Circling back almost to where I started...

Life is about to change enormously for me as I leave work purgatory in a week. I'm wondering what system will work well for me once I am pretty much in charge of my time. In trying to help me to decide, I thought I would run through what I've used over the years and what has or hasn't worked for me.
Basically, I have chopped and changed almost as many times as I've had hot dinners, and wasted huge amounts of money on trying to find the 'right binder' (when I was probably hunting for the right system), but a few things have become apparent: I like week+notes and a DPP. Pocket doesn't work for me, however cute the binders are. And I'm rubbish at turning the page so in fact, I don't need to carry both W+notes and DPP around with me; just the W+notes will do!

How did I get to this point of realisation? Read on (if you're suffering from insomnia) and I'll take you through the disasters of the years!

In the beginning (a.k.a. 2011)
January: I used an A5 at work and an A5 at home and was struggling to get my head around using a personal for my day to day carry around. I was also debating whether or not to buy a personal size filofax! Scoot forward to April 2011 and I was faffing over A5 or Personal and wrote this post about what I needed in a carry-around. It's really interesting (at least to me) that what I needed then is exactly what I need now! Even then I found it nigh on impossible to turn a page to see what I was supposed to be doing and liked the thought of a week plus notes. Plus ça change and all that.

By the end of April 2011, I had moved wholeheartedly into the pink Baroque and was loving it. It functioned as my wallet as well as a planner and I loved it. I then bought a turquoise Baroque. And then a green Portland.

It's now beginning to get embarrassing reading over these old posts as, in August 2011 I was pondering personal or pocket and deciding to stick with personal (see the post here) but by the end of August 2011 I had bought my first (of many!) pocket filofaxes - a pocket Cavendish (see here for the post saying I'd bought it and here for more details on the binder). However, I stayed in the personal size (and the pocket went into the drawer of my desk and tried to have a party on its own) and even bought a Cavendish (see here and here for details).

2012
2012 was a year of faffing about, BIG TIME! Though I do note that I realised even then, that a month to view did not work for me!
February: I was wondering about moving into pocket size (see here); I bought the pocket Aston (see here) and moved in (see here).
April: I'd bought a personal Holborn (see here) and was wondering if I had planner fail (see here).
May: I was still in the pocket Aston and had shifted to week + notes for the diary (see here)
By June, I was in the personal Holborn; by July I had bought two A5 Mulberry binders (admittedly not as carry-arounds!); by August I'm on about the current carry about being the pink Baroque again, but had bought a Mulberry A6 and a pocket Baroque... In September, I moved into the A6 Mulberry (Indie). My old foe, the desire for colour had struck again by December and I was out of Indie and had bought a scarlet Mulberry AND a wine Holborn.
So, in 2012 I had used: personal, pocket, personal, A6. Would 2013 be any more stable?

No.

2013
I bought:
January - Green pocket Mulberry (Loki)
April - pocket Classic in red (see here)
August - pocket Portland in red (see here)
September - personal Portland in blue (see here)
December - another A5 Mulberry (see here)

System-wise, I was all over the place!
January - A6 Mulberry (Red)
April - pocket Baroque
May - personal Holborn (wine); August - personal Baroque
Most of the rest of the year I was havering over personal or A6.

2014
I think my favourite post of all time summed it up>>>> Siren songs
Despite those siren songs, I spent the whole year using personal size paper. Admittedly there was still some binder chopping and changing: turquoise Baroque to wine Holborn to navy Portland and then to slimlines - the red de Villiers (my most successful binder ever!) and then compact Cavendish.

2015
Well, we're not done with it yet, but I've changed system dramatically once already!
I started the year still in a compact. My beloved red de Villiers was beginning to get worn, so I moved into the wine Holborn (briefly), tried the compact Cavendish and then I tried a compact Belgravia (see here for a compare/contrast between Cavendish and Belgravia). Mid April saw a red Traveller's Journal by The Stamford Notebook Company arrive but although I loved it, I didn't move in. Instead I bought a compact Holborn (see here) and then a slimline Adelphi (see here). Despite that ticking ALL the boxes, I still shifted into the TJ, partly because it was new and partly because I needed the page size.

