Review of the compact Holborn Filofax

With all these posts about the Traveller's Journal, you may have been thinking I had lost my love for Filofax. Not quite, though I really am itching to use the TJ sooner than 2016!

I'm still in my wine Holborn Filofax, having moved up a size after the compact de Villiers started to show signs of wear and tear (see here for details). At the start of April I was humming and hawwing about the wine Holborn and was still looking for a compact. I tried a compact Cavendish and although it was good, it wasn't quite right because it wouldn't lie flat. I tried a compact Belgravia and it wasn't really right at all. In this post, Steve (from Philofaxy) suggested a compact Holborn. At the time, I had just bought the Belgravia but now I've got a black compact Holborn and he may well have been right.

I bought the compact Holborn from Nigel O'Hara. I knew nothing about the company, but having waited so long from ordering to delivery, I cannot recommend this seller at all. From ordering to arrival was about 5 weeks and had I not been on to their customer services, I would have had no information about the order at all. Even them giving me a £5 voucher will not make me use them again. Anyway, it finally arrived at the end of last week.

First impressions

1. it's not really black and the matte finish is nowhere near as nice as the shinier wine leather
2. it has (had!) a flattability of 0/10

It's not really black. It's more matte dark charcoal grey and with the graining of the leather this is quite noticeable. It may respond well to a good dose of black leather polish but I've not done that yet. The contrast stitching is in grey and the leather polish might sort that out too. If you've followed my story with the Holborns, you'll know how much I dislike contrast stitching! That said, the wine Holborn is growing on me even with the contrast stitching.

Front

Back

It has had a flattability of about 0/10 i.e. it would not lie flat at all. Even with weights I was struggling to keep it open. I know how much that annoys me. I need my binder to lie open at my side without assistance or I won't use it. Feeling the cover, I can feel a thick card between the covers which seems to extend all the way around the binder. I've had the same feel of my wine Holborn (which lies absolutely flat as a bat but didn't quite when I got it) and although it feels the same, it will lie flat, even with all the contents on one side or the other.
Knowing that there is no way I will use the compact Holborn if it won't lie flat, I bent the covers back on themselves as much as I could. Repeatedly. It now (mostly) lies flat, though needs a few 'reminders' if it's been closed for a while. I know that sounds brutal, but I really can't be doing with a binder that won't lie flat! Tough love here!

Internal layout
This is similar to the wine Holborn but with a few important differences.
While the wine Holborn has six credit card slots and one big pocket, with the cards sitting horizontally, the compact has six vertical card slots and no bigger pocket. Behind the card slots there are both inward and outward facing pockets in both the compact and the regular sized versions.

In the back cover, there are inward and outward facing pockets in the compact, but no zipped pocket inside the outward facing one. The pen-loop in the compact is tucked into the outward facing pocket, but that might just have been how it ended up before being packed. The loop is about the same size as in the wine Holborn - i.e. it will take my Zebra diary pen (diameter 8mm) no problem but would struggle with anything bigger. The pen loop is also higher up - just above the closure strap in the compact, whereas in the regular sized version it is exactly where the closure strap is.

Slips of paper to indicate the pockets

Interior of wine Holborn for comparison

Contents
It came supplied with a regular, multi-language WO2P 2015 diary. Give me a shout if you want it! It looks like the cotton cream layout but on their normal, shoddy paper (actually, the cotton cream paper is just as shite) - 4 spaces per side, one for 'this week' and equal sizes for the days of the week. The irritating mini month diary (what is that for???) is in the 'this week' rather than in Sunday's slot, making Sunday's slot far more usable than normal.

Diary layout

After the diary came A-Z dividers. Again, free to a good home - just let me know if you want them. Then 4 sheets of to-do and 3 sheets each of lined paper (white), lined paper (blue), lined paper (lilac).

Rings
Like all my Filofax compacts, the rings are oval; 15mm x 11mm. Naturally, as it is a Filofax, one of the rings doesn't close perfectly, but none of them catch the paper in any way so perhaps I'm just being picky.

