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09 February 2011

Filofax Organisers, how many do you own?

It is always an awkward question to ask. There is always a pause whilst the person is either thinking up an excuse for why they have so many, or they are doing a mental recalculation in their head to reach an accurate number, or they might be thinking 'do I admit to that many, and do I count the three that are on order....'

It is always difficult. It is a bit like asking a woman how old she is... it's just not the thing you should be asking really....

So with a flash of inspiration from Caribbean Princess this morning we have devised a new unit of quantity that has been scientifically researched and developed. This unit will be known as the 'Philofaxy' It is a new standard unit of measurement for how many Filofax Organisers you own.

It takes in to account what size your Filofax organisers are and therefore adjusts the number you own proportionally. So if your collection is predominantly small ones, then they are quite low value, so in terms of Philofaxy's you don't have as many as you thought you had....confused?

It you take the page area as the unit size of your Filofax then taking an A4 as being one Philofaxy, an A5 is half a Philofaxy, a Personal is equal to a little over a quarter of a Philofaxy, a Pocket is about a sixth of a Philofaxy and a Mini just under an eighth of a Philofaxy.

So if you have 8 Mini Filofax Organisers, you only have One Philofaxy. So say in my case I have 1 A4, 1 A5, 3 Personals, 2 Pockets and 1 Mini which is 8 Filofax Organisers in the traditional measurement terms... but only 2.7 Philofaxy's, OK I will be generous and round it up to 3 Philofaxy's, but you have to admit 3 sounds better than 8????

Now to make it easier for you to calculate the number of Philofaxy's you currently own, I've created a simple speadsheet. All you have to do is put in the numbers of each size of Filofax Organisers you own (best do this when no one is looking over your shoulder!) and the spreadsheet will recalculate this in terms of Philofaxy's that you now own, this is your new 'public' figure of how many you admit to owning...

Hold your head high and be proud!!! No it's not April 1st!!!

[Update: I've now added Slimline and Deskfax sizes. For the Slimline I've adjusted the value calculated by the fraction 15/23 which is the ratio ring size for most Slimline/Personal binders!]


48 comments:

  1. This is surely presumptuous, but I think each unit should be dubbed a *Philo* because each organizer is a little piece of love.

    C'mon - sometimes you've just got to get your cupid on! :-)

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  2. I am fairly premature when it comes to the Filofax. Although I've had one for years...I haven't started expanding my collection until just recently when I got sick of my horrible yearly diaries I'd started using, and went back to an old faithful Filofax.

    So believe it or not, I only have 1.833 Philofaxy (1xA4, 2xPersonal, 2xPocket).

    Sigh, if only I could up it over 2 Philofaxy when I one day find a good deal on a Pocket Ivory Deco!!

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  3. I have 1.5 Philofaxy (four personal, 1 A5).

    Love this!

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  4. I have 3.5 philofaxys!! Now I need to convince my husband of that. Haha!

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  5. I have 2.937 Filofaxes!

    (1xA4, 2xA5, 3xPersonal, 1xPocket).

    So far ...

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  6. I agree with your abbreviation Robin, as with all units of measurement there is an accepted abbreviation for it and 'Philo' seems appropriate in this case.

    I was wondering this morning, if the US and Canada needed a different measurement scheme of 'Philos' due to the A4 not being sold there. Their unit would be based on the A5... A bit like US Gallons and Imperial Gallons...

    But then I thought no... we should have a World Wide Standard for the measurement of quantity and the Philo it is!

    I need a rest..... too much thinking!!

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  7. I love this very scientific measurement!

    3 A5s and 6 Personal sizes gives me a Philofaxy value of 3.063.

    But I'm wondering if approximate volume of blank inserts should be included in the value? I have a drawer full of blank insert pages (notes of various colors, extra page markers and envelopes, etc.) that represent a significant outlay of money. I think I should add a value of 0.5 on just for those!

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  8. I'm a looser..my number is only 0.521 :o) But beautiful pocket finchley is on the way. Then I`ll be 0.677.
    BTW...does slim counts as personal?

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  9. Yes I decided that Slim counts as a personal, same area... although I'm open to suggestions that it might be considered as a fraction of personal in the 'revised issue of the standard, issue 1.0.1.2 or similar!

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  10. I only have 0.634 Philofaxy (2x Personal & 1x Mini).
    Love it :)

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  11. I have an economical 0.76 Philofaxies. However, as my A5 is broken (I dropped it and the mechanism was bent) and no longer easily usable, I feel I should be entitled to a discount from this figure. Should the spreadsheet calculator not be adjusted to take account of less-than-100% perfect Filofaxes?

    Sorry.....truly my pedantry knows no bounds!

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  12. I'm currently at 1.521 philo's with another 1.029 philo's on the way!

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  13. I only have 5/12ths of a Philofaxy, so I think I'll just tell people I own one!

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  14. heh heh. awesome.

    4 personal (incl 1 slim)
    +
    2 pocket (incl 1 slim)

    =

    1.354 for me:

    gonna try and make it a 2 this year (allowing myself at least 1 slim & 1 pocket ... no more than 3)

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  15. Omg that has made me feel so much better about the ones i have

    I have 1.177 Philofaxy

    1 A5
    2 Personal(but one is a slim line so does it still count?)
    1 Pocket

    I want More :)

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  16. Note that I am too embarrassed to give my actual counts! hahaha :-) 3.5 philofaxy is fine with me......

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  17. Oh my! My issue is even more serious than I thought. I own 6.3 Filofaxes. Well, one is a slimline, so I'll round it off to 6. I do need a proper explanation for my DH why there's such a huge lineup in my cupboard ...

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  18. What is a 'Deskfax worth?

    I have one of those, not counting that, I am setting at 5.20 Philos.

