I'm Finally Giving Up Physical Stock Reports and Moving to An Entirely Digital Workflow

I’m Finally Giving Up Physical Reports and Moving to An Entirely Digital Workflow

As part of the radical simplicity project, which right now is mostly manifesting as total clutter reduction, I am taking the last step of the paperless project from two years ago and finally giving up – as impossible as it has been for me – physical copies of annual reports, 10Ks, and proxy statements. We are very close to things like Perceptive Pixel being commonplace with large display screens and cloud-based storage for everything, so it is time to get ahead of the curve. I always like being 2-3 years ahead so it’s time to move now.

Almost everything else has been digitized at this point – orders, financial records, documents, task lists, project planning – but I just haven’t been able to make the switch away from physical stock reports with a highlighter and a pen. No matter how many times I tried, I went back to the wonderful packets arriving in the mail. I like the feel of the paper; the sound the highlighter makes as it moves across the page, leaving a trail of color behind it; the ability to rifle through the rows of tall, black metal file cabinets I have in the storage room. But it is anachronistic. We now live in a world where I could search through thousands of pages of documents to find a specific passage I remember, without wasting time flipping through pages. I also want to be able to access my work anywhere in the world as my travel has increased significantly in the past couple of years, and will likely involve some significant time away from home in the future.

The solution upon which I’ve settled: I am setting up a large collection of folders in a cloud-based storage platform (I haven’t finalized the details but at this point, I’m testing it with Dropbox since the actual service provider won’t matter as much until I can get the process itself sorted). One of the files will contain a folder called “Annual Reports”, which will then open to a collection of industries (e.g., Packaged Food & Beverages, Banks, Conglomerates, Oil & Natural Gas).

Each of those will open to hundreds of sub-files, all with a high resolution, custom designed icon that represents the brand. In that folder, there will be archives of annual reports going back as far as I can get my hands on throughout history, snapshots of various Value Line, S&P, Morningstar, et cetera tear sheets at various points in time, relevant publications to the business in question, and other documents that are useful to my analysis. Each file will also contain a text document where I track how I feel about the business, and my thoughts on intrinsic value, with date stamps so I can spot successes and errors in my thinking to continually improve the process of allocating capital.

Highlighting Annual Reports in Adobe Acrobat Professional – Screenshot (Click to Enlarge)

The files themselves will open in Adobe Acrobat Pro, which right now is part of the Creative Suite 6 subscription I have (it’s not bad – something like $1,200 per year, but you can get the program itself for $300 to $500 as a stand-alone installation). There, I annotate them just as I would with paper, leaving highlights and notes to track my thought process over time.

When things like the Microsoft Surface Pro become standard, and we are in a world where input is effortless so that the lines between paper and screen have almost disappeared, I should have already been on this platform for several years. At that point, it won’t feel much like using a computer does now. The day someone comes out with an 11×17″ high resolution perfect self-contained tablet that can display two, side-by-side 8.5″ x 11″ pieces of paper, replicating a traditional open book, I will buy it.

We are so close. The technological advancements that are in the pipelines at some of these labs and corporations are really amazing. If I didn’t love finance so much, I might be developing software applications or websites (my profits would still be redeployed into traditional, boring, stable businesses, though; you only have to get rich once and I have no idea which operating system will be dominant in 20 years but I do know people will eat Frosted Flakes or be drinking coffee). There are so many opportunities to improve the way the world works, driving further productivity improvements and raising standards of living (albeit, only for those at the top – we are getting to the point where, as we’ve discussed many times in the past – technological advancements are making low-skill manual labor more and more obsolete with each passing year; at least in advanced economies).

I’m also improving my Excel programming skills and developing more advanced spreadsheets to pull data for my convenience. There have been some really cool advancements in that field since the last time I bothered learning how to create interactive, self-updating files. I do plan on writing a tutorial at some point for the blog, but I need at least a few days of free time so I can show the entire process.

weixiluo

Bill Gates’ AMA on Reddit yesterday got you thinking about the Perspective Pixel? (He said he used one)
Oh, and by the way, Box is now offering 50 GB of storage for free, versus the 2 GB from Dropbox (Assuming you’re having a free account) : http://lifehacker.com/5983665/grab-50gb-of-box-online-storage-free-for-life?popular=true,
- http://www.joshuakennon.com/ Joshua Kennon
  
  Yep! The display I want is $80,000 right now but I can’t imagine it not coming down 90% or more in the next few years so I’m following the universal technology rule: Wait until it hits the masses. That’s how these things always work. In 10+ years, I’m hoping to have huge murals that look like art, that are framed in Larson Juhl frames, but are really computer displays so when I want to, say, video chat with someone, it will transform into the interface or play a video game, it will take up the entire wall. When in rest, I’ll have them showing what appear to be oil paintings. It wouldn’t be hard now that this is possible.
  
