Back in a Personal size

Which one? The wine Holborn. At least for the moment (though if I'm back here saying I'm in a Baroque, no-one will be surprised now, will they?)

Current squeeze - Holborn in wine-colour

Oh my word, it's a behemoth in comparison with a pocket! But, the pocket was too stuffed and I wasn't looking at it. Not that I'm necessarily looking at the Holborn any more, mind, but there is a greater likelihood that I will because I can put everything in it better.

I used to have a great working system where I had weekly pages and daily pages and all my to-do were put on my daily pages (along with other stuff I felt I wanted to track). I'm not sure when I abandoned this system in its fullness, but I have been running a halfway house of weekly pages (with not much written on them) and scraps of paper to plan the day (with equally not much written on them) and things have started to slip between the cracks. I've stopped doing my weekly plan, which is probably the origin of the state I've reached, but I had gone back to feeling over-planned (and worse, guilty that I hadn't achieved things).

What is more than likely to be at the heart of it all is the fact that I was ill for what felt like forever, but in reality was about two and a half weeks. Too ill to run (which is the thing that centres me the most) and too ill to achieve even a limited number of things on my to-do list. Not focused enough to clear my head and stray notes into one place and too fed up to even open my filofax. You can see why I've gone to hell in a hand-basket!

In an attempt to rectify this sorry state of affairs, I did a brain-dump of all the things I needed to do/should have done (none of them part of my goals/projects; just stuff). This has now scared the bejabers out of me as the list is enormous! In fact, it freaked me so much I promptly put the list in my filofax and closed it! Which of course, helped to shift so many of the items off it!

The current set-up is pretty much what I have had before in many ways:
Plastic protector sheet
Notes: General capture area. It just has a handful of lined sheets.

Notes section. Post-It is just to hide my bank-cards

Projects: Quote from Inception: “You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger darling” followed by a list of life areas and goals/projects associated with them. Some of these goals/projects have changed/been abandoned since I wrote the list (I've been out of personal-sized filofax for so long!). My problem at the moment isn't that I'm afraid of dreaming bigger; it's that I'm getting sod-all done really.

Projects section. Quote is from Inception

Diary: Before I get to the diary are some to-do sheets – one of small things that need doing, one of larger projects (that aren't part of the goals/projects) and one for the garden.
Then I have my monthly goals sheets. They are currently blank because, like the weekly review, I haven't done them. Sometime when I'm not exhausted I will get on with them! Right now I have such a back-log of other stuff that it would be madness to add more pressure to myself and start including things from my goals/projects lists.
Next up is the standard filofax diary fill – week on two pages with no lines and squished up Saturday and Sunday. I'm persevering with it because I waste too much money on crap like switching diary formats and I should give it to charity instead.

Diary. Not the kind I like but it does.

Lists: Books to look for, websites to check out, apps to investigate, log suppliers, blog post ideas, waiting on, things bought for birthdays in the past, Christmas presents bought/received, packing lists for various types of trip, things to buy for the garden when I pass a garden centre.
Info: Personal info, random other things I don't really know where to file, the info sheets that come with a diary, UK map, world map, meter readings, lists of maps I have (Landranger OS and Explorer OS), addresses.
Plastic protector sheet
Card-holder with non-bank cards
Zipped pencil case which I use for cash and vouchers (but which is possibly too big...)

Zipped pencil case with cash and vouchers

There are a trillion pockets in the Holborn. The outward facing one in the front is being used for paper money; there are 6 card slots in the front cover plus another larger pocket and another full-height pocket behind. I have bank cards and my Waterstone's card in the card slots, stamps in the last card slot and nothing in the bottom pocket. In the full-height inward facing pocket, I have nothing because it's a pain to get anything in or out of it easily.

In the back cover I have nothing in the inward-facing full-height pocket for the same reason. In the outward-facing full-height pocket I did have vouchers/coupons but I moved these to the zipped pencil case as they were easier to see there. Currently it has a print-out of a train timetable and a hotel-booking confirmation as I am about to head off external examining. In the zipped pocket inside the outward-facing pocket I have other cards I want with me but don't need to have quick access to (library card etc.). My trusty Zebra diary pen/pencil combo is in the pen holder (though this interferes with the outward-facing pocket a tad).

How long will I cope with this behemoth? Who knows. It's working well enough at the moment as I can carry everything with me (but I am still looking longingly at the Baroque...).