So here we are, several years down the line and more binders than I want to think about, and I find I am back with a week+notes in almost A5 size and a DPP in my reporter's notebook. I realise that I need a colour pop (so no more black binders!) and I need cards and money to be catered for. Whether that's in the scarlet Adelphi or the Stamford Traveller's Journal in 2016 is yet to be decided. Let's see how the last quarter of 2015 goes, once I have left hell.

Thank you, everyone who has been on this journey with me!

Ah, here we go again... Pocket? Personal?

I know. I’ve been here before. I hum and haw about this for a while, decide ‘yes, I can make it work in a pocket’ then I move over, lock, stock and barrel. And then about a month later I move back into a personal.

I’ve done the scoping exercises. I know exactly what I need in a planner. It’s exactly what a personal sized Baroque looks like. End of.

Except... Except... Except...

I have a drawer full of pocket filofaxes (and a Mulberry or two) looking doe-eyed and appealing. And small.

Oh, and there’s the rub.

There is no getting away from the fact that my Baroque feels huge sometimes. It’s not just a planner, it’s a wallet too so needs to have space for cards and money and receipts and vouchers and all that guff. And since I seem utterly incapable of working out that a monthly sheet would save having to have an entire year of week-to-view diary in the binder weighing it down and taking up ring-space, I have an entire year of week-to-view diary in there, weighing it down and taking up ring space.

I would LOVE to move into the pretty little red Portland (15mm rings... 4mm too small). But to do so would probably mean carrying a wallet as well as the filofax and that then defeats the point of carrying something small... There would also be the very strong probability that I would leave either filofax or wallet behind when leaving the house and then find I needed them.

I have made a pocket work for me before – I’ve had months in both an Aston and in a pocket Baroque (well, months if you combine the time in each of them) but it always feels a bit of a struggle in comparison with using the personal. If I could somehow convert that bit of my brain that struggles with being able to use a monthly planer I could probably drastically reduce the pages carried in it and really work the weekly reviews (take out the past week of week-to-view and replace with one more so there is constantly a month’s worth in there, plus the monthly planners). It’s always how to carry the cards that gets to me though. I carry bank and credit cards, but then there are all those other cards that no, I don’t use on a weekly or possibly even monthly basis, but if I don’t have them with me I will either lose them completely or find I need them and don’t have them with me. So I carry all of them and that takes up ring space since the card carriers for the pocket size only have 4 slots and are arranged in a way to make the binder really bulky since the cards overlap so much.

Does anyone use a pocket-size as both a well-functioning wallet and a well-functioning planner? Do you also blog? If so, please, please link to a blog-post showing how you get it to work? If you don’t blog – fancy doing a guest post on here to show how you make it all work? If you do blog, would you fancy doing a guest-post on here...?

 [569... still counting]

Getting ready for 2014

Ooh... I feel all prepared and organised. Well, somewhat! After some interesting, inspiring and fun discussions with Shadow Wolf over email, I became enthused about getting set up for 2014 so have spent a couple of days preparing things.

Despite still not being 100% sure about my goals and next actions (yep... still working on them), I did know that I needed monthly sheets and weekly sheets and that my weekly sheets needed dividing into ‘next actions’ space and ‘to do’ space (in my head, ‘to do’ are things that need doing like buying stamps, writing to a friend, getting the dry-cleaning, doing the housework, whereas ‘next actions’ are the things I have to do to progress my projects and hence approach achieving my goals). This year I have struggled a bit with ‘to do’ beginning to swamp me and ‘next actions’ getting forgotten and I am determined that this won’t be the case in 2014!

Whereas my homemade week + notes is designed around me and would have been a perfect set-up for 2014, I am also getting annoyed with myself for buying perfectly good diary pages and then printing up my own anyway, so I have decided to stick with the Paperchase week to view (which I reviewed here) and amend it slightly.

