Is it planner fail?

…or is it just me?

In the last few posts I have talked about approaching planner fail with Little Miss Aston. I’m not sure if I truly am, or if I am just:

a) distracted by the new hunk on the block, Mr Holborn (with his supple leather and all those pockets) and/or

b) just not using Miss Aston properly.

Miss Aston is smaller than my previous carry-arounds (Baroques and then the Cavendish) and I am used to carrying everything around (because then I know where it is). But… she has 19mm rings, not 23mm rings, so something had to give. Gone are the addresses I will only ever need when I am at my desk; gone are the lists of things I am waiting to arrive in the post; gone are the lists of what I have written to people about (as you know, I am an inveterate hand-written-letter-writer). Gone also are the lists of meter-readings, the shelved projects and my training plans (less of a bother now as I did the half-marathon yesterday and can now have some of my life back from training!). Also ousted are the packing lists and maps.

Of course, when I say ‘gone’ or ‘ousted’ I of course mean ‘did not get transferred across’. They are all in existence, and are now in Mr Holborn, who is supposed to sit on my desk and be my ‘home filofax’ and contain all the aforementioned bits and bobs so that I can look them up when I need to. [He has also got all the other workings in there too… the diary, the project lists etc… and so could step up to being the carry-around in the blink of an eye.]

Miss Aston has all the day to day workings still there – she has the notepaper at the front, the projects to goals to next action sheets for current projects, the monthly planning sheets, the week to view diary, the day planning sheets, the lists of things to look for (garden fork; books; new running top etc.), vouchers, paper money, coins and cards, stamps… I am still (usually) doing my weekly review and planning out my weeks. I am even just about used to the fact that not everything is in there and I have to look in Mr Holborn for some things.

I love Miss Aston’s size – she’s easy to carry around and with the coin-purse hack and the zip-lock bag hacks in there, she is pretty and functional.

But…

But…

It’s just not quite working.

My planning is going okay – my projects to goals to next actions are all getting translated into weekly plans and then (when applicable) daily plans, but there’s something not quite right. One suspicion is that it’s the paper. The other is the need to look in Mr Holborn for some things.

Paper:

I have long since printed many of my own inserts for my filofax, since filofax seems to refuse to make any inserts worth a damn – either the layout is about right and the paper sucks (most common problem) or, the paper is okay (cotton cream) but the layout isn’t there. Or, isn’t there on the UK site but is on another European site but then the shipping costs are ridiculous.

I generally use Clairefontaine Trophee in cream and it’s a dream to write on in fountain pen and looks lovely in my personal-size and A5 filofaxes. However, for some reason, it looks wrong, all wrong in Miss Aston. Too dark. Too yellow. Maybe that’s to do with the mauve colour of the leather (though you’d think the shocking pink of one of the Baroques would produce the same clash…). But, I’m not enjoying writing on it and using it, which, for a planner, is a bit of a non-starter!

I have just ordered some ivory paper (in the hope that it is off-white and not yellow-white… there are no decent stationery places nearby for me to look at the paper in the flesh so my only real option is to order online and hope the colour-reproduction is okay). Once it arrives, I will re-do some of my pocket inserts and see where I am with it all.

Mr Holborn:

Of course, I also know that once I have something new and shiny, that I just have to use it and I may just be itching to use Mr Holborn. He’s sitting here on my desk next to me, with all his glossy, chocolate-coloured supple leather and pockets and space, and I swear, it’s a siren-song! Whenever I open him up to look something up, I find myself gazing at the space on the pages and the fact that everything is in there.

Anyway, I have made a deal with him. I will use Miss Aston until May 31^st and then on June 1^st it can be his turn.

And now (at last) to make the new dividers for Miss Aston!