  If I were sitting on $1+ billion and wanted to just create things, that would be my project. I’d take Tactus’ dynamic touch screens and combine them with Perspective Pixel’s displays. I would then sell framed displays in homes that could transform into what appeared to be traditional paintings or 3D metal sculptures, complete with brush strokes, but were really integrated with the home’s server and would metamorphosis in front of you when you wanted to switch to the operating system.
  - weixiluo
    
    When asked about whether Windows 7 or 8, he answered : “Higher is better.”
    I guess it’s his newest quote for now
Michael Starke

It’s interesting, my system sounds very similar, I chose Microsoft OneNote to build my “database.” I use a separate notebook for each company, and then have a tab for each “thing” (my investment thesis, SEC filings, point-in-time calculations, etc) and then I date the pages within each tab and sort them newest to oldest.

What I still have found unsatisfactory, despite there being OneNote integrations for Android tablets, is that there are just certain document types (specifically PDFs, that get imported into the notebook as images of the pages, instead of text) that are opaque, and taking notes within them and integrating that with the containing OneNote notebook is a chore. I want to have that ease of use that I get on my laptop/desktop when I switch over to a tablet on the go.

I’ve considered a few times sitting down and writing a custom note taking and document management system tailored to my own needs. What has stopped me for the most part is that that in order to devote the effort necessary to build the software, I’d lose focus on my investments. The opportunity cost seemed too high.
Guesty

Box.net has a promo with 50 GB free. https://www.box.com/signup/o/dell_50gb_give_get
http://www.facebook.com/jacek.janiszewski.3 Jacek Janiszewski

1. Storing sensitive stuff on cloud storage is risky. Telling us just where you plan to store it and just how valuable it is is even more so. Maybe it’s just my paranoia, but it almost sounds like a deliberate attempt at absentmindedness / hidden challenge.

2. In terms of getting better UI, we’re getting there. There’s so much fascinating tech already there in the wild – we haven’t exhausted the possibilities of current-gen hardware, far from that, we’ve barely scratched the surface of user interface design. We’ve got the tech, we haven’t got the software. Companies like Microsoft are trying to gradually shift the classic UI but they don’t have the confidence to start from the ground up – compatibility with old applications being MS’s main selling point. You can’t get to the moon one step at a time.

Incidentally this is also more or less what I’m working on right now – since we’re a small company (think garage startup) we’re focusing on the realestate market but I’d love to eventually have the resources to design some broad-use UI, exactly the kind of stuff you’re talking about.

3. You did some webdesign so you may be familiar with programming. If you’re using electronic devices extensively you might want to explore scripting like Python. Considering the time taken to get to know the language, and more importantly recognizing the scenarios where it can be used to save you time, I’m guessing you should break even on the time spent learning/time saved in about 3-6 months. After that you’ll think to yourself “how could I ever have lived without this”. Since we’re all spending lots of time in front of our computers it’s sometimes baffling to see how little attention people pay to ergonomics – both the wetware/hardware side of having a proper workstation and the software side of learning how to make the machine work for you.

Guess it’s just a matter of having too many tools and options.
- http://www.joshuakennon.com/ Joshua Kennon
  
  1. I’m designing and testing the setup now; how I want it organized. It won’t end up where it is and I won’t say where it’s developed once I’ve worked out how I want it structured. There would be nothing for anyone to see but a bunch of empty folders with PDF files of annual reports that are publicly available on corporate sites right now (e.g., the 2011 McDonald’s report). You are right, though: I have put hidden challenges on the site in the past but this isn’t one of them.
  
  2. I hope you invent something amazing and make obscene amounts of money.
  
  3. Any suggestions on where to begin book or resource-wise? The way you describe it, the efficiency gains sound fantastic so I could be up for this. I’ll definitely add that to me research list of skill sets I might develop in 2013. Thank you for the suggestion!!!!