Ten days after deciding to cut my paper use, I’ve made real progress towards being a paperless journalist. I’ve already packed a filing cabinet drawer worth of paper into plastic bags ready for the recycle collection. That's about 20 kilograms in total and around 5 percent of the non-book or magazine paper floating around my home.

I’ve switched to electronic billing for my mobile phone account and electricity. Switching my Telecom account to paperless transactions has proved slightly trickier – although I expect to make the move soon.

I’m running up against two problems:

1. I’m a journalist and I keep most of my notes in reporter-style notebooks or larger A4-sized notebooks. For legal reasons I need to keep these safe long after publication.

My handwriting is atrocious and anyway, scanning this material doesn’t appear practical.

I’d appreciate any advice on how long I should keep these notebooks. The statute of limitations for defamation cases is generally only two or three years in many countries but I haven’t been able to find out the term in New Zealand law.

2. There’s a similar legal problem with old business paperwork. I’ve a sizable collection of paper from when I ran a business in Australia – I’m supposed to keep this for seven years, which means I’ve about 18 months to go before junking it. There’s too much to scan and, with such a short amount of time to worry about, it doesn’t seem worth the effort.