Is My Planner Failing...? And A Special Delivery To Make My Day!!!

Note: sorry, this is kinda long as it turned into two/three posts in one...

Hmmm... let me think about this question...

Is my planner actually failing, or am I just too distracted, trying to cram too many things in one place, and not using my system properly...?

So let's try and work this out:

          Do I love my current binder? Holborn Zip - yes, of course I do

Who wouldn't love this sleek baby?

             Do I love the inserts I have? Yes, yes, yes!!!

          Am I using the inserts appropriately? Well... I look at them and they make me smile...lots... does
          that count?   Heck - thought not :o(

OK, so I see the problem is me, not my inserts, so what am I doing wrong? Time for honesty - I am not being disciplined with regard to checking my personal items which need doing.

The last few weeks have been filled up with monthend (monthend tasks never go in my Filofax as we have a shared master checklist for this), writing up my 'Yellow Belt' project (a most hideous experience) and working on another project. The other main person working on this project was in our Zürich office with me all last week and we had a brief run through of where we were and what we needed to achieve, and so my poor filo didn't get much action.

However, I had a HUGE list of personal to do's to get through, and even though my Holborn was open on my desk all week, I barely looked at him apart from to think how lovely he and his inserts looked, and that the list was huge and I really needed to get some of those tasks done TONIGHT... every night... It is now Sunday night, and although some of the tasks are done, there are still a lot not done (way too much to get through in one weekend). It didn't help that I left the beloved on my desk at work overnight on a few occasions, forgetting the fact that I have everything else in there that I need to do when I get home, so nothing gets done.

OK - it's quite a list that I need to get through...

Previously I had a set up with work to do sheets in one section, and personal ones in another - for me this required too much flipping backwards and forwards between sections, and invariably I wouldn't look at the personal ones at all.

Putting them all together seemed to work for a while, but recently things have been pretty hectic again, and the personal stuff always ends up taking a back seat to work stuff... I know, I know, that's not how it should be, but that's just how I roll.

So I got to thinking, what could make me start using me Filofax successfully again? Could I:

          a)    Just do it!!! Stop being so bloody lazy and get on with it...

          b)    Go back to my old set up of sensible, professional looking inserts, to stoop me being
                 distracted every time I open my filo (yes, I am frequently likened to Dory from Finding
                 Nemo).

Very clean and practical... and I do love them and writing on fresh clean sheets of paper

          c)    Re-consider my whole set up...

I have considered these options and have discovered some things about myself along the way:

          a)    until I have a major consequence of my failing to do a personal task I will probably continue
                 to leave these until they are late. I try really hard not to, but that's probably the truth. I am an
                 atrocious procrastinator. I probably spend more time planning to do things, and weighing up
                 whether I should do things or not, than I actually spend doing things.

          b)    this would probably help as with 'normal' paper I was more disciplined with the use of my
                 filo... but I like my funky paper... The nice paper that I have is pretty distracting, and as there
                 is less structure and the paper is so 'busy' it does make it more of a challenge to identify what
                 has been done and what still needs doing, and it does make it easier to get overwhelmed by
                 the sheer volume of tasks.

A bit on the busy side...

          c)    I have already mentioned in previous posts that I am considering giving up the 'one life, one  
                 filo' philosophy, not because it doesn't work for me, but because I don't feel that I need to
                 carry my work planning everywhere any more. I don't need to take it home every night. I
                 think that all I really need to have with me is my appointments info so I can easily check if I
                 am free on a particular day (though it is pretty rare for me to need to check anything like that
                 when I'm not at work).

Things I have discovered about myself:
                -     I procrastinate too much (I'm sure my DF has told me this before)
                -     I am easily distracted by random things (If I am 'in the zone' at work, nothing can distract
                      me, but if I'm having one of those days where I'm struggling to get into it properly, I get
                      distracted by everything).

So... what to do...?

Do I split my life between two filos, saving my pretty stuff for my personal filo... or do I stick with the one life one filo A5 for a bit longer with more appropriate inserts?


Well, monthend starts again soon, and then I'm on holiday for a couple of weeks, so I have to sort out a travel filo for the trip so don't really have time to set up two more filos from scratch.

Let's see what a streamlined A5 will look like...

Well, I started writing this last night and got into work this morning to receive my special delivery so I have to include that in this post before carrying on any further as it's just too exciting.

