My Filofax Organization... How I organize each section of my Filofax planner.
My Classic Filofax in Pocket size See my Filofax setup in my blog: www.scottishwhimsicality.blogspot.com
Today I’d like to give you guys a tour of my main planner, my Personal Filofax Malden. As I mentioned in my previous post, this was my own little Christmas gift to myself – and so far, I’m lo…
Late last summer, I discovered that a pocket size Filofax worked beautifully for my needs. Provided it was one of the ones with the 19mm rings, it holds everything I need and is small enough to ca…
A run through of how I use my Personal Filofax in conjunction with my Bullet Journal and also a quite update of how I'm getting on with my bujo!
Interior detail of my vintage Balmoral Filofax, showing the Built in Jotter in the cover flap, and double pen loops.
Hello, hello! I have been having so many positive responses from my calendars, it is so good to hear! I can’t wait for the new year so I get to seem them in action 🙂 The personal size has been a bit more challenging for folks to print, so I thought I would give you an […]
I have been a long-time fan of Filofaxes. I think I got my first one when I was in my early twenties. Lately, I have been going back and forth between having a Google Calendar to using a Filofax. Since becoming pregnant, I've been experiencing pregnancy brain (a slight decrease...
Explore Ewan Spence's 4625 photos on Flickr!
Dear Diane, I cannot believe it has been so long since I posted here. You know there has been illness and a holiday, but really - how can those two events,both of which gave me time away from the day job be an excuse? We were talking about rituals to get us started in creativity and so I have applied one to blogging and am at the very table at which this blog was conceived in Cafe Boc Boc with tea and doughnut, trying to do better! There has just been a little girl at the ice cream counter whose attitude to life sums up creativity ( and female guile) well. Her father ordered her a single scoop of icecream and told her to choose her flavour. "Pink Mint" "The pink is strawberry and the mint is green. Which do you want." "Pink Mint" "The mint is green." "But I do pink." In this she was telling the truth, judging by her pink trainers and pink trousers and pink backpack. " Don't be silly. Which do you want." "Pink Mint!" The father rolled his eyes at the waitress. "Give her a scoop of strawberry." The girl put her hands on her hips. "With one of green too. I'll mix it up in the pot. Pink Mint." One thing you mentioned last time was that we should post about our creativity notebooks. Ho, ho! I think when you suggested that, it was before we both rediscovered Filofaxes. (Should I explain to readers how our Inner Eighties- Professional discovered the Philofaxy blog and asscoaited links, burst forth into the shops and how we now both own multiple new beautiful leather binders and spend time on SKYPE discussing leather flexibility, paper inserts and top tabs? Whats that? It makes us look obsessive? Ok. I won't mention that in public then.) Except to say that part of my illness recovery has been to set up my Cherry Classic A5 Filofax ( bought for a song from Amazon warehouse because the box - but not the product - was damaged) as my studio Filofax. Using it has quickly become just the starting ritual I was looking for. My eagerness and excitement about creative possibilities can at times turn into a stumbling block. Where to start? Where to focus my energies? How to absorb all the information? How to be realistic about what I can achieve in the time available? Applying the business like organised side of my personality to my creative life has turned out to be both fun (in the stationery- nerd sense of the word) and practical. Want to see where I am so far? First of all I blinged the cream dividers that came with the Filofax. As my primary source of inspiration is Africa, I stuck in some eyecandy on the front and back of each divider. I am using Ivy stickers which are just the right size for the tabs to label them, rather than the recommended permenent marker, all the better for being able to easily swap their order in the future. The extra tabs are Post It Index tabs (why do they cost so much?!). Tucked in the front pocket are some L shaped pieces for card for use as 'viewfinders' to isolate parts of a picture for design purposes. Right at the front is my activity section. I find it useful to track how much time I spend on various activities. This is both motivating, given I set a varying weekly target for studio hours and also educational as it help me better estimate how long a task takes and so to