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  19. I have an A5, a Personal, a pocket and a Mini, therefore I have 1.029 Philofaxy, However to be really really sad, I have on display in my shop, 153 organisers, meaning we display 43.263 Philofaxys, (not counting conf folders, bags or accesories. Do I work in heaven or what??

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  20. Craig, you do!!! But you were already aware of that, weren't you? You just had to rub in it ....

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  21. I'm at 3.634 Philofaxy (1 A5, 11 personal (including 2 slimlines), 1 pocket and 1 mini). Believe it or not, all but 3 of them are in use (most are storage binders)...

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  22. I think we will set the Deskfax as being the same as an A4 for the purposes of assigning it a value. Can you send me an accurate measurement of the page size and I will include it.

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  23. Lol, Yeah I did know and wanted to rub it in. You are all free to come in and visit my little piece of heaven..

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  24. I am impoverished by Philofaxy terms in that I only have .5 Philofaxy (I have just one A5). My count might go up if I ever figure out which one is supposed to make a good wallet+notebook.

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  25. 1.542

    This is without my Finsbury A5 Folder which I snatched for 20 Euro and without my Chronoplan Midi which has Filo Personal format but is in comparison something like a heavyweight champ - maybe I should introduce this product here later as "The Big One".

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  26. So sad... I only have .26 Philofaxy. Hmmm, seeing it this way, I think that number needs to go up!

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  27. I feel slightly guilty... I have a philofaxy of 12.831!!
    Thats 7 A5, 33 personals (!), 4 Pockets and 1 mini. Guilty, but rather proud!

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  28. I came in at just a hair over 5.
    Mostly personals.
    Only 2 A5's.
    All purchased used off of Ebay.

    For those binders in actual USE, the number drops to 1.5

    Now... the problem I have with this system is a Slimline is treated as being the same as a Personal. Just aint so...

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  29. OK, now I feel really bad for starting off the comments - all the while knowing I just have a lone pocket. Ah well, such temerity! :-)

    Steve - Muchas gracias! Love the site!

    Jeff - I'm experimenting with using my pocket Finsbury as a wallet. It's actually working out great because I don't carry too much with me in terms of cards or cash. It does fit a passport, though, so it's a good multitasker.

    CP - You've got me laughing again!

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  30. Robin--please let us know how it goes with the pocket Finsbury as a wallet. I do need to carry some cash and cards, though.

    Scotch--You are the Personal Emperor. What do you do with 33 of them?

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  31. My name is Iris and I have 13 Filos (12x Personal, 1x Slimline), which equals 3.3865 Philofaxy. There - I said it!

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  32. HeHe - "But Honey, I only have 4.020 philos! Really! It's the absolute truth, Sweetie Pie!"

    This is what I will tell my DH the next time he asks ... of course, the game's up if he actually opens the cupboard holding my filofax organizers and Coach agendas ...!

    ~AspireToBe

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  33. Jeff, check out my flickr photos of the collection- I'm in the filofax groups there as Strong_Scotch - I'm just an avid collector and filo-fan! (i also use them to store nearly 20 years worth of diaries!)

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  34. Deskfax and Slimline now added in, see note at the end of the post. Therefore my own count has now reduced to 2.6 having changed one of my personal binders to slimline.

    Well you need to calculate it accurately!!

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  35. At risk of upsetting everyone, isn't the first stage of admitting to an addiction, facing up to the facts and not downsizing it?? ("I drink 8 bottles of wine a day, but since the bottle is smaller than an oil tanker, that's actually only 1/1000th of a tanker-unit a day...")
    :-)

    Anyway, my Philofaxy number is 1.873 (3x A5; 1x personal; 1x mini), though I suppose I do have three more personals in a drawer not being used (making the total 2.655).

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  36. Although you are not likely to die from a Filofax addiction.. unless the pile of boxes falls on you!

    May be I forgot to put the 'tongue in cheek' warning on the post ;-)

    Steve

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  37. Oh, my tongue was firmly in my cheek in my comment!!
    :-)

    Been ill and away from the site for a few days and it's been really great to catch up with it all again!

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  38. Get well soon. As you can see it's been a fairly busy few days!

    And some interesting stuff to discuss in the next few weeks too.

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  39. @Steve
    Thanks! Getting there slowly!

    Last time I had looked was Tuesday! Looked again today and wondered if I'd actually been confined to bed for a week!

    Great site - love it. Look forward to all the posts.

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  40. Im soon to have 1 philofaxy (just waiting for delivery!) Can I ask a question. Say if you have 6 personals or whatever do you change them according do your mood? i,e im in a tan leather mood today or a red mood or a black mood etc etc? or do you buy one...use it..it gets worn..you buy another one and start using that instead but you keep hold of all your old ones? im just asking so i can use this as evidence when i try to convince the OH I need more than one because everyone else does!! ha x

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  41. Sounds like a good question to pose on Free for All Tuesday... I'm not sure how many people are subscribed to the comments to be able to see them on earlier posts like myself.

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  42. ugh...that's math. i don't do math.
    i'll just happily own up to my seriously obsessive count of "over 50" non-math Filofaxes (or, however we ended up agreeing to denote Filofax in plural).

    @alexandra: i often switch in & out of binders for mood or fashion. like shoes or handbags. you have more than one pair of shoes right?! do you have more than one handbag? then there is your justification for having more than one!!

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  43. 4.972 That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

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  44. 1.8 sounds so much better than 7! (1xA5, 3xPersonal, 1xCompact and 2xPocket).

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  45. 14.746 I have been thinking about having a clear out, I think this confirms I ought to. Love this idea though.

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  46. I own at least 10 of them filofaxes

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  47. So I have 6.295 philos. That doesn't sound so bad. :)

    I like this too much. :)

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