In use
I've transferred things across and will use it until the end of May. After that, I'll see! The card slots were very tight but they'll hopefully ease up a bit with use. I tried transferring everything from the rings of the personal Holborn, but unsurprisingly, the rings were a bit too full, so I've taken a few months of diary out and the dividers. I have paper money in the outward facing pocket at the front, stamps in the inward-facing pocket at the front and a couple of loyalty cards tucked into the inward facing pocket at the back. I have my Zebra diary pen in the pen loop (which has effectively stopped me using the outward-facing pocket at the back). It might be easier to close once I get rid of all the change I have in the zipped pencil case I have on the back rings - it is currently full of pound coins which are pretty bulky!

Overall
At the moment I'm a bit 'meh' about it but then, I was about the wine Holborn when I first moved into that. I would have liked it to be less matte and have better flattability but I may have sorted one with the bending of the covers and could probably sort the other with some black leather polish! It's lying flat at the moment (though is reluctant to close) - repeated use should make it easier, hopefully.

Keep you posted!

Still in the Holborn...

...but I suspect it won't be for long. I may try and use it for the whole of April but I'm already contemplating moving into the turquoise Baroque, or possibly try out the binder I have just bought off eBay (ahem).

Okay, one by one...

Why am I not loving the wine Holborn? It has all those pockets, it's red (ish) and with the full-size rings it has space for the whole year of diary (and therefore I have removed the month to view pages as I genuinely never look at them and can never work out what is supposed to go in them other than birthdays which are in the WO2P anyway).
I think it's all the pockets that's the problem as the covers feel bulky. The pen-loop always makes the back pocket be slightly sticky-outy and that's making the rest of the pages stick up too. The inward-facing pockets are difficult to access and so I hardly use them and the zipped pocket is also a bit tricky so just holds the cards I don't need easy access to and I keep coins in a zipped plastic pencil-case. [So basically the only pockets I am using are the ones I would have available in a Baroque: one for paper money and a zipped one to hold infrequently used cards. Which makes me think, "Oh, just move into the Baroque!"]

And what's all this about buying another binder on eBay??

Well, I like my compact de Villiers but it's getting damaged (see my last post); I like my compact Cavendish but it doesn't quite lie flat enough (and it's probably going to a friend). Basically, I like a compact that has a lot of card slots on the inside cover and preferably has a pen loop and another pocket for keeping non-essential but useful cards in. I saw such a binder on eBay, made an offer and it is now on its way to me. More details once it is here.

Clocks change; filofax change

Actually, the change is much less to do with the move to BST than the fact that the de Villiers is getting damaged, but I did make the change at the same time as we 'lost' an hour!

The de Villiers is still glorious and still in many ways the perfect size for me, but I noticed last week that the spine of the binder has been cut by the ring mechanism...

It looks worse in this zoom-in!

and that the stitching on the back inside cover is coming undone...

Stitching coming undone

So, I decided that it should have a rest. I've swapped into the wine Holborn (the brown one has gone to a new home) but I can imagine that I will be in a Baroque again soonish. The set-up is exactly the same as it was a couple of weeks ago (see 'How have I ended up using four things for planning?') except since I have the space I have put all of the WO2P diary for 2015 in.

I don't really know what to do about the de Villiers. The rest of the binder is great (well used by a previous owner but still great) but I don't want its injuries to get any worse. Any suggestions?

Anyone else changing set-up with the move to 'summer-time'?

Shortest filofax change ever?

Following on from my last post, where I started to hum and haw about whether I could use a pocket Holborn, I thought I would switch the contents of my Baroque into my wine Holborn, just to remind myself about the leather and the feel of the thing.

I haven’t quite moved back yet, but I was itching to, only seconds after moving in. Although the leather in the Holborn is beautiful and supple, it isn’t the full-on floppiness of the Baroques!

This might be the quickest in-out (shaking it all about) ever for me! I might not stay in it for an hour, never mind any longer...

Pocket Holborn...?

Oh, Shadow Wolf has gone and done it now...! Between her saying how fabulous her pocket Holborn is, me having looked and looked and looked at the pocket Holborn over time and eBay having a new one for a good price right now... enabling!!

