Philofaxy

18 November 2019

What is in a name?

Are you influenced by the name of an organiser model?

For many years Filofax used town/city names to name their organisers. There is a huge list of them and a map to help pin-point the locations.

Some names go well with organisers, for instance the Kendal. Kendal is a town in northern England, it is a 'rugged' sort of place and it has higher than average rainfall, so the oiled leather of Filofax Kendal seems fitting for that name/model.

The Filofax Eton, Eton is famous for Eton College, a fee paying private boarding school. So the high quality Filofax Eton models released in deluxe leather seem to fit with the image they wanted to portray with that model name. You get the idea.

Gillio uses Italian words for their model names, but some don't make a lot of sense if you translate them back in to English!

Amica - Friend
Mia Cara - My dear
Compagna - Mate
Appunto - Just. Although Google translate also offers 'Note'
Giramondo - Globe trotter

Van der Spek has the Nomad, which Janet and I named! for their Travellers Notebook. Codex for their Notebook covers.

How do Filofax think up the names? Do they get a mixed bunch of people who have never met each other in to a conference room somewhere and give them the full on marketing presentation and demonstration of the products before lunch. Then have to sit down and come up with a name.

Lunch is a bit overdone.. the poor office assistant didn't know what to order, so they went over the top and ordered everything off the menu... resulting in everyone 'grazing' off the remaining food all afternoon... any one smiling and nodding at this point knows exactly what I mean!

Some names like I've highlighted above were obvious and easy picks... but how did they arrive at 'Apex' ?

At least they didn't name any after motorway service stations... the Filofax Leicester Forest East sounds pleasant to people who have never visited the famed service station on the M1 Motorway!

I think I would call a model 'Another one' just so I could watch people go in to stores and ask for Another one please.... Another what? !!

What name would you call a new Filofax Model?

17 November 2019

Silent Sunday

After the post this week about the Filofax Malden, I was asked what does my 'collection' of Malden items look like!

L-R Top to Bottom:

A5 Grey with 25mm rings, A5 Ochre, A5 Grey with 30mm rings.
Personal Grey, Compact Ochre, Personal Ochre, Personal Crimson
Pocket Ochre, Mini Grey, Pocket Grey
iPad Slip Case Ochre, A5 iPad Organiser Case Ochre, eReader (Kindle) Slip Case Ochre
iPhone 4 Case Black, Portrait Wallet Black, Business Card Case Black

16 November 2019

Web Finds - Saturday 16 November 2019

So I hope you have had a good week

So now it is time to enjoy a few blog posts from around the internet, so grab a drink and make yourself comfortable for our weekly round-up.

Here are some Philofaxy posts you might have missed this week:

So here are the latest Filofax and other brand blog posts from around the Internet. Don't forget to leave a comment on the posts you enjoyed reading, all bloggers enjoy getting comments.

We monitor over 400 blogs and sites, your Filofax/Organiser blog posts could appear in this list, just contact philofaxy at gmail dot com to be added to our monitoring list.
We can not guarantee people will read your posts, but we know there is a higher chance of people reading your posts and returning to read other posts if you make them interesting with pictures and good hints and tips. Do not forget to give your posts a title...
Your Filofax/Organiser posts could appear in this list, just contact philofaxy at gmail dot com to be added to our monitoring list.
For some general tips on Filofax Blogging, please see this post
Consider joining our Facebook group - Filofax for Philofaxy fans

And have you tried reading one of my Flipboard magazines yet? It works great on a tablet or smart phone, but you can view them on a desktop machine as well. Be sure to Follow the ones you like and you will get notifications when I update them.

View my Flipboard Magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine.
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Enjoy

15 November 2019

Free For All Friday No 575 by Laurie

I'm trying to get on a better house-cleaning and home maintenance schedule. I don't enjoy cleaning and don't feel any satisfaction from it (with kids and a dog, cleaning seems like a pointless Sisyphean task), so I'm not self-motivated to clean. As a result, some jobs go undone way longer than they should. (How long have those cobwebs been in the ceiling corner??)