plan better for the future in terms of what I can commit to. None of the Filofax diary inserts were perfect for this so I Printed out these monthly sheets and simply use plain paper to record my activities, summing up at the end of the week and transferring total to the diary. I guess once you have worked in a law firm where time recording is king, the habit never goes away! This sheet is more detailed than usual as I am at home for a full day. My first tab is Finances. Here I manage my ( generous) monthly budget for quilting supplies and it is also useful for tax purposes to have a detailed record of how much things cost so I can calculate the profit element of a quilt. I use the preprinted Filofax expense sheets but I am not going to show you the incriminating evidence thereon!! Next the Learning tab. There are so many techniques in which I am interested but not yet proficient that I can get quite excited-dizzy with the options. So I have set out clearly my ' personal learning plans' i.e a list of goals with realistic target dates. I have top tabs for each section, currently, Photoshop Express, Working in a Series classes, Surface Design and Portrait making. each section has a yellow sheet setting out my goals, the resources, I have or need to acquire and the aimed for completion dates and how I define completion. I also list the steps I need to take to achieve each goal. Blue pages in each section contain notes. I have a tab for Calls for entries.I do save full details and entry forms electronically on Evernote, but it is very useful to have a summary here for planning purposes. However, I find it helpful to have a visual overview of the year so I can see entry dates and when quilts are to be delivered ( and therefore finished!). Filofax do make a year planner but there is very little room to write on it so I made these templates myself using Word. I have the same template with the self imposed target dates for my personal learning plan too. Behind the next tab 'Forms' I keep entry forms and labels for current shows. Need to buy a top opening envelope insert for this section. The 'Pattern' Tab is for when I write kit patterns for The African Fabric Shop or for magazines and is a space for me to jot down the steps I took making a quilt ready to be turned into coherent instructions. 'Articles' is a tab with a list if ideas for magazine articles. The 'Quilts' tab is ironically empty as this is a new set up, but will contain a sheet for each quilt with a photo, and records of size, cost and time to make it, where it has been shown etc. 'Travel' is for quilt show related travel bookings and tickets. I have an ' Inspiration tab' but that is empty at the moment.Not because I am not currently inspired but because I am using Pinterest and my Cuban Filofax together with a traditional notebook for my current themes. I may use this tab. I may ditch it. Lets see. That's the wonderful thing about a Filofax system - the flexibility. Finally, the 'Website tab' has notes on my website settings and blog topic ideas. There is nothing behind the alphabetical tabs yet but I intend to use them as catch all area for notes and clippings : G for Galleries, E for El Anatsui and so on. So, thats the business end of my system. Then comes the Brown Cuban sketchbook Filofax and its companions Chocolate Classic and the traditional notebook. But I think I will save those for another day! Now its your turn to show me yours! love, Helen
If you are happy with the way you are currently using your Filofax, stop reading. The worst thing you can do is tinker unnecessarily with a system that works well. Still reading? OK then. This post will seek to briefly answer the question of how to use a Filofax. It will not address the issue of why to use a Filofax, nor whether to use a Filofax. I'm assuming you have worked through these questions yourself. So, how should you use it? the real - but potentially unhelpful - answer is, 'However you like.' What follows is just one possible answer. It is based on my experience of what works (for me) and what doesn't (again, for me), filtered through the sieve of my own likes and annoyances. I'll try to keep it snappy; we're all busy people. The rules 1. Put all other notebooks, planners and pads out of reach. While you are getting your Filofax up and running (say, the first couple of weeks you spend using it) you don't want the distraction of handling multiple systems. 2. Write in your diary every appointment you need to remember, including other people's insofar as they affect you. For instance, is your partner going out for the evening one day next week? That needs to be in your diary too if it means you will have to be at home providing childcare. 