My set-up (and I am really hoping that despite all the siren-songs from Red shiny people, I may stay in it!) therefore runs like this:

• Goals to Projects to Next Actions (held in the navy Portland)
• Monthly sheets (all bar the current month held in the navy Portland; current month’s sheet is in the day-to-day binder)
• Weekly sheets (all bar the current month’s weekly sheets held in the navy Portland; current month’s weekly sheets are in the day-to-day binder behind the current monthly sheet)
• Week to view (whole year in the day-to-day binder)

In detail
1. Goals to Projects to Next-Actions
Still a work-in-progress at the moment but I am hoping to map them out over the next few days!

2. Monthly sheets
Still also somewhat a work-in-progress as the next-actions are nowhere to be seen yet. However, the rest has been set up.

sample monthly sheet

I have used lavender-coloured paper and a separate sheet for each month. The month is written across the top then there is a space for writing in all the next-actions and any month-specific to do (like renew the car insurance, etc.). At the bottom is a reminder of all the birthdays that month (covered up in the photograph). You can see November in the picture (fewest birthdays to hide!) and a few things in on the monthly list (but not many! It is for November 2014 after all).
The reverse of these sheets just has ‘Review’ written across the top and will be where the monthly review gets written up.

3. Weekly sheets
These used to work so well for me and I don’t understand why I let them slip. They are effectively the ‘+ notes’ part of the week + notes format, only with space for the weekly review on the reverse.

sample weekly sheet

I have split each week into ‘to do’ and ‘next actions’ as explained earlier. And yes, I have drawn up all the weekly sheets needed for 2014 and in every single one I have written ‘weekly review’ (as well as ‘monthly review’ and ‘quarterly review’ where appropriate). Shown in the photograph is a sample week (with not a lot to do in it yet!). I was going to write all of these out on nice cotton-cream paper but then found a heap of quadrille paper and thought I would use it up (yes, it was Time Manager paper and I trimmed it and re-punched it to fit). In the monthly review, these sheets will get filled up with ‘next actions’. I have put in all the ‘buy card and present for x’ reminders over the whole year too, as well as ‘post card and present to x’ (yes – that level of reminder is needed!)

4. Paperchase Week to View Diary
These pages live in the turquoise Baroque (current day-to-day binder). Since the week to view has to cover both appointments and tick-lists and since my Virgoan/OCD-squeakiness makes me not want to mix these up on the page, I have split every day into two, with appointments to go on the left and tick-lists to go one the right. (This might have taken less time if the lines weren’t all precisely a Today-ruler’s width from the edge of the lines...)

sample week to view

I also realised that I need to make a bit more effort over some habit-tracking. If things aren’t actually written down on a day, I won’t necessarily do them. However, my Virgoan/completer-finisher/OCD-squeakiness makes me determined to tick something off if it appears on a day! Hence, on each day, I have either got ‘core’ or ‘rowing’ (by which I mean rowing like rowing a boat, not rowing like having an argument!) and on Sunday I have to do both, so have both written in, with a small square to tick. No, I’m not joking. All 365 days of 2014 have one or both of these written in.

I became sloppy about doing my weekly reviews last year – probably a major reason why my goals slipped and non-goals-busyness took over. To try and avoid that this year, on every Sunday I have ‘review’ written and there are also indications of when I have more than one to do (monthly and/or quarterly), so I get to tick them off on the day and on the weekly sheets!

Since I am incapable of turning a page to look at the weekly sheets, I will also have their lists on Post-It notes on the weekly pages too. I know – why have the weekly sheets at all if I’m not going to look at them? I don’t know. I need them when I plan the month and I like to have them for the weekly review, but I’m just hopeless at looking at them in the week itself and if I allocate tasks to specific days I tend to overload myself and get frustrated by a lack of flexibility, so I have tasks on the Post-Its and throw them away at the end of the week.

The only other thing I have done to the diary, is the minuscule amount of washi tape you can see. Although I love the idea of washi tape and have a fine collection myself, I can never cope with it on the days of my diary, any more than I really can cope with stickers. Whereas I love seeing what others are doing when they decorate their pages, I think I am too much of a ‘clean-line, no clutter’ person in my diary. So, my concession to washi tape in the diary is to put a little bar of it along the top corner, coded to indicate the month. It makes the page (a little) more interesting but doesn’t swamp the point of the WO2P of showing me what and when I am doing things.

Anyway, that’s my set-up. What about everyone else? Are other people as bonkers as this or am I the only one who finds sitting down and prepping the year like this soothing and reassuring?

Filofax pros and cons: personal size

In my last post, I summarised the main pros and cons of my A5 sized binders and what they are used for. Although they total nine (eek. Really??) they are all (bar one) in use. The same cannot be said about the collection of personal size filofaxes (and two Mulberries) I have. Here we go (take a deep breath!):

Type	Pros	Cons	Current use/location	Selling?
Pink Baroque	Gorgeous colour; lies flat-as-a-bat; excellent layout; squishy leather	None	Bottom drawer of my desk, as I can only use one carry-around at once	Ha ha ha ha ha No
Teal/turquoise Baroque	Gorgeous colour; lies flat-as-a-bat; excellent layout; squishy leather	None	My current carry-around	Ha ha ha ha ha No
Green Portland	Excellent quality; great colour; good interior layout; lies flat-as-a-bat; soft leather	Could do with one more pocket inside	Chimwemwe filofax Lives in the bookcase next to my desk	No
Navy Portland	Excellent quality; great colour; good interior layout; lies flat-as-a-bat; soft leather	Could do with one more pocket inside; the zipper cover is easily bent	Goal-planning filofax plus other household stuff	No
Brown Holborn	Rich colour; zillions of pockets; good layout; lots of card slots; lies flat-as-a-bat	Not a bright enough colour for me; some of the pockets are not all that useful	It’s in the drawer of my desk, unused	Probably
Wine Holborn	Rich colour; zillions of pockets; good layout; lots of card slots; lies flat-as-a-bat	Some of the pockets are not all that useful; the colour isn’t quite bright or classical enough for me	It’s in the drawer of my desk, unused	Probably
Black Cavendish	Great card-slots; 30 mm rings; good quality; lies flat-as-a-bat	It’s black and I need more colour usually; fully loaded it weighs a tonne	It’s in the drawer of my desk, holding spare inserts	No (it’s a Cavendish; it has 30mm rings...)
“Red” A6 Mulberry in red patent leather	Great quality; fantastic colour; excellent page size (and easy to make inserts for)	The card slots are too stiff; Didn’t lie flat easily	It’s in the bottom drawer of my desk, singing siren songs to me	No (she would kill me first)
“Indie” A6 brown leather Mulberry	Great quality; sexy as hell; excellent page size (and easy to make inserts for); lies flat-as-a-bat	The card slots are a bit stiff	Malawi binder – holds diary and notes and so on for going to Malawi	Ha ha ha ha ha NO!

I did have a grape domino, but I gave that away. I will probably sell the two Holborns (anyone interested, give me a shout!) – they are lovely but they are not as lovely as either the Baroques or the Portlands so the chances of me using them again are zilch.

Next up, the pocket size binders and smaller. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear.

Portland Festival!

I was both delighted and dismayed when a couple of weeks ago, I saw that The Crazy Suburban Mom had spied four Portland filofaxes for sale. Delighted because I LOVE my green personal Portland and have always kept an eye out for more Portlands  and dismayed because, with all that advertising, they were not going to go for the small sum that I got my green Portland for, a few years ago.
However, I needn’t have been too worried because it turned out that there aren’t that many other aficionadas in the world (or at least in the UK) and I snagged my red pocket Portland for a song and then I bagged a blue personal Portland for another song.
I’ve already reviewed the red Portland here. Let me now walk you through my blue one. In essence, it’s just like my green one but blue, but hey, it’s new to me and some of you might not want to go flicking back through old reviews.

The Portland is a very well made binder. It’s leather – both the exterior and the majority of the interior are a soft leather: only the linings of the pockets are in material. It also has two pen loops (all leather; no elastic; smallish pens only (though nowhere near as tight as the Baroque!). And of course, it lies flat as a bat! No training, no persuasion. Just unsnap the clasp and open. Ta-da!!

