Eight steps to a paperless office

Bin fax machine
It's a pity to get rid of this one, because you can get great unsolicited offers on it, such as houses in Kensington for less than £1000 and free BMWs, not to mention filtration systems that turn tapwater into chablis, miracle eat-more diets, plebiscites on the vivisection of paedophiles, the secret of eternal youth, pieces of the true cross and the opportunity to have your fax number removed from the list of those receiving great unsolicited offers. Luckily, most are now available on email.

Step 2

Dispose of Lever-Arch files
These are the basic unit of threat in the construction industry, as in: "If, Sir, you won't give me an extra month to finish your multistorey car park on account of all this weather we've been having I'll hit you with 76 Lever-Arch files filled with your vile perfidy." As you can imagine, the hideousness of this image often does the trick. Alas, the replacement of files with databases of electronic documents will take much of the violence out of dispute resolution, but who said progress had no price?

Step 3

Set fire to your printer
The printer was developed by the Department of Health and Social Security in the 1980s as a way of getting 2 million youths off income support and on the phone to you, inquiring about your computer consumable needs with the grace and charm of a rutting water bison. Now you can smile a little smile as you inform them that you don't have any …

Step 4

Axe the shredder
When you use a shredder you are probably taking covert pleasure in satisfying the innate destructive urges that are, let's face it, within all of us. Everybody else within earshot is counting the seconds until they recreate that scene in Fargo by forcing you into it, tie first.

Step 5

Fling filing cabinet out of the window
Filing cabinets are intended to facilitate the permanent loss of vital documents. The procedure is to put the precious, unique piece of paper in a file that nobody will every look at again and deny ever having seen it. If the situation is one of life or death, particularly your own, a simple remedy is to cancel your trip to Paris, empty contents of cabinet on floor and spend weekend refiling them. Repeat as often as necessary.

Step 6

Throw out the in-tray (and you might as well throw in the out-tray while you're at it)
These tiers of plastic are for the temporary storage of urgent papers that you are never going to get round to dealing with – emptied once a year by tipping contents into wastepaper bin.

Step 7

Disassemble the photocopier
Photocopiers were a boon for the office worker because they allowed half of every day to be spent on hands and knees trying to extract, in a series of tiny fragments, sheets of paper that had become irretrievable concertinaed in their innards. Later "smart" photocopiers developed the ability to taunt workers with messages such as "getting warmer" and "Ah, that feels better, now let's see if it worked … Nope, still f*****". Other would try to lesson tension by singing "I'm jammin'" whenever anyone pressed the start button.

Step 8

How to have fun with invoices
Alas, you must bid farewell to those sweet, naive billets-doux from your partners further down the food chain. Pioneering accounting software can now randomly generate more than 50 excellent reasons for nonpayment and send them to your supplier within 0.3 seconds of their emailing you the bill.