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25 July 2012

Spliceable Filofax Month on Two Pages

One of the main complaints many of us have about Filofax inserts (besides the paper quality) is the lack of month-on-two-pages inserts that allow you to splice weekly, daily or notes pages between the months.

The Filofax month on two pages inserts are printed back to back, which means when you turn the page the following month is printed on the backside of the page. Contrast this to some other brands such as Franklin Covey which has notes space on the backside of the monthly pages. This allows you to embed the months in the weekly pages or add Financial pages, notes, goals, or anything else you want between the months. This is not possible with months printed back to back.

I decided not to buy Franklin Covey monthly inserts because the pages are slightly wider than Filofax inserts, and would obscure my tabs behind. So, like so many Filofax users (see Tim's extreme example here), I decided to hack my own Filofax solution.

I bought two Filofax Month On Two Pages inserts for 2013, and spliced them together.  Here's the result:

The first page looks normal, January across two pages.

Then turn the page and you see February on the back side of the January page at the left, and January on the back side of the February page on the right:
Then turn the page again and there's February across two pages:
Then turn the page again and it's March on the backside of the February page and February on the backside of the March page coming up.  I'll white out the month names on the back sides of the pages to reduce confusion as to which pages are actually the months and which are the back sides of the pages.
 Turn the page again and it's March across two pages:
And so on for the rest of the year.

As you can see, it's not an ideal solution. But it does allow me to insert pages between the months which is what I was going for.

Filofax, please take note! We are desperately trying to adapt your system to our needs, but could really use more inserts options!

15 comments:

  1. The. Ultimate for me would be a month on two pages tabbed (on A5 for me). More choice would be very welcome.

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  2. I think I would find that very confusing.

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  3. Great little tip Laurie. It may not be ideal, but it certainly works!

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  4. I did the same but never thought to put my weekly pages in betwee. I like to see the months at a glance. Good food for thought for 2013 set up so thank you for that

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  5. I really like that idea! Wouldn't put the weekly pages in between but for sure goals and general notes. Sounds very interesting.

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  6. I did something like this but using Steve and Ray's inserts. I have printed them out so that the month is in the middle and there are currently blank pages before and after then my (at the time) daily pages went after back page of the month. I don't need daily pages so much during the holidays so have printed wo1p to use for the rest of July and then August. I also only keep the current months daily pages (or wo1p's for the holiday) in my Filofax at one time but I keep all of the month pages for the remainder of the year so if something comes up I need to "book" myself for I just put it on the month calendar then can note it down in more detail nearer the time. If there are more details that are given to me then and there a post it note or note page will suffice until later!
    This currently is working well for me but may still change come September if I don't get a new job or if I get a new job else where than in teaching as I may then not need the space of a page a day, only time will tell on that one!

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  7. I actually like the filofax diary inserts BUT I can't deal with the months not interfiling with the days in a tidy fashion, it upsets me!

    I switched to DayTimer (who makes pages exactly the same size as Filofax, not extra wide like Franklin Covey pages) and never looked back. It's just such a superior design that I can't see spending the same money for filofax stuff that just doesn't work.

    I do prefer the fonts and clean white design of the filofax inserts, though. But not enough to work with the damned monthly inserts with their daft design!

    Good tip, Laurie! Do take a look at the DayTimer product though.

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    1. I second day timer months.

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    2. I recently returned to Filofax after a 14 year interlude with Franklin Covey. I love everything about Filofax EXCEPT their month on 2 pages. I discovered DayTimer month packs and except that they don't include monthly goal planning on the back of each month, I do prefer them over Filofax's lame attempt.

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  8. I *think* you should be able to do this with Steve & Ray's inserts quite easily just by playing with the PDF printer settings. I've not tried though!

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  9. Why don't you scan them into your computer and them print them again how you want them?
    Cut them to the correct size and insert where you want them.
    Say print the months on 2 pages and notes on the back of both sheets of whatever you wanted.
    This would work wouldn't it?
    You could also print them on the quality of paper you wanted and have the layout.
    Isn't there a file on here which you could use which has MT2P layout?

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    1. Yes, there is. I'd be happy to look at producing a Laurie-style version if there's demand.

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    2. Bear in mind that for once you'll be printing this single-sided.

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  10. You can easily trim Franklin covey pgs to fit into personal size and still have all the monthly information visible. I tried it myself! I also did the same with day on two pages it worked great!

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