So, in an attempt at sane rationality, I’m going to compare and contrast the Baroque and the Holborn. Hopefully, I will find that the Holborn is no better than the Baroque I already have and so there is no point buying it.
[This is also known as the null-hypothesis and we all know that that’s actually what you’re trying to disprove!]

Shadow Wolf assures me of flattability, so we needn’t compare on those grounds, which leaves pockets, rings and colour.

Pockets:
a) Baroque
There are four card slots plus a curved pocket that can be used for cards.
There is a full-height pocket behind the card-slots, then a zipped pocket, then another full-height pocket behind the zipped one and another full-height pocket behind that.
In the back there is a note-pad pocket.
There is no full-width pocket along the back.

b) Holborn
There are three card-slots and a curved pocket that can be used for cards.
There is an outward-facing full-height pocket behind the card-slots. There is also an inward-facing full-height pocket behind the card-slots.
In the back cover, there is an outward-facing full-height pocket (and I think there is a zipped pocket inside here - Shadow Wolf can you confirm or deny?). There is also an inward facing full-height pocket.
There is a full-width pocket along the back.

Rings:
a) Baroque
19mm

b) Holborn
15mm

Colour:
The Baroque I have is black. If I had a turquoise or pink one, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion! The black is okay – redeemed by the embossing inside, but nonetheless, black.
The Holborn on eBay is wine. The wine-red personal Holborn I have is a gorgeous colour. I could certainly live with it in pocket size.

The crunch is the pocket layout I think. If I work through what I would put where, maybe that would help?

a) Baroque
In the past I have had 4 cards in the card-slots, stamps in the pocket behind, other cards in the zipped pocket, in the full-height pocket behind the zipped one I put vouchers and the other full-height pocket was too tricky to get things in and out of so I didn’t use it. In the notepad pocket in the back I put paper money. Coins went into a zip-loc bag at the back and there was one card-holder on the rings.

b) Holborn
Since I have never held one, I will have to predict how I would use the pockets...
4 cards in the card slots. Other cards in the zipped pocket at the back. Stamps in one of the full-height pockets (probably the front inward-facing one as there is never a rush to get to them!). Vouchers in one of the other full-height ones (probably front outward-facing for easy access).
Paper money and receipts would go in the full-width pocket along the back; coins would go in the zip-loc bag.
Now, this leaves me an inward-facing pocket and an outward-facing pocket still to assign things to! I have a pocket-size address book which I got with the Flex which I could probably slot into the inward-facing pocket at the back, which might (might) free up the rings so that 15mm ones would be okay. The other 15mm ring versions of filofaxes always fail because I have to carry the cards on card-holders on the rings which leaves no space for paper contents.

Hmm... Shadow Wolf – if you’re reading this, will the Holborn work how I think it would??? Because if so, I may just succumb!

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...).

Pros and cons of all my binders

Well, not all my binders. That would be daft. And a massive, massive blog post. I’ll just focus on the “usual squeezes”: the Baroques, the Cavendish, the Holborn(s), the Mulberry agendas, the pocket Baroque and the pocket Aston. What do I love about them? What do I want to change about them? Will I sell them (daft question. We all know the answer is going to be no, possibly stretching to a mmm, maybe I could sell it… maybe…).

Binder	What do I love?	What would I change?	Will I be selling it/them?
Pink and turquoise Baroques	Colour Interior embossing 6 card holders Full height pocket behind card slots Notepad slot in back	Add another full height pocket (like the Malden) behind the notepad slot	Don’t be daft
Brown Holborn	All those card slots All those pockets	Contrast stitching (um, actually I did change it) The full-height pockets nearest the rings are tricky The zipped pocket is a bit tricky too	Hmm… maybe?
Wine Holborn	All those card slots All those pockets	Contrast stitching The full-height pockets nearest the rings are tricky The zipped pocket is a bit tricky too	Jeez – I’ve only just got it! No…
Black Cavendish	The 8 card slots (yes! 8!) The 1.25” rings (yes – 1.25”!!) The pockets in the rear	The colour – black’s a bit… dark and lacking in colour The zipped pocket on the cover’s a bit pointless	Ha ha ha ha ha!  No
Pocket Aston	The size The colour	More card slots The zipped pocket wasn’t that useful	No
Pocket Baroque	The size The card slots The embossed interior The notepad slot	The colour – pink or teal would be better… The zipped pocket is pointless	No
Indie (brown Mulberry agenda)	The size The quality The beaten leather	More card slots The vertical pockets to be a little further from the rings or have the shaped edge	Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!  No
Red (red Mulberry agenda)	The size The quality The colour	More card slots The extra slip pocket that Indie has Not to be so shiny (?)	Er… no… maybe…? No… Don’t know…

I have come to the realisation that I like:

• lots of pockets
• lots of card slots
• colour

At least that’s good to realise so it might curb my binder-buying habits.

[ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha… who am I kidding???]

Maybe it will help me decide which binder to start 2013 in...

Wine Holborn

My impulse-buy, I-don’t-need-another-binder-and-it’s-only-making-the-choices-more-difficult Holborn in wine arrived the other day and I promised I would blog about it today, so here goes.

I did a pretty comprehensive review of the brown Holborn (here) so I won’t repeat myself over the layout etc. Instead, I’ll focus on the differences.

[I do note, reading back over the original review, that I said I didn’t like the wine colour… really?? I’m more fickle than I thought!]

Exterior:

The colour is fabulous. I’m not sure my photos do it any justice and I would have taken it outside to get it photographed in natural light but a) it has poured with rain all day and b) there doesn’t appear to be much natural light outside today! Scotland, on the shortest day of the year, with heavy rain… never going to be a dazzlingly bright day!

The contrast stitching on the brown Holborn bugged me so much that I used boot leather conditioner on it to tone it all down! On the wine, it’s actually not quite so irritating, but I’ll be happier when it’s grubbied up a bit!

Flattability:

Interestingly, the brown Holborn lay pretty flat straight out of the box, but the wine one doesn’t. It will be okay laden with paper and the paper split evenly between the two halves, but at the moment it’s not lying flat at all!

Needing a weight on the LHS to get it flat enough to photograph

Interior:

Well, obviously, the interior layout is exactly the same as the brown one. This one came supplied with the standard fill – diary (WO2P with no lines), A-Z dividers, www pages, address pages, to do pages, coloured notepaper, 5 blank dividers, a credit-card holder and a plastic protective sheet. 

Original fill (sorry the picture is crooked... more mulled wine anyone?)

A bit less crooked...

I’ve taken all that out already and put my standard fill in! Notes divider with lined paper behind; projects divider with projects to goals to next action sheets; diary divider with monthly sheets followed by the WO2P dairy that came with the Holborn; lists divider with a variety of things behind (um, lists of stuff really…); info divider with info pages from the diary and then addresses behind. Right at the back is the card holder and then a zipped pencil-case (bought for about 50p from Tescos and punched). I know the Holborn has a zipped pocked inside one of the slip-pockets but I like to see my coins and vouchers and the clear plastic pencil case is the exact size of the binder. (In the picture below, the index card is there merely to obscure the last name/address in my filofax).

Clear zipped pencil case for coins/money (when this binder is in use)

I think I’m going to set up three binders for the New Year: Red, wine Holborn and pocket Baroque and work on a rota…! But which one to use first? Keep voting to help me decide!

Personal Holborn in wine heading my way…

I’ve just bought a personal Holborn in wine.

Why???

Hmm... Are you in league with my DH, who will no doubt ask the same thing?

Is the reason, “It was on offer and I like the colour” good enough…?

Ah. Thought not.

[Though I’m sure many of you understand how that happens…]

How about, “I loved the Holborn when I was using it; it was just a bit too brown” …?

Ah. (again)

Okay. I give up. I had no reason whatsoever to buy it. Especially as I have:

• just reviewed the binders I have used this year and have used A6 or smaller for more than half the year (post coming soon with details)
• recently bought another Mulberry (see here for details)
• have about seven zillion other binders that I also love but don’t use (see here, here and here for summaries!)
• was supposed to only be buying stationery once a month and only then if I had done all the training I was supposed to have done (see here)

If it comes and I do indeed love the colour, the brown Holborn may well go on sale. I can’t justify keeping it when the reason I’m not using it is that it’s too dull and so I bought a red version.

I’ll keep you posted!