Hard to believe that I haven't posted since before Christmas! But the holidays are now truly over, and I'm back to work, including blog work!
One of the things I did during my time away was to start using my new chocolate Personal Finchley Filofax. I left the Personal Finsbury—a bright red thing—pretty much as it was and just copied any information I needed into the new organizer.
The new Filo has had an interesting effect on me, and much more of an impact than I could have imagined. The change of color to a soft brown cover with smooth cream paper makes me feel calm, quiet, and somehow more focused. It made me put aside my turquoise Pocket Finsbury, too, in favor of a small Moleskine diary for my fitness records. It has everything to do with the similarity in color of the cotton cream Filofax paper to the Moleskine paper. I've even abandoned my colorful Miquelrius journals for my personal journaling. (I've brought them into work where I can use them as an adjunct to the A5 Filo I use for work. They may even encourage me to take more and better work notes.) Yes, I've gone back to using a large ruled Moleskine for journaling.
(But I won't post any Moleskine pictures here. That's just crossing a line.)
I also took the Filofax switch as an opportunity to simplify things. I only use 2 tabs, one for to-do pages (alphabetical by category: calls, errands, Philofaxy, etc.), and another with ruled cotton cream notepaper. I then use the A-Z tabs for both phone numbers and alphabetical lists. For example, my Christmas list will go behind "cd". I hand-copied the phone numbers I'll need onto the cotton cream address pages, which gave me the chance to clear out the ones I no longer use. It's amazing how few I really need to carry.
Here's to a great year of life and Filofaxing to everyone!
It's beautiful! Loved the rest of your photos too - did I notice some hole-punched postcards in there at all? I ask only because I have a couple I use as dividers, and they make fun little keepsakes. :)
ReplyDeleteCotton cream's just wonderful, isn't it - if I do proceed with my DIY insert plans (commented the most recent Free for All Friday) then I'll miss that rich, creamy texture...
You have inspired/temped me! What hit me was you saying how calming the cream stock is... and I'm impressed with the simplicity of how you've set up your sections. I may be ordering the TEAL Finchley ... what a great color. I have a couple of questions: 1) How exactly do you set up your work Filofax? I'm in book publishing, with many projects, and I also have two freelance endeavors I juggle. Do you only use your new personal Filo for personal stuff and keep the business tasks, projects, etc separate? 2) Do you use a basic GTD setup, or is yours a variation of it? Thanks for keeping the Philofaxy blog going - I am an avid reader!
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I just switched from a personal Hamilton (made in England) to a black mini finchley. I carried around so many empty notes sheets and old stuff. With the mini i got just what I need.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year Everyone!
ReplyDeleteInky,I love your idea of using the A-Z tabs for list and the like and filing them alphabetically. I have just streamlined my planner down from 12 to 6 tabs. I am moving toward keeping it more like a Commonplace book as well as a planner and using the A-z tabs would work quite well I think. I re-arranged my planner to have one main notes section where I would write all that I would want to and just flip through, where as before when I had the 12 sections I had more than one place the information could go and that caused me to procrastinate in using my planner like a commonplace book. I have been thinking about using the tabs and how it would work for me... So I am going to give it a go and I am going to think about decorating the tabs too.... Make them bright and inviting....
Silver Elixir, I like your idea of decorating the tabs. Ever since I started using colored tab labels, it's so much easier to see where things are. My labels are actually the colored tape flags that come on the Filofax sticky notes accessory, which are great because they are removable which makes it easy to move my tab dividers around whenever I need to, which seems to be often!
ReplyDeleteWhile I was on vacation for 3 weeks over the holidays I brought my Personal size Filo with me, not my A5 that I live out of. I have converted my Personal into my own travel guide/ reference book combined, and didn't feel like I needed my big A5 with me. But I missed it, and was really happy to have it back when I got home! I rearranged the tabs a little bit, updated my Goals section (all those New Year's resolutions!) and added some things into my calendar. Being away from it made me realize just how much I like it, and how useful it is to me. Absence makes the heart grow fonder I guess!
I had actually planned on switching to a new calendar system for this year (Uncalendar to be specific) and use my A5 as my reference/ address book. The whole time I was on vacation I was thinking about my new Uncalendar and how I would use it, what systems I would put in place, everything I would write into it (most of which I already have written into my A5). I was all set to go with it. But when I got home, my enthusiasm for it suddenly fell. Writing all of that information all over again into a new book when I already have it in my Filo seemed daunting. But mostly, I enjoyed not having a structured schedule so much during vacation. I realized I try to over-engineer my time during the day, when I don't need to. When I use an Uncalendar I tend to micromanage my time unnecessarily. In my A5 I use the horizontal weekly layout, which before seemed too open and unstructured. But now I appreciate that, and like that it doesn’t make me feel like I should be filling in a million tasks every week. Maybe I’ll change my mind sometime when I get really busy and need more structure to my days. But for now, I’m really enjoying having everything all together in my Filo.
Happy 2009 everybody!
I'm now waiting for my new personal Finchley to arrive! (Seems to be taking forever!) I've been thinking about the way Inky has two tabs, and I've been exploring something new by the author of Do It Tomorrow, Mark Forster. He has a new system called AutoFocus, where you keep a work list and a home list and cycle through the lists in a very simple but ingenious way. If anyone is interested, you can find out more at www.markforster.net. I'm interested in how anyone on this blog approaches productivity using a Filofax. Cheers, Claudia
ReplyDeleteI've been reading your blog (including catching up on old posts) ever since becoming a 'Filo-phile'. I have an A5 Finsbury in Red, and am completely addicted. I then received a violet Piazza pocket sized as a gift. Unfortunately, it is NOT my color. If anyone is interested in taking it off my hands for cheap (or a trade for a pocket Finsbury)... I would appreciate it. I just want it to find a home! If this is inappropriate, I do apologize.
ReplyDeleteThe other part in Yoga and Meditation, is yoga, and there are many benefits that are accomplished with yoga, for example, yoga is the exercise that is going to help you built up a much better body, which is great because it helps you to feel much better about yourself, another thing, yoga will put all of your muscles into action, so you know that when you are doing yoga you are making parts of your body to get stronger and therefore surpassing the test of time, in other words, thanks to yoga, you are going to remain a person with a strong body, regardless of how old you are.
ReplyDeleteI just ordered the personal chocolate Finchley and can't wait to get it! I have been using a personal red Finsbury...stepped out of my "neutral color box" and I am drawn back to that beautiful brown.....there is nothing better then sitting down with your Filo and a great pen! It is so nice to see others that have a true appreciation of their Filofax!
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