According to a quick Google search, Spring in the northern hemisphere started on the 20th March. The daffodils have been out for ages and it's finally beginning to feel a bit warmer. I love having a good Spring clean and have just started on my Filofax. The empty Malden is sat to one side and I'm going through each sheet, making sure I still need it and finding that I'm recycling more than I'm keeping. Are you having a binder clear out currently, or are you good at keeping everything up to date during the year?
And it's Friday again, so please feel free to discuss anything Filofax or ringbound planner related. Have a a great weekend.
Has anyone else evey been injured by a Filofax or is it my own ineptitude?!! I was playing around with my new filos last night and the Holborn Zip has a really stiff ring opening such that that somehow I strained my wrist using it and went to bed all sore :(
ReplyDeleteThis is what you get from being good and not just pulling the rings apart!
Ironically I was indeed having a good spring clean of my studio planner at the time. It used to be in my ochre Malden and is now slimmed down, