101 List Progress Check - 29th Jan 2012

Whoa - long time no update!!!

I have been so busy doing P90X that I just haven't got round to posting on here in a couple of weeks, and this one is going to be pretty short and to the point as I am one tired girl... so what has happened since my last update?

1. On the classic book front I have now finished Lady Chatterley's Lover which I  really enjoyed and read the whole of The Picture of Dorian Gray last week which took a bit more getting into but was pretty good (I had earmarked it to be read in February, I knew that daily commute would come in handy). So now I only have two more to read to complete this challenge.
2. Shakespeare plays - all 5 identified plays are now on my Kindle and I have planned to read one per month, starting in March.
3. I have finally bought myself some headphones so I can listen to music on my iPod shuffle (or on the iPod touch that my fabulous other half bought me for Christmas. So looking forward to getting all my CDs and tapes onto my iTunes.
4. On the work front I have started logging my hours over the last few weeks in my aim to monitor which of my challenges I am actually meeting, and I am slowly getting there. One of my aims for this year is to reduce my standard working hours to the 42 that are in my contract. Just before the end of last week I managed to get the leftovers bits of work that were outstanding from 2011 finished so I can focus on my 2012 objectives. And what wonderful piece of kit allowed me to achieve this? My Filofax - it still rocks!!!
5. Ripped abs? Not yet, but I have just completed day 20 of P90X, and I am beginning to see results, especially in my arms, which are starting to tone up. It's a tough programme, and I had an issue trying to eat the required number of calories whilst sticking to healthy food and not too many carbs which made me have to miss a couple of days of workouts as I hadn't been consuming enough calories, so I was feeling rough. But I have now got over that and am catching up.

I have also spent some time this weekend planning how and when I am going to get my challenges started/completed. There is still a way to go with the planning to fit everything in around the rest of my life, but it is all quite exciting.

LJx

           

101 List Progress Check - 14th January 2012

Woohoo - doing well this week!!!

On Sunday we had a visitor and I actually cooked - and nobody died (either of shock or food poisoning). Thank you Jamie Oliver for a lovely chicken pie recipe - and I never would have thought of cooking peas with lettuce, but it was surprisingly good, so that's task 59 done, and 1 out of 6 for task 60 (6 new recipes).

P90X is going well so far (that is of course if you class being barely able to walk for the last two days as going well - I am currently walking like John Wayne and can only walk down stairs if I walk sideways like a crab...). But I'm hanging in there, and DF and I are both following the nutrition plan as well as the exercise plan, although I only managed 30 minutes of the 90 minute yoga session today.

I have to admit that I'm not sure I can manage the full 90 day course as it is a minimum of an hour of exercise a day, which I struggle to fit in when I get home from work, and as my youngest son has a habit of waking up before 5am, by the time I get home I am pretty well done in for the day. I did consider trying to fit it in before I go to work, but I'm pretty sure that the neighbours downstairs wouldn't appreciate it if I were to start exercising at 4:45am each day :o)

I'm planning on sticking it out as long as I can with the full programme, and if I can't keep it up then I will at least get the Tony Horton 10 minute trainer set so that I can make sure I am doing something everyday and doing some of the P90X sessions on days when I have a bit more time available.

That's all for now,

Have a good week.

LJx

Domino Love...

Well, I can honestly say I am very surprised and incredibly happy with how my one life one filo trial is going so far. Yes, I know it's only been a few days so far, but I am soooo happy!!!

After finally sorting my 2012 inserts, all I had to do was decide which inserts to use for my new planning filo, and which FF should be used to house this...

Obviously I will be rotating through various of my babies as I don't want them to feel left out, and clearly there was only one which could possibly used for my first forays into this mystical place - my stunning new ruby Deco...

... or was there...

I found myself thinking that I should save my Deco until I had got my set up working for me so that it would have a special set up in rather than being sullied with attempts that just weren't going to work for me, so I figured I would use one of my less luxurious babies for experimentation (and no Vanillja, if you are reading this - it is nothing aquamarine...), so into the breach stepped the slate Domino.

Now, I know this is a bit premature, (having only been a couple of days in my new filo), but I love the whole thing. I put my basic set up together in the evening on the 1st, and took it into work for my first day in one place.

I was so excited that I told everyone about my latest challenge, at which my boss very kindly pointed out that he thought the whole point of having a Filofax was so that you could keep everything in one place anyway (clearly he has never checked out Philofaxy and the multitude of uses that there can be).

We've all read the posts regarding which FFs lie flat "right out of the box" - not as many as people would have you believe from my experience, and when I had previously seen this said about the Domino, and then looked at my weird green one personal, I figured that either I had found the only one that doesn't possess this quality, or that the Domino doesn't actually do this.

Well, oh my word, yes it does... I used my slate one for the first time on the 2nd, but was so busy (and pleased with having just the one filo to refer to) that I didn't notice this until the following day...

Flatter than a flat thing on pancake day!!! And it has all the features that I need in my filo. The only thing that I dislike is the fact that it isn't leather - actually, this isn't even a dislike, just not what my preference would be if I could choose. I am now looking at getting as many different colours as I can before they withdraw them - I'm thinking red, orange and ultra-violet, and maybe one other (possibly an A5).

LJx

101 List Progress Check - 7th January 2012

Well, a new year and a new me...? Maybe...

But first, what else have I actually managed to achieve between Christmas and now...? well, mainly reading on the train as I started back to work on December 29th and have also been spending quite a lot of time sorting out my Filofax stuff and sorting my set up for 2012 (as you will see from my last few posts). I finished Tess or the D'Urbervilles yesterday and was gutted by the end - so unfair, but thoroughly enjoyed the book and the characters.

I actually managed to complete my make up challenge on January 1st, and have even been wearing it during the week this week, but not today.

Today I have been busy planning when and how to complete more of the challenges on my list, which is far more fun than putting make-up on :o)

The most physically challenging item on my list is to get ripped abs. Now, for someone who has 2 children (aged 4 & 6) and has been an accountant working long hours, sat at a desk for the last 14ish years and not had much/any exercise, this is going to be one heck of a challenge.

Now my DF tries to ignore most of what I am doing re filofaxes and my blog, but clearly some of it has been going in  as he spotted the infomercial for P90X the other day and said "that'd get your abs ripped"... and so it begins.

My favourite part so far of this is that I overheard my DF, who despairs of my filo habit, telling his brother all about P90X and the workout sheets, and saying that he may need to get a Filofax to keep his records in - and so the FF quest for global domination continues.

I was going to do my planning and decide when best to fit it in, but as DF has decided that he is going to start the programme on Tuesday, I guess that's my planning done for me as it's going to be way too much hassle to do the nutrition side of it for us both at separate times.

It is traditional to do the 'before & after' photos, which I will be doing, but not until I actually have an 'after' photo - there is no need to inflict that on anyone. Wish me luck...

LJx

Year End Stock Check 2011 - Done

So what was I doing on New Years day...?  Finishing sorting my Filofax inserts of course!!!

Keeping this post short and sweet as I have a lot of planning to do ready for a far more exciting post than this one (I know, whoever would have thought that it would be possible to find something more exciting than inserts?).

Here are a few pics of the final counted items - yes, I know that I have a whole spare set of A5 inserts hidden in my Graphic, but they were at work at the time and now I am trying to stick with a personal size as my main filo they can stay where they are for a while.

They are looking so sweet, all lines up and ready for action

This is the bulky end of the group (mainly diaries and dividers)

I knew I could fit them all in somehow

All stacked and ready to box - now all I need to do is find some suitable boxes...

I didn't realise quite how many 2012 diary inserts I had... minis, personals, A5s and even an A4. Thank you to all those Filofax sales last year...

Anyway, must dash - plans and tweaks to consider...

LJx

One Life One Filofax... Really?

Hmm, I saw an interesting post re David Popely's GTD setup here and am now thrown into a quandary as to what to do.

As you will have previously seen, I own a number of Filofaxes in various sizes, and as simple as one life on Filofax sounds, I just don't know if I can do this...

Currently I am using a personal one for me, one to track my 101 in 1001 days challenge, a happiness binder (which will be used properly shortly), an A5 for the family (although I have to wonder if I am the only one who uses it...), an A5 for work, a mini as a wallet, and... I think that is it at the moment.

Now the idea is that all my planning should go into one binder, this would knock out the family binder, the work binder, the 101 in 1001 days binder, and my personal binder - and then all this would go into one place... can I do this?

There are three problems that I have to overcome to do this:

1. My obsession with my filos means that I want to touch more than one each day - could I get round this by having a 10 minute gazing session at the end of each day? Or as suggested, I could swap the binder I am using regularly so that I don't feel that any of the binders are feeling left out.
2. I temporarily used a personal size FF for work after my A5 went missing and found it very hard and it didn't really work for me, so I really need an A5 for work. However, I don't want to be carrying an A5 round with me everywhere and I only have 3 A5 binders.
3. I like buying stationery, and want pretty things to go in my FFs as I am now at the stage where I can think about pimping them up (inserts only, I can't do anything to the outsides - that would just be weird), what will I do with fewer binders to play with?

Can I get round this by sticking with my A5 for work (this is kept mainly at work except when I have to do planning at home as I never have time to do it while I am in the office), whilst using one binder for everything else?

Clearly I will still try to use as many binders as possible for other things (eg the happiness binder, photo albums, recipe books - like I'll ever get round to doing that), but for planning purposes, can I manage to use just one for personal/family etc?

Hmmm... time to get my thinking cap on before I do my 2012 setup (although I think I may be going with the WO1P with notes so that should be able to cope anyway...)

Ooh - could a slimline cope with being a one file one life filo? Although having just got my Deco I think I can guess where I'll be heading first...

Any advice will be gratefully received.

LJx

Year End Stock Check - A Work in Progress

I am a bit lax when it comes to organisation, hence I have not yet got my set up for 2012 planned yet. I have been meaning to do this for a while now, and sort out my collection of filos to see which ones I want to use for what...

Getting my two new beauties for Christmas has given me the prod that was needed, and so on Boxing Day I started to go through all the FFs and take out all the inserts to see exactly what I have. I have been saying for some time that I need to get myself some more inserts so that I can have a box of them to raid whenever I feel the need for new bits and pieces in my FFs (and just to look at occasionally as just seeing a box of various sized and coloured papers would make me smile).

Oh my word, having taken out the inserts from my personals, pockets & minis, I now see that I actually already have quite a lot of stuff - admittedly quite a lot of it is made up of 2011 and 2012 diaries, but that is fine, I am sure I will find a use (or a new home) for most of them. I still need to package the subject indexes as I couldn't even think what they were called, and then have to pull the inserts from the A5s, A4s and the slimline, but as there are fewer of these they won't take as long.

Here are a few pics of the work in progress last night.

OK - a few more than I realised

The Ben 10 jigsaws are not mine :o)

Maybe I need to get a bigger table...

And then I labelled some and packed it all away ready to carry on today after I have taken the boys into town and worn them out.

LJx