So I'm trying out some different ways to keep track of what jobs need to be done each week, and whether they get done or not. I've been hand-drawing trackers in my weekly pages with things that need to get done each week (bathroom, vacuum x 2, water plants, dust, etc). Then for monthly jobs I have a series of sticky notes where I have written zone work, similar to the Fly Lady system, of rooms to focus on for a deeper clean (like bleaching the shower tile grout, etc.). I have the jobs listed for that Zone on each sticky note which I then stick to the pertinent week when they should get done, then when that week is over I move the sticky note forward in my weekly pages. That way the Zone jobs (should) get done every month.

Some things need to be done seasonally, like making an appointment for the chimney to be cleaned, changing the batteries in the smoke detectors, etc. I try to do these in the same month every year, and move them forward in my new weekly pages each year.

Something I haven't quite gotten a handle on though are the random home things I need to do someday, like look for a new cabinet for the bathroom, minor repairs, looking for new lights for the hallway, etc. I have listed them on a page in my Filofax, but that is too easy for me to ignore. Maybe I should create these as project steps in my weekly or monthly pages?

How do you manage/ track home chores and projects?

And as always on Fridays, feel free to discuss anything Filofax related!

14 November 2019

The Filofax Malden

Did you know that the Filofax Malden is nearly 10 years old?

It first appeared in the 2010 catalogue in Personal (£65) and Pocket (£55) sizes and in just three colours (Black, Crimson and Ochre)

My own personal feelings when I first saw it in the Filofax shop in Neal Street, London was 'not for me' but within a few months I had bought the Crimson Personal, which is very much sought after these days!

Move forward in to 2011 and the Personal and Pocket sizes had been joined by the Mini and A5 sizes. Crimson had been replaced by 'Vintage Pink' and Grey had been added to the colours for Personal and Pocket.... although Grey was only available in Germany, but I managed to get a Grey A5 in the London shop.

There was a production error with the first batch of A5's, a lot of them got fitted with 25mm rings instead of 30mm rings... guess who pointed this out? Yep me!

I had got a Grey A5 with 25mm rings, it just seemed odd, and oversized... It was eventually replaced with one with 30mm rings a few weeks later. So I have two A5 Maldens in Grey one with 25mm the other with 30mm. Something to check if you are buying one pre-owned.

There was also a range of accessories available in the Malden design.

Moving in to 2012 the range of colours reduced to just Ochre and Purple.

As well as zipped folio

In 2013 the range expanded yet again with Zip organisers in Compact (Personal) and Pocket sizes. But the Malden Mini was no longer listed.

The range of accessories had also expanded too

By 2014 we were back to just Pocket, Personal and A5 in just two colours again.

2015 was more of the same, they were also heavily in to tablet cases as well by then.

This was the last full paper catalogue that Filofax produced so using the web archive of the Filofax Website we can see that in 2016, the colour range had expanded again.

Moving forward to 2019 the current range looks like this:

One thing that I noticed whilst writing this post was how the price of the Pocket size has gone from £55 to £75 and Personal £65 to £89 over the nine years.

Each year we have wondered if this was the year that the Malden was going to be phased out or not. However, it must be quite a best seller to have continued for so long. There were even copies of it being sold on Ebay and Amazon under the name of 'Sherwood' at one time.

I know not everyone likes the Malden, for various reasons, but personally I quite like the overall design of the organiser. It has some quirks in some sizes, but overall I think it works for most people.

I've kept most of the ones I've bought the only one I didn't bond with was a black Pocket size. I have Maldens in nearly all sizes, but not all colours!

Do you own or have you used a Malden in the last decade?

13 November 2019

Video Web Finds - Wednesday 13 November 2019

So I hope you have had a good weekend.

So now it is time to enjoy a great collection of videos from around the internet.

Here are a selection of the latest Filofax videos for your enjoyment.

For tips on how to improve your videos, please see this post. Also this video too Webfinds
Your Filofax/Organiser Videos could appear in this list, just contact philofaxy at gmail dot com to be added to our monitoring list.

You might also be interested in Planner Spread Love on Facebook.

Enjoy

12 November 2019

Free For All Tuesday - No. 458

So what questions or discussion points have you got for us today?

It doesn't matter if you are a beginner or a more experienced user of organisers, we want to hear your thoughts, questions, opinions etc.

We are here to answer your questions.

Make today the one day you post a comment or a question.

It is Tuesday after all so fire away with any questions and comments.

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