I’ve kept the same set-up since August or so, when school started. I work part-time, take a full load of grad school classes, and I am married with a toddler. Before too long I was clinging to my Filofax like a life raft. I was afraid to tweak my set-up or change calendar pages in case I lost information along the way! I have to say, though, that this set-up did work well. I rarely missed anything. I did change up how I kept track of school assignments, but I will be doing an All-Stars post on that later on.
This is my personal brown Holborn. It has been serving me well since August, when I bought it. I’ve grown to like it more and more as time goes on. The pockets arrangement is just wonderful, and I like brown.
As you can see, however, it’s suffered some scratches.
I have it completely stuffed. It wasn’t like this originally, but as time went on I added more and more pages with notes. (I’ve also put in another full month of 2 pages per day, and it fits!) You can see how much the Franklin Covey pages stick out. It didn’t bother me much originally, but lately it’s been bugging me. I think I may have to switch to another brand, since I don’t like the thought of switching binders – the Franklin Covey offerings just aren’t as good.
Side view.
At some point I started using my Filofax as a wallet. I spend a lot of time at coffee shops, and realized that I didn’t need to carry around my wallet when all I needed was an ID and credit card. Now I carry my auto insurance card, health insurance card, credit card, ID, student ID card, and card-sized diploma in the slots. The pocket beneath them has coupons and my sticky flags. US standard size papers that I need get folded in fourths and put in one pocket, and cash lives in the other pocket (where the purple paper is poking out). I have a clear flyleaf, and then my Filofax and Philofaxy cards.
This is my clear plastic envelope which makes up my real front page. That’s me and my husband when we were dating. :)
The backside. A note from my best friend, and a quote from an excellent book.
These are my tabs. The dividers are regular Filofax ones with the tabs cut off; the tabs are Martha Stewart ones by Avery. MLS is the degree I’m going for.
I decorated the dividers with stickers from Half Price. The post-its remind me what’s in each section. This is my “God” divider, which basically means it has anything to do with faith/church.
My MLS divider. I am a graduate student, studying library science. I will be doing an All Stars post about this section later on.
My “Me” section.
My pledge to stick with one set of calendar pages. I’m considering breaking it though…*innocent face*
Family divider. Currently it’s got a Day-Timer Hot List post-it on the other side with my list of gifts to get…I’ve only got 3 people left!
This section is sorely neglected…
This section is somewhat of a “miscellaneous” section, but most of it is important miscellaneous information – such as “important phone numbers” in case my phone goes dead or is unavailable and someone needs to get a hold of people close to me.
It also holds my Filofax brainstorm page, which has been neglected for several months. Turns out that being busy constantly takes away the need to do anything related to Filofax tweaking.
Here’s an example of a daily page. The daily tracker box is where I put my husband’s schedule. The notes page is an “inbox”.
And here’s a month. I can’t take a picture of a past month because there’s too much personal info! I do color-code my months – birthdays in light green, work in orange, deadlines in red, schoolwork in blue. I outline the actual day boxes with a colored pencil matching the pages, because I have trouble distinguishing between notes space and day boxes otherwise. I also write down my husband’s work shifts once they happen, and put how many hours I work in the notes space after each week.
More Filofax musings at the end of my calendar pages. I have a transparent flyleaf at the end to protect my pages. It helps the binder close better – though, the leather covering the zipper helps as well.
Stickers from Sandra on the other side of the flyleaf! I have some post-its and stickers from Sandra in that envelope. I rarely use these pockets, however.
The backside. You can see the wear.
As you can see, the rings are rather full…
Open to today. I have the current month and the next month in here.
And my today marker…
I never pay attention to these stickers. That’s a bad thing.
So, that’s my fall Filofax. I’m grateful that it’s served me well. Now that I’m on break, however, I’m starting to think about tweaking again. The daily pages are wonderful…and they are Franklin Covey, so they stick out. Also, they take up a LOT of space. I also end up forwarding tasks a lot, too.
I’m considering testing a GTD/week on 2 pages set-up while school is out. I don’t need the 2 pages per day right now, and I don’t think the to-do list is serving me well when I have no real deadlines (though it worked fairly well when I was in school, I think…I’m going to go back and analyze that). But I don’t have enough room in my Filofax for context to-do lists AND 2 months of 2ppd. I’ve also noticed that I need lines, and times are helpful. The cotton cream week on 2 pages from Filofax is beautiful, but it isn’t structured enough for me to be able to use it well. My mother’s Christmas present is the DayTimer Coastlines week on 2 pages, and I’m contemplating getting it or something similar. We’ll see! If I decide to keep the 2 pages per day, I might try DayRunner pages – very similar format, but Filofax sized instead of Franklin Covey sized.
