Is it time for a change?

I chuckled the other day when I saw a tweet that simply said 'Enabler Alert' after I had appeared on line.

We have all become enablers in some way or form. I've been 'called' or should that be 'accused' of being the 'chief enabler'... ok I hold up my hand say 'guilty as charged..... so what are you going to do about it!!!!'

I have been reading various posts and comments and then looking at my crimson Malden Filofax and thinking I want to put my Malden in to use. It shouldn't just be sitting there looking pretty and smelling nice (You have to be a Malden owner to understand this!)

So reading various posts about using only one Filofax have been 'enabling' me to think through how I might do the same..... or try to.

So I set myself a mini challenge to bring my Malden in to use, but I think I need to recap on my current Filofax set up, so you can appreciate the mind games I went through to change to the Malden.

My current line up looks something like this:

• A4 Classic - Sits on my desk as my at home planner, it also holds my master address list.jotspot
• Pocket Chameleon - My carry around Filofax/Wallet
• Finsbury Personal - My journal for recording past events
• Slimline Finsbury - My notebook/to-do list Filofax
• Other Filofax organisers in the collection have specific tasks so I won't include them here.

OK that is too many isn't it? What I wanted to attempt to do was 'slim' down the number of organisers I actively use and make better use of them in the process.

The Slimline was the first up to be taken out of current use or at least changed. I've found having it as a separate To-Do list/Notebook has helped me make better use of To-Do lists and I think I now have them under control, so those lists have transferred in to my Malden at the simple click of the rings. The same goes for the notes, that I didn't archive in my rationalisation process.

The A4 Classic sits beautifully flat on my desk, but as you might have suspected it is a little big to carry around. My A5 Malden I think would be a great substitute for this, but for now my A4 has been put back in its box.

As my Pocket Chameleon has been used as both a Wallet and a Filofax, I needed to replace or substitute it for something that acts as a wallet and notebook.... and I had a choice of retaining the Pocket Chameleon, using my Mini Finchley.... or going back to the Finsbury Slimline with my 'vintage' change holder.

The final 'suggestion' makes a lot of sense if you think about it. It is personal size, so pages are easy to swap between the Malden and the Finsbury. It will hold all of my cards and passport as it did before, but now it doesn't have any diary in it, just some plain and ruled paper for instant note taking.

So with the Pocket Chamelon and my A4 Classic out of the way, I set about setting up my Slimline and my Malden Personal. It took me a few iterations to get a set up I was happy with and it took me most of the weekend at different times. In fact I got part way through writing this post and had to abandon it when I realised a problem with the set up at that point!! Stop writing, concentrate on getting the set up how you want it!!!

However, the best thing about Filofax is that you can make numerous changes without any problems or long term damage.

So my black Finsbury Slimline has now become my 'wallet' and a notebook as follows:

• Inside front cover - Bank and medical cards
• Inside back cover - Passport and drivers licence. 
• Plain and ruled paper
• Filofax solar powered calculator - mainly used for calculating exchange rates. 
• Clear top opening envelope with my heath care insurance certificate and opticians prescription
• Vintage change holder. 

My crimson Malden Personal is a fairly standard set up, but for the record:

• Inside front cover - business contact cards
• Inside back cover - note pad
• Diary tab - Week on Two Page - Multi language version. I will change this for a different WOTP next year. 
• Notes tab - white ruled paper
• Projects tab - To-do list with the following headings
  
  
  • 'This Week' 
  • 'This Month' 
  • 'Sometime'
  • 'Blog Posts'
  • 'Projects'
  • 'Future Purchases'
• Information Tab - Maps of UK, France, London, World time zones.... I like maps!
• Financial - Not a section I normally use, so it might be relabelled at some point. 
• Addresses - Standard A-Z two letters per section with standard 130201 inserts

The other major change you might have spotted is that instead of having a Filofax as a 'planner' for future events and another for my journal/diary (past events). I am going to try combining these in to the one WOTP diary in the Malden.  So far it is working fine, it will be better with equal space for each day, but I will see how it goes for now, before swapping out the diary insert.... remember Nan said have a cooling off period... I think I need one, I've broken most of the 'rules' this last weekend. But I now have the pleasure of using my Malden!

Now if you have been observant over the last year or so, you might remember that I previously changed from my Slimline Finsbury to a Pocket Finsbury because the Slimline didn't fit my bag. Well that has also changed in the last couple of weeks too. I'm now using a bigger bag! and it takes Personal size and even an A5 without straining things too much.

Naturally I will report back on any further adjustments/tweaks to improve my set up and I will let you know how the new set up is working out...  there is is that other Grey A5 Malden lurking on my side table crying out 'use me too.....'



Sorry if this version of this post is slightly different to the version of the one you read previously this was due to the Blogger outage and them restoring a previous version of the post. I went through so many versions of this post before it was published I can't remember all the changes and amendments. Likewise earlier comments have also been lost due to the Blogger Outage suffered in the last 36 hours.

Steve