3. Every day, read today's diary and scan about a week ahead. Look for events that have been cancelled or are no longer relevant. Delete them. Think about any events you might need to add. Add them. 4. Maintain a separate (i.e. separate from the diary) list if you want to use your Filofax to manage tasks. The only time a task should be in your diary is if it needs to be done on a particular day. If it is just a matter of having to be done by a particular day, it belongs not in the diary but in the task list, where you should also note the deadline date. You can do this with standard Filofax task pages, but it's easier with Turbo Task pages. 5. Scan your task list at least daily for items you can or must do and mark complete. 6. Carry your Filofax with you everywhere. This is really important. 7. Whenever you set or accept an appointment or identify a task, write it down in the appropriate section straight away. Don't try to remember it to write in later. Don't write it on a scrap of paper to transfer later. Write it in the correct place in your Filofax right now. No excuses. 8. Have a notes section with plenty of blank paper. Write down anything you need to remember that isn't a diary or task entry. You can use plain paper or lined, grid, dot grid or a selection. The paper can be different colours if you like. If you must, you can decorate it. 9. Before you agree to an appointment, check your diary. You need to be able to trust what you see written there, hence the earlier warnings about writing things in right away. 10. As soon as you complete a task, mark it as complete in your tasks section and if you have time choose another to get started on. 11. These three sections - diary, tasks and notes - are the heart of your Filofax. If you want you can have other sections too, say for addresses, to track your finances or to hold long term reference information. 12. Do not stuff your Filofax with pages or accessories you will not use every day. Your system has rings. You can add things and remove them whenever you like. Have a photo or two in there if you like, by all means, but it is a personal organiser, not a scrapbook. Anything that doesn't help organise you should not be in it. 13. Use dividers to help you get to different sections quickly. Use sticky tabs to categorise sub-sections. This might be useful if you decide to keep multiple lask lists (e.g. home and office.) Have some sort of 'today' marker in your diary. 14. Keep a pen or pencil in the pen loop. Choose one that fits the loop and that will not fall out. Don't feel that you need to use that particular instrument every time you write in your Filofax. If you carry a pen or two in your pocket or bag, use those. But keeping one pen/pencil in the loop means you will never be caught without something to write with. It's a fallback. 15. Keep doing all the above. Don't lapse. Keep forcing yourself until it becomes habitual. Again, no excuses. Now what? You can, of course, download and print most of the pages you'll need from this site. Diary inserts are here. Other inserts are here. They are free to download and free for your personal use. So there it is. That is how to use a Filofax. Unless you want to use it differently. It's up to you. You can do what you want; I'm not your mother.
Remember that unboxing of the filofax organizer I did here ? Well, I can say that it's been going well with my current setup, in which I ...
A peek inside my A5 Filofax. I use the Aqua Saffiano & here's my filofax organization.
Here’s a secret about being organised: it takes effort! You probably won’t find your ideal planner or inserts your first time out of the gate, and that’s okay, because the biggest…
My Filofax Organization... How I organize each section of my Filofax planner.
Explore app1eg's 552 photos on Flickr!
Flickr is nothing without you, our community. We want to make sure this community continues to thrive, grow, and inspire, so we've made some big changes.
PB book cover photocopy. Section contains: *Library Wish List/Must Reads *Reviews *Various bookish notes
Mein letzter Beitrag zum Filofax ist schon etwas länger her. Der Grund dafür ist ein kleiner Shopping Exzess mit so manchem was Retour ging. Eigentlich wollte ich nämlich eine kleine Beitrags-Serie starten in dem ich aus unterschiedlichsten Kategorien etwas für den Filofax vorstelle aber mich enttäuschte nun doch so vieles, das es nur zwei Beiträge […]
Explore stirwise's 4205 photos on Flickr!
Anne Taintor postcard tab.
Free Planner Printables / Free Inserts for your Filofax / Kikki K / Websters Pages or any other Planner. Please read the terms of ...