Flat as a bat

The interior layout:
On the inside left, there is a zipped, gusseted pocket which makes getting coins out of it a breeze, and because it is at the front, doesn’t rumple up all the pages (which, if it was at the back, it would). The back cover has six credit-card slots with a full-height pocket behind.  The zipped pocket is lined with fabric, as are the pockets at the back. Rings in both of my personal Portlands are 23mm (all perfectly aligned), but there was a Portland Grand with 30mm rings produced (which now seem rarer than hens’ teeth!).

Inside left

Gusseted pocket

Inside right

Now, if you read my review of the red pocket Portland, you may remember that I said the flap of leather covering the zipper was different in the red pocket than in the black pocket Portland (which hubby now has). The same is true between the green Portland and blue Portland in personal size. The green version has the cover as an extension of the pocket, whereas the blue (like the red pocket) has a flap that comes from above the zipper. I prefer the extension-of-the-pocket format, not least because the flap-from-above-version can get bent (as it has in the blue version). Does anyone know why and when they changed the format?

Extension-of-the-pocket zipper cover
(compare with the blue version above)

So, what will I use this filofax for? Hmm. I’m not sure. I bought it because it was blue and a Portland (which is at least one more reason than I bought the green version)! I think (think) I will use it for more detailed planning of my goals, which would allow me to remove those pages from my main carry-around binder. After all, I don’t really need to carry all that around with me – I just need to have looked at it at the weekly and monthly review sessions. I could also easily swap into using it as my carry-about planner if and when I want a break from the Baroque(s).

Oh Baroque, how I love thee!

I don't know why I bother switching in and out of different filofaxes. It seems that I always, always end up coming back to one of the three Baroques I have. If life is normal, it's one of the two personal size ones I have - either the pink or the turquoise. Current squeeze is the turquoise one. If life is a bit quieter (ha... when??) I manage to downsize to a Baroque pocket.

So, why do I keep coming back to them?? Here we go. Read the list and weep, all of you poor souls who aren't fortunate enough to have one.

• They lay flat as a bat. No training, no persuading with heavy books and kitchen weights. Just open and BAM! Flat. As. A. Bat.
• The personal sized version has six credit-card spaces in the front cover. As I like to use my filofax as a wallet and organiser this is invaluable. There is also a zipped pocket there which I could use for coins, but I don't. Not because it's too fiddly, but because I prefer to use the pencil case hack.
• The pocket size has five credit card slots (though the zipped pocket is too fiddly for coins). The leather is supple enough to make getting cards in and out easy too. 
• There are 2 vertical pockets behind the card slots in the pocket and one vertical pocket in the personal size, always useful for paper money etc.
• The colour. Yeah, they did them in black (and I have one in pocket size) but my favourite is the turquoise. The pink is stupendously good too.
• Ring size. Okay, the personal size Baroque comes in standard 25mm rings, but the pocket version has 19mm rings. I've tried a 15mm pocket and I just can't fit all my stuff in there.
• The embossing. The outside is smooth, fine-grained, supple leather. The inside is a riot of embossed leather.
• Both the pocket and the personal sizes have a notepad slot in the back cover. Not that I have ever used them as that, but it's a really useful pocket for keeping receipts and so on.

I've begun to realise that however close other binders come to being 'as good as a Baroque', they aren't Baroques. And so, I am seriously considering breaking up the massive filofax party that has been going on in the bottom drawer of my desk for years and selling some of them. Most of them actually. Because however close they get, however much I hope they will work for me the way the Baroques do, they just aren't Baroques.

Phew! Life is a TINY bit calmer... and I've changed filofax. Again.

Hello everyone! I am SO sorry that I have been AWOL. We went away on holiday and I decided to take a 'digital-holiday' too - i.e. do nothing digital - no blogs, no Twitter, no email and so on. Anyway, when we came back from holiday, life exploded with busy-ness and I didn't have either time or energy to write any posts.