I have been waiting for these to come for the last week as I knew they had arrived with my friend but I couldn't actually get to them, no suspense in this one as I have already blogged about them as I was too excited to keep it to myself so without further ado, please welcome my two new babies:

Boxed and beautiful

Red personal Finchley

 The photo isn't doing the colour justice, it's actually a bit of a deeper red than this shows and is such a beautiful shade - nicer than I was expecting. I realised after I took the photo that I have taken a photo of the back of this for some reason - not sure what I was thinking, but it still looks lovely...maybe I got distracted by shiny things :o) 

A5 purple Malden

 Again, the camera doesn't do the colour justice. It's quite a strange colour in a way though, as it can vary so much depending on the light that it is in...

There's nothing wrong with these rings!!!

This is probably closer to the colour that I see in most lights...

Once I'd photographed these new darlings it was time to get back to the serious business of getting my filo set up sorted.

As you can see - it was getting a bit stuffed. It is a bit annoying when you can't add any more sheets to the front because the rings are too full and if you open them without going to the middle of the inserts then the front ones all fall off the rings...

Beautiful...

But kinda full...

Clearly something needs to come out of there... have I made the right decision...?

Out!!!

 It was out with the huge number of sticky notes (I have used one since I put them in there), and the stickers (zero), the WO2P diary pages (ouch...), the timetables, the personal info pages and the International Info (none of which have been used at all yet) and out with my plans for my routines, they are not finished and were started months ago.

This means I am left with most of my set up left much as it was before, with the main change being that the WO2P has been moved out and the MO2P is now my main diary insert, with a few sheets of various random, non-matching sheets of paper in between... will stick with photos now as I have waffled for way too long...

No before pic for this one, but it's feeling quite skinny now

No more sticky notes - but I had to add a few sheets of Supercat to liven it up a bit

MO2P - will see how this works when I have to add appointments, but I don't usually have many, so it should be OK

Yes, I know it's still busy - but I'm going to give it a fair trial :o)

 OK, so that's done for now. Let's see how this works out - wish me luck!!!

LJx

Too Excited!!!

Super quick post, because I am a tad excited...

I was reading Free for all Friday on Philofaxy today and saw the mention of seventeen filofaxes being added to the Adspot page. After giving three away the other week I do have space for a couple more in my collection, but hadn't intended on getting any for a while yet...

Oops!!! I somehow managed to click on the Adspot page (I really have NO IDEA how that happened...), but oh my word - an A5 Purple Malden at less then half price and a Personal Red Finchley at way less than half price. No inserts in either, but that is a good thing, I have loads here and it would just give me more diary inserts to throw out.

So I did what any self-respecting Filofax lover would do, I weighed up the pros and cons of the purchases and considered my budget emailed immediately about both of them and sat waiting in anticipation - feeling very excited and nervous... clearly the A5 Purple Malden would already have been snapped up, but the red Finchley was a possibility. And I could consider some of the other filos on the list (which I had resisted incredibly well - it would have been very easy to mail about four of the others as well) while I waited to hear.

But I received a reply in seconds, saying that both were available within minutes the whole email ping pong re Pay Pal etc was complete and payment made - love modern technology!!!

So very soon I will be the very proud owner of two more beautiful filofaxes - I guess I need to start digging through my others again pretty sharpish to see which ones I can pass on to new homes as I need to make sure that I don't get into a situation where I end up with more filos than years, and there are a couple more on Adspot that I am quite tempted by...

LJx

Moving Back to the A5

Hi all, I am now feeling much more comfortable with my Filofax after suffering a bit of planner fail and the attempted move into my beautiful new A5 Aqua Chameleon.

Please accept my apologies for a very picture heavy post...

My personal Malden was doing a good job for a while (before I wanted to see more than just my daily tasks) and even enabled me to carry my passport and Ausländer Auschweitz everywhere with me (which was handy as it meant I knew where they were at all times - no more hellish search for them when I had to go on a work trip).

I will miss my beautiful Malden

Filofax stickers and donated Moleskine ones peeping out from behind the passport

Week on 2 Pages with To Do list inter-leaved

Annual Planner for Work & Holiday dates

Capture pages

However, it was decided that although I loved the convenience of using the personal size I needed something more, and so it was time to bring in the big guns - A5 style.

To help me in my move to the A5, and as I wanted to continue to have everything in one filo I designed what should have been the perfect 2PPD template for me, with sections for everything that I needed. I would now be able to see each area of my life all on one spread. Undoubtedly this would be the ideal layout for me... if I didn't look at all those sections and just feel overwhelmed by the number of boxes to fill in.

So, back to the drawing board... what are my needs?

Diary - for work and personal appointments/reminders. I know all my work appointments are in Lotus Notes, but I do my planning at home/on the train and prefer to do it on paper, so I need this.

Month to View & Annual Planners - everyone needs to be able to see the longer term, right?

To Do pages - much of my work is task-based and without these my work life would go back to being a complete disaster zone.

