A smart trick for going paper free, and saving tons of time, too.

With four kids in school and various activities, you can just imagine the number of forms I have to fill out and sign, pretty much on a weekly (sometimes, daily) basis. I don’t even want to think about how long printing them, filling them out, then either mailing or trying to get my kids to remember to turn them in would take. So, my one time-saving trick? HelloSign.

People typically think services like these are just for business, but actually, I use this all the time to complete and sign school and personal forms. From super outdated emergency forms in a Word doc or scholarship applications that are slick PDFs, you simply upload your document to your account, fill them out and sign, then email to whoever needs it, with whatever you sent saved for easy access (or editing, resending, you get the idea).

The free plan gives you a few documents a month, so if you think you’re going to do more than that, I’d suggest bumping up to the next level at $14/month which gives you an unlimited number. It’s great for business use too, with Gmail, Dropbox, and Evernote integrations (just to name a few), so even if I don’t have that many forms for my kids, I find that I definitely get my money’s worth in other ways.

And if you’re getting paper forms (which I usually ask if they have an email version), I’d suggest using a scanner, like the ScanSnap, or even a scanning app like Genius Scan, then upload those documents to HelloSign.

It’s such a smart way to cut down on paper, and save yourself tons of time in the process.

Need to fax? Try their other site, HelloFax.com, which we’ve featured on Cool Mom Tech before, too!