Anyway, although life is still ridiculously busy, I am going to try and get a couple of blog posts a week written. I have a zillion things to post about - new filofax diary inserts, a filofax flex on its way, more purchases from The Journal Shop and some pen and ink updates!

Right now, as half of you might easily have predicted, I'm back in a Baroque. At times like this, I think I should just sell all the other filofaxes I have because however much they almost work for me, I always, always end up back in one of the Baroques. It's the turquoise one this time. All I did was shift everything, lock, stock and barrel from the wine Holborn to the Baroque, but then, as the Baroque is a bit narrower than many of the personal size filofax binders, the zipped pencil case I use as a cash and vouchers holder stuck out too much. Simple fix, I bought another of the cheap pencil cases (60p from Tescos), sliced the sealed edge off at 10cm width, re-sealed it with washi-tape, punched holes in it and put my cash and vouchers in it. Voilà!

I know you've all seen a zillion pictures of my turquoise Baroque, but here we go - here's another to show you the amended pencil case.

Doctored pencil-case. Works a treat!

I realise that in the picture above it looks like the pencil case, despite being trimmed in its width, is hugely taller than the binder, but it's just the angle I've taken the picture I think. Here's one of the binder closed - the pencil case is invisible.

Baroque closed.

See, no sign of it!

Anyway, my apologies again for being away for so long. Back soon!

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...).

My filofaxes – where are they now? (part 2)

In part 1, I described why I had bought all of the A5 filofaxes I own and what they are being used for now. Almost all of them are in use, I am pleased to say.

The same cannot be said about the collection of Personal sized filofaxes I own! Where are they? Well, the quick answer for almost all of them is “In the bottom drawer of the bureau in here.”

So, if I’m not really using most of them, why did I buy them in the first place? And why aren’t they in use? (and um, again, why aren’t I selling them??)

Here we go!

Personal Size

Pink Baroque

Why did I buy it?

Because it’s gorgeous! In fact, this is what I said when I bought them:

Because they were there, they were lovely, they were in the sale and because you just never know…

I did move into the personal baroque and I used it a lot. I loved it. I still love it. Of all the personal size filofaxes I own, I keep on coming back to the baroques. I blogged about it here, here and here.

Where is it now?

In a box in the bottom drawer of the bureau. Why? Because I moved into a Mulberry instead of using the baroque, because the page size suits me better.

Blue Baroque

Why did I buy it?

See answer above! I love the blue baroque as much as the pink. More on some days.

Where is it now?

In a box in the bottom drawer of the bureau.

I can still see me moving back into the baroque(s) though, so I am not selling them. For most of the other filofaxes, I either never used them as my day-to-day filofax or I stopped for some other reason. The baroques were always the ones I wanted to use the most though.

Green Portland

Why did I buy it?

It’s British Racing Green. Seriously. I knew nothing about Portlands. I saw a green filofax on eBay and got it for about a tenner. Once I got it, I really liked it. It’s used as my Chimwemwe filofax (see here). It would work well as a day-to-day filofax too (and in fact, another member of my Rotary club has the exact same style/colour which he uses as his wallet!).

Where is it now?

In a bookcase next to my desk. I use it frequently.

Black Cavendish

Why did I buy it?

It’s a Cavendish. It has ginormous rings and a zillion card-holders. I blogged about it here, here and here.

Where is it now?

In the bottom drawer of the bureau. I may use it again – the ring space was fantastic. I stopped using it because I’m not such a fan of the black and full, it was pretty heavy, but I don’t think I will sell it.

Purple Finchley

Why did I buy it?

I really like the A5 Finchleys I have, and there was a purple one on sale at City Organiser.

Where is it now?

Who knows?? I hated it so much, it went straight back to City Organiser! (see here)

Grape domino

Why did I buy it?

It came free with a Gourmet card (well, that’s what I told my DH!). In all honesty, I quite fancied the Gourmet card and as I bought it later in the year, it was on sale. We did get our money’s worth out of the card but I have always hated the filofax and have never used it as a day-to-day filofax.

