your shredder can handleNote the document shredder's sheet capacity. Don't feed the shredder more than it can chew. Otherwise, it will cause papers to get jammed reducing the life span of the cutting head.
When the shredder bag fills up, there is a lot of loose space. Compact the shredded bits by pushing everything to the bottom. This makes more room in the shredder bag so that it can hold more shredded bits of paper. Finally when the bag can't take it anymore, simply pack up the bag tightly and throw it in your paper re-cycling bin.
Tip #4: Keep a separate shredding pileKeep tall rectangular mesh basket near the shredder. Throw all documents to be shredded in to this basket and dedicate a few hours to shredding paper. You can make shredding faster by grouping the papers in to smaller groups first and then feeding them to the shredder. But, don't run the shredder continuously for too long, this will reduce the lifespan of the cutting head.
Tip #5: Don't waste your time shredding unnecessry documentsAnd finally, knowing what to shred saves a lot of time and effort and also increases the lifespan of your shredder's cutting head.
Don't shred whole magazines or bunch of paper that do not have any kind of sensitive information on them. If you want to get rid of these, simply toss them in to the paper recycling bin.
Cut out sensitive pieces of information from documents like, your name, your mailing/residential address.
Any kind of financial account information or any other information that is personalized with your name and
your information on it. Only shredding documents with sensitive pieces of information that you need to
protect from identity thieves or data thieves saves a lot of time and effort.
Related:
- The importance of using a paper shredder for personal/business use...
- Which type of shredder is most effective...
Do you have suggestions or tips on how to save time while shredding or how to effectively use a shredder?