My 2012 set-up

After my contemplative morning when I reviewed and planned, I’ve now sat down and thought about 2012 and re-drawn some of my goals (and streamlined others). My set-up hasn’t changed significantly, though I have made one or two tweaks.

Front cover:

I’ve moved the other cards I did have in a card-holder at the back of the filofax into the card slots in the cover. A few of them are doubled/tripled but that doesn’t matter – they are all still easy to get in and out.

I had kept paper money in the full-height pocket immediately behind the card-slots but it’s a little stiff with all the cards in and also wider (and therefore a little less accessible) than the slot in the back cover, so the paper money has moved to the back cover.

I love the little birds...

Interior:

The guinea-fowl card remains as the first thing I see when I open the filofax as it always cheers me up and makes me think of Malawi. There is a picture of me and DH in there too.

Vouchers envelope – after losing vouchers or forgetting about them, I bought another top-opening envelope for them. So far, so good!

Notes – a landing place for random scribbles and things, although I did have shopping lists in there for a while. It gets filleted at the weekly review and anything that needs keeping is put in the correct place; anything no longer needed gets removed/crossed through.

back of the vouchers (LHS) then notes section

Goals – updated today. In 2011 I had an A4 page with a mind-map of my goals in the front of this section. I have streamlined my goals and so now I have the main things written out on a single plain sheet (still with colour-coded writing). Immediately after this mind-map sheet are a series of sheets where the key areas (health; Chimwemwe; writing and career/me) are broken down into goals (run a half-marathon; raise £500; etc. etc.) and then each of those goals are broken down into projects. I have a set of templates (which I made for myself) which list the key area at the top, then the goals and then the projects. After these pages are a set of pages – one for each project – with the project outlined on the front and the list of ‘next actions’ listed on the back. This key-areas-to-goals-to-projects-to-next-actions section drives my monthly and weekly reviews, as next actions get transcribed onto the monthly, and then ultimately, weekly list.

Mind-map for the key areas

key-area to goal to project summary sheet

Diary – this has several things in it. In order:

1. a home-made month to view diary (for long-range awareness) of 2012

2. a monthly planning page for the current month (on lavender paper this year as I could bear the pink (2011’s colour) no longer!)

3. a weekly planning page for the current week (listing all the next actions and to-do for the week)

4. a week of day-per-page diary sheets (for planning each day) with a Today marker

5. a weekly review check sheet

6. the weekly planning pages for the remainder of the month

7. a monthly review check sheet

8. the monthly planning pages for the remainder of the year

9. a week on two pages diary (up to the end of June at the moment but I am considering putting the whole year in) with a second Today marker indicating the current week

10. a forward planning sheet where anything beyond 2012 is noted down (mostly my vaccination dates but before I bought the new WO2P diary, there were lists of when the car tax, car insurance etc. were due

11. (slightly randomly) a log of my running and my weight

Haven't planned very far ahead!

Lists – food shopping list for the week; Christmas list (soon to be removed and stored); packing lists; books/music/films to look out for; notes of blogs or websites to look at; things I need to buy…

shopping list

Info – personal information sheet; SOS sheet; www sheet (listing, in a coded way, passwords for different sites); the info sheets from the diary; a birthdays/ anniversaries set of sheets; a London tube map; a map of the UK; a map of the world; other bits of info I need to keep; a list of meter readings; then behind a set of A-Z dividers, my contacts.

Right at the back is a new zip-lock envelope. I bought a filofax version and the zipper bit was on the top and made all the other pages stick up and so I abandoned it. Then I put an order in to City Organiser (with free P+P and 15% off) to get some more white lined paper for the filofax, some lavender lined paper (for the monthly planning sheets) and added a zip-lock envelope (75p!) made by Villiers, which has the zipper on the edge, rather than the top. This envelope holds stamps and other bits and bobs.

In the back cover there are two pockets – one has paper money in; the other has receipts in it.

Villiers zip-lock envelope

On the very back cover is the zipped pocket which holds coins.

I have taken the Coleto 4-colour pen out because the strap on the Cavendish is just a teensy bit too short and removing the pen allows it to be snappered shut without strain!

What is everyone else’s set-up for 2012 like?