Where is it now?

In the bottom drawer of the bureau, storing spare inserts and bits and bobs. I would happily sell this, except it’s not worth enough to cover the postage probably. If anyone’s interested, let me know!

Brown Holborn

Why did I buy it?

I read several reviews and liked the fact it had so many pockets etc. The layout in general appealed. I blogged about it here and here.

Where is it now?

Oh for goodness’ sake… it’s in the massive filofax party in the bottom sodding drawer of the bureau!  

Why did I stop using it? Well, although I did like using it, it was just too dull a colour and in the summer, with all the rain, I needed a colour pop. Some of the pockets turned out to be less useful than I imagined too. I’m torn as to whether to sell it or not. Knowing me, I won’t!

I’m actually saddened that so many of my filofaxes are in a drawer, but I genuinely a) can’t think of another use for them and b) don’t want to sell most of them.

The same might not be so true for the stash of pocket filofaxes, which I will cover in the next post.

New dividers...

…but not for the Aston, despite all the charming, pretty card I have.

Why???

Because I am approaching planner fail and because this post on Philofaxy inspired me to be more creative with making dividers for the Holborn, ready for when I well and truly hit planner-fail and move back to the personal size.

I may post soon on why, exactly, despite loving my little pocket Aston, I am reaching planner-fail with her, but today I wanted to do a quick post to show you my new dividers for the Holborn.

Many of you have seen/commented on the calligraphy in my filofaxes before and I too love the crisp lines and beautiful blend of simplicity and complexity – they look simple on one level, but the more you look, the more you see how complicated and intricate they are. A bit like people sometimes... Most times.

My set-up is fine – that isn’t why I am reaching failure with the pocket – and so I have recreated the same set-up but on cream card, which I think looks divine with the brown leather. In fact, the crispness of the designs with the dark brown leather are a small slice of ecstasy for me when I open the binder!

I decided to try and be a bit more clever with the dividers this time. I read this post on Tommes-S blog where he had put a mirror-image of the picture he was using on his dividers on the reverse side – quite rightly pointing out that when you open the filofax at the divider, you see the reverse side and not the front! I also wanted to print the labels on the tabs, rather than hand-write them in afterwards.

I am rubbish at being able to draft things out accurately enough to be able to print onto card first and cut later but thankfully my little printer will take filofax-sized paper/card without bother, so my first step was to cut two sheets of lightweight cream card into three pieces, each 10.5cm x 17.1 cm.

Next was to do the arty bit in a word document, sized to 10.5cm x 17.1cm. For each divider, I chose one of my calligraphy pictures (gathered from various corners of the web) and chose the picture settings to be centred both vertically and horizontally. I then re-sized each picture until it was a decent size.

For the labels, I made text-boxes, fixed their size as 3.4cm (I always use 5 dividers and 17cm/5 is 3.4cm), rotated the text and then positioned them on the far right-hand edge. Getting them in exactly the right spot was tricky (and I haven’t for some) as I was having to use a ruler against my laptop screen since I have not mastered the skills of text-box placement the ‘correct’ way, using the placement settings! Nonetheless, I can cope with them. The text isn’t perfectly centred now that I have cut the tabs, but they will work!

Then came the sneaky bit of having the same design on the reverse side. I flipped the text again and then moved the text-box over to the far left-hand edge and reprinted the card. If I moved the text-box by only using the left-arrow on the laptop, then they were at exactly the same height as on the original side. I needed to nudge a couple of the images to the side as now bits of the design were over-lapping with the label (the elephant trunk etc.) but otherwise, the images are in the same places and just the labels have swapped sides and orientation.

So, here they are… (before I trimmed them up).

Fronts…

Fronts of the dividers

And reverse…

Reverse side

I then measured where the tabs should be and trimmed them up by hand. I also shaved another 1.5 mm off the width of the tab, just because the text had ended up a little far away from the edge and it looked better.

Finally, I put some squares of clear, sticky-backed plastic over the tabs to protect and strengthen them and popped them in the Holborn:

Ta da!!!

What do people think?