Stickers - probably never to be used, but I like to know they are there. One day I will start to use them - I should put that on my list of things to do :o)

101 in 1001 - my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days so that I can review and plan.

Work Hours Log - so I can see if I am achieving my goals to sort out my work/life balance.

Exercise & Food Log - so I can monitor what I eat and how much exercise I do in an attempt to make myself accountable. I intend to include calories burned during exercise too, but need to get a different heart rate monitor to do this as my current one doesn't have this facility on it. Maybe that would make me more determined to get off my butt each day and do it, or work harder when I do...

Motivational Quotes

Project Planning

Addresses

Household Planning (cleaning)

As you may have seen previously I have quite a few inserts already (which has been added to by the recent influx of new filos here and here. So, no more procrastinating about my ideal template, it was time to make use of what I already have...

Starting out with the Red Domino, as I had failed in the Chameleon I couldn't face risking her fragile sensibilities by leaving her open to another failure... and the Domino - 2 huge pen loops, and you never have to feel guilty for trying to force a big pen in there :o)

Business cards, stickers, passport and plenty of extra space. The loose sheets at the front are from the Gretchen Ruben Happiness  Project desktop diary as I have a few days off work and don't want to miss any quotes/tips 

Part of my 101 things in 1001 Days list

Logging my work hours to prove that I am achieving my work/life balance goals from my 101 list

Food & Exercise Log (please don't look too closely - you will see how lazy I have been), courtesy of Lord Dodo. The left hand page has plenty of free space, so this is where I intend to log my motivational quotes, or just ones that make me smile.

Month on 2 pages

Week On 2 Pages with To Do's inter-leaved. I love this format for the WO2P as there is a dividing gap that runs down the centre of the day so I can split between work & personal reminders

Activity planners from Sweden, in theory to use for project planning - we'll see if I manage that one...

Annual Planner stolen straight from the personal. Behind this section I have my addresses. One sheet per letter, but no dividers to split them at the moment, I'm not sure I will as I use them so rarely.

My Indodispensible Data

Card holders and a notepad to use as my capture area

Still a bit of work to do to get my routines in order (including adding a cleaning bit, but I think I may actually use the timetable insert that came with on of the Dominos), but I think I'm getting there. I've been using it every day, so that's an improvement :o)

Ooh - I guess I can cross off the 'write a post re my work Filo' off my 101 list now. It would have been done much sooner with my original A5 setup (which was work only), if I hadn't left it and my laptop on the train... obviously all you Filofax fans out there know where my biggest concerns lay at the time :o)

Although now I have seen Imy's post regarding her pocket filo I am thinking about other options again already...

LJx

More Filofax Dilemas...

Well, it's been a busy week, what with monthend at work, dinner with friends (fabulous fondue), fitting in exercise and generally being life.

I spent a couple of hours last week setting up what seemed to be the perfect FF layout for me, on a wonderfully segmented 2PPD diary format.

As the vote came in for me to move back to an A5 filo I figured I would print the templates out to use from Monday and was very excited to try out these new babies...

2PPD

WO2P

I was so looking forward to finally having a template that could really work for me and every area of my life... so, how have I loved my new set up...?

Er, well... not a lot actually. I have left it on my desk every night except Friday for 2 reasons:

• I can't be bothered to take it home
• I have barely written anything in it

This could be due to it being monthend at work, which although the busiest time of the month, it is totally task based and I have a timetable/checklist for all the monthly procedures (including a separate list for any irregular monthend tasks). Therefore, I have no need to write these tasks into my Filofax.

But I am concerned, is there a more serious problem? Am I just no longer compatible with the A5 as my filo any more...? Have I been spoilt by the luxury of using a personal size for 3 months?

A5 Aqua Chameleon , Personal Crimson Malden

I spent some time yesterday re-reading Christa's post re the Holbourn here, and thinking what a gorgeous rich brown it is (not digging the wine one for some reason, I have no desire for a black filo for some reason, no matter how much more professional it would look compared to some of my others). I am now totally convinced that I need to have a Holbourn in my collection - it has everything, stunning buffalo leather and lots of pockets. Zipped or not, that is now the question...?

I was desperate for the A5 purple Malden, but now I'm not so sure I want the A5, but I don't think I want two personal Maldens. By the way, is it just me or is the picture of the purple Malden on the Filofax UK website really not that nice? All the other pics I have seen have been quite a cheerful purple, but theirs is totally dull and uninspiring.

I haven't given up on the A5 yet though, I have the rest of monthend to get through and then on to all the other stuff, which is where my Filofax comes into it's own - let's see how that goes...