Today I’d like to give you guys a tour of my main planner, my Personal Filofax Malden. As I mentioned in my previous post, this was my own little Christmas gift to myself – and so far, I’m lo…
LONG, PICTURE HEAVY POST. Grab a cup of coffee and read on :D I've been dabbling in crafty things, other than just scrapbooking lately. I've had a brief encounter with Art Journaling, which I am still enjoying from time to time, but right now….I've fallen head over heels in love…..while scouring YouTube and Google for ideas to Art Journal, I stumbled upon a huge pool of Planner/Filofaxers. A large community of creative men and women, who share their systems, decorating, freebies and ideas for any level of Planner/Filofaxer - from the users who utilize the planners as directed on the tin - for lists and appointment keeping, to the uber creative peeps out there who tape, sticker, stamp, post-it their Planners/Filofaxes into a functioning piece of art!!! I have always had a love affair with paper planners. The process of writing in appointments, birthdays and other bits and pieces to remember as always just felt right…. Enter the electronic age (well, you know what I mean right?)….Let me rephrase….enter my beloved iPad. Make no mistake, the idea of being able to enter an appointment on the spot, on my iPhone and it appears like magic on my laptop and iPad is an organizational gift. And this is how I have scheduled "my life" for the past year…all in the magic place where devices communicate to each other, and schedules are shared. I had a little problem…once I entered the appointment/reminder on my iPhone/iPad….other than if I set a reminder, I never went into my calendar to see what was coming up, never mind the struggle to see your "day at a glance" in a way which made sense to my brain (Side Note: The OCD in me insisted that each sub category was color coded, so entering events in iCal was an EVENT in itself). So, when I stumbled upon the world of super talented, well organized Planner/Filofax users, a great big spotlight went off in my head….I NEEDED to get my stuff on paper again. Enter the Filofax…. Living in Dubai, the world is your oyster, but things like Filofax are like hens teeth to find. After many hours of watching and reading reviews, I decided that I had to have an personal Aqua Malden. I found one on the UK Amazon site, and had filled my basket with all the extra goodies I was after. I was just about to hit the "BUY" button when I went on an impulse and Googled "Filofax in Dubai" and found that a popular stationery store, Magrudy's stocked Filofaxes. I called and was delighted to find out that they had 2 personal Malden's in stock, Ochre and Vintage Pink. I decided the Ochre would suffice and convinced myself it was a far more practical color. I am known to wait patiently for stationery and it would take at least a week before I got my package from the UK. Within the hour, I had barged into Magrudy's, drooling at the mouth, eager get my hands on a Malden. To my surprise, the Ochra Malden was suspiciously purple. I am a purple lover, so my instinct was to grab it and dash for the check out….the curious in me needed to feel the Vintage Pink one too. The Vintage Pink was so soft, lovely and….edible/huggable/tactile….but I knew that we would not be able to build a relationship on touch alone, so I left with this beauty: Maddie, my persona Purple Malden. These pictures are from after I had her about a week and had what I thought was settled on a setup. Home made fly sheet using scrapbooking paper, alphabet stickers and a Project lift Card. I used a zipper pocket from Paperchase with Frixion Markers. Each color represents a different member of our family. So I thought this was it. I got inspiration from My Purpley Life for the layout of check boxes for To-Do's and Appointments, and a blank area for general reminders. I customized a Project Life journaling card to use as a menu planner. (More on this later in the post) Side view Top view, oh so stuffed :D This is a cell-phone charm my husband picked up for me in Tokyo a couple of years ago. It has my birthday on it, with I believe a Mt. Fuji character. I printed and laminated a teeny "Keep Calm" label found on the internet, punched it and attached it to the string of the cell-phone charm. A month on, my fatty Maddie needed to go on a diet, so I pulled out the markers, got a little ruthless with the inserts (I didn't need 5 sheets of every shade of note paper), etc, etc…. I also changed inserts. I have ordered W2P SNL (Week on 2 pages, Sunday start, Notes left) from Piaric on Facebook. I have read about and seen so many people using these inserts, I was sold! Living in the Middle East means that our first working/school day is a Sunday, with Friday and Saturday being our weekend. Did I mention the OCD??? I needed the first day of the week to be….the first day of the week!! LOL I ordered and received two stamp sets from Studio l2e, the Stamp-It and List-It sets. I couldn't be happier with these stamps!!! Go on and check them out!! My Piaric 2014 inserts are safely tucked in an envelope, somewhere between the United States and the United Arab Emirates. Until such time as they get here, I opted to make some crude inserts for December to see me through. I stamp the "list" on the left side of both pages. Being right handed, I struggled to write on the left page when the list was closer to the rings…it was just down right uncomfortable!! Being a scrapper at heart, I couldn't leave the planner pages just plain white. I try to keep it fairly simple, with just some Washi Tape and a sticker or two. Curent week, looking a bit more streamlined. The "Right Now" divider is a transparent thick plastic sheet which was the backing for a sticker sheet I purchased at some stage. I cut it to size, punched the holes accordingly which I dove-tailed it so that I could pull it out and move it without opening the binder rings. A bit of tape at the top and a label printed on my trust Brother P-Touch….job done!! Next week. We are heading home (South Africa) on the 18th for our first Christmas back home in 6 years, so all my busy-ness is happening the days leading to our flight. I changed up my front fly leaf. I used some leftover wrapping paper, cut slightly smaller than the personal page size, added a Keep Calm printout from the internet, laminated, punch and away you go! I have fashioned an additional pen loop from Duct Tape and attached it to the fly sheet. Although I don't need all the markers, I need at least 2 color pens :D I found blah Month on Two Pages from a Japanese store, Daiso. I have filled them in accordingly and used them to separate my months, and have used them as tabs for the different months. The tabs were also nabbed from Daiso. Top view of the tabs. I went on a laminating frenzy and laminated the Project Life journaling card, which I punched and dove-tailed it so that I could pull it out and move it, without opening the ring binder. Meals are on Post-It Notes. I try to get meal requests from the family on a Saturday, write them down and place them on the week days accordingly. I have a lot of repeat requests, so they all get stuck on the divider under my HOME section at the end of the week, and get reused if need be. I struggle with meal plans, and if I don't meal plan, we tend to not meal, resulting in 2-minute noodles in a dash! (bad mommy). Using this system allows me to draw from a bank of favorites should I be at a loss for a meal. Current divider setup. Behind the fly leaf, I have my menu planner, followed by a 2013 calendar then a 2014 calendar, which are both free printables I found on the internet. After that is my weekly grocery/shopping list which is tabbed of with a Post-It transparent tab. Last is a Filofax Year Planner for 2014. I have not really utilized it as yet, other than to mark off the school holidays until the end of the academic year. DIARY Tab Month on 2 pages at the start of each month, followed by a Week on 2 pages for that month. NOTES Tab Random note paper for things that just need to be captured temporarily. Everything from ideas for a potential family holiday in 2015 to notes for my daughter's birthday party in January. I use the black Filofax ruler to keep the spot where the next blank page is for new notes. QUOTES Tab I used my Brother P-Touch printer to print out new tab names for the ones I decided to change. Under quotes, I have 4 different colors Filofax note paper, each for a different category of Quotes. I used the Daiso tabs mentioned earlier for the month dividers to label each section, being Health & Fitness, Love, Random Stuff, Being Creative. When I stumble on a quote I like, I jot it down in the relevant sub-section. ME Tab This is also a renamed tab. This is subdivided into several sections. First is Health, which is again sub divided again into Exercise and Weight. I like to keep a log of my exercise routines. Next is Travel. Although I do not travel frequently, I am using the power of positive juju to bring more travel into my life. I have a freebie Travel Plans sheet printed from the Philofaxy site. FINANCIAL Tab Sub divided into 3 sections. I have a home made pocket envelope for all my receipts, prior to capture in the relevant section. Household comes first, where I keep track of all my household expenditures. Me is next, where I keep track of my personal expenditure. Matt & Amy is last. These are my kids, aged 11 and 8. I keep track of their pocket money. Both are saving for something right now. This is sort of like an old fashioned building society system. I am the "bank" and we keep track of their earnings and expenditure. HOME Tab Self explanatory…anything do do with home - meal plans, Honey-Do List, Christmas Planning (tis the Season!) and Birthday Party Planning. KIDS Tab Last one :D. I found plastic personal size tabs from Daiso and nabbed them just in case. I have only needed one so far. Behind this tab is anything I need to keep handy for the kids. Passwords for homework sites, homework schedule, Bus Roster and Academic Calendar. I use Frixion pens in my planner in order to keep it neat, should there be any changes. I alternate between black and blue for tasks, and the red one is if I need to draw attention to an item. I wasn't going to use a color code system as I thought this would mean more admin, but as it turns out, for repeat events like my husbands work schedule (corporate pilot means he is in a different country every couple of days), children's after school activities and play-dates prove to be fairly easy to manage in a color code system. I use Frixion Markers for this task. Thank you so much for plodding through this very lengthy post. If you came to find some inspiration for your own planner/Filofax, I hope this post was helpful!! I will endeavor to post any updates on Maddie regularly, and if you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to leave a comment in the comment section…(that was a lot of comments :D) Happy Organizing!! Jo
I finally purchased a Malden! After working on it for a few weeks I'm now ready to share my Filofax Malden Personal Set Up.