UK Delivers

How excited was I when I received not one, but two boxes via FedEx from Filofax UK this week?

Too excited to wait for a camera before opening them I can tell you!!! I have to say I was also very impressed with the delivery. I placed one order on Monday evening and the second on Tuesday morning. By Tuesday afternoon I had received mails saying that they had been despatched and they arrived at my work (that in itself is a miracle - don't get me started on how badly set up the Filofax ordering website is set up, and they will never respond to mails which tell them there is a problem, let alone fix it) before lunch time on Wednesday - fantastic!!!

Unfortunately I has just started a 2 hour meeting when Sabine waved a box at me through the window, and I was immediately told to "stay!!!" - honestly,anyone would think that I would have run out of the meeting to get my hands on the beauties...(clearly they know me too well).

So, what did this lucky girl get...?

Magenta A5 Flex

With 2 notebooks

Opened out with 2 notebooks and a jot pad

Quite excited about having this at home - it's mainly so that I always know where there is a notepad, as I can never find one when I want one. If they have a proper home then I will (hopefully) be able to find them.

A5 Domino in red

OK, this one wasn't in the bag, and didn't arrive with the delivery, but I got it off Amazon when I was in the UK last week, and love the fact that there are two fully elasticated pen loops so I can have both my Bic 4 colour pens in there :o)

A5 with the Personal Domino in ultra-violet

Since discovering that the Domino is actually a fabulous FF I have wanted more colours and the ultra-violet was at the top of my list, there was also another one, but you can't get that from the UK, but more on that in a post soon.

Personal Chameleon in rsapberry

The reason I fell in love with filos is this baby right here - Lucy pulled one of these from her bag in January last year, and I have had the bug ever since...

A5 Domino in deep pink and violet

Having bought the violet and discovered that it is a completely different colour to the picture on the UK filofax website I am very happy. I wasn't sure whether I would really like the violet colour, but this is more of a vibrant purple, although the photo above doesn't do either filo justice.

And finally...

A5 Chameleon in aqua

I love the texture of these babies, and at 50% off, how could I resist...?

Total UK haul

Love it!!!

LJx

Danish Inserts... We Like!!!

I included some pics of my two new filofaxes that I managed to get in the Filofax Denmark sale the other day, and must now share with you the beautiful inserts that these came with. They just seem so much nicer than the ones that come from the UK.

As I got two sizes of filofax I can treat you to pics of inserts of both A5 and personal size - prepare yourselves for a picture heavy blog...

First up the A5:

Dividers - black, lovely!!!

A-Z Dividers

 For the dividers you get a set of 8 plus A-Z dividers. The 8 are labelled 'Kalendar', 'Info', 'Private' and 1 - 5.

WO2P diary with lines.  

Beautifully laid out with lines that are split in the middle so you can plan the day how you like, use them as a 'normal' full line or use left hand side for appointments and right hand side for reminders. The red writing on the Sundays and other holidays just give it that little something extra.

To do lists

10 of these babies came in my A5 and they are great for lists. Less space to write in than the UK ones, but more tasks to a sheet, so I guess it is a case of personal preference, but I may have found mine

Activity Planner

10 of these lovely ones too... Even I can work out what Aktivitetsplan translates to :-)  It's split into 3 sections, and I'm not sure but they may mean Activity, Time and Place, but to be honest, I could call them whatever I want to as long as it makes it suit my needs... and as if by magic

Folded Out

 It folds out to reveal some special list type thing 'What', 'Time', 'Who', something else and a tick box (Google translate clearly wasn't feeling very helpful today). But who needs to know what the sections are actually for when you can make up your own uses - the fact that the back of this is the fabulous quadrille paper makes this sheet a winner.

Contact details

Possibly too little space for me, but I will give them a go as they look prettier than the other ones I

have.

And on to the personal:

Complete with 2011/2012 diary

I haven't taken photo's of the dividers for this one as they don't show up as well against the purple 

of the Finchley, but they look the same as the A5 ones, the difference being that along with the

obligatory A-Z dividers, you get 1-6 numbered dividers so no predefined categories on these ones.

WO2P diary

Again the WO2P diary is made to look that little bit more special with the use of the red, I also really like the fact that the lines are quite dark, it makes it all seem a little more defined.

Timetable

Now these I found a little strange, they are very nice and can be quite handy, but the days are all in English - I have no idea why this is. No problem, it just struck me as a little odd. Although, if you have a Filofax then I think many people automatically assume you must be a bit quirky, and therefore having your timetable in a different language is totally logical :-)

To do lists

Notes pages

Address pages

And there you have it - a summary of the filofax inserts from Denmark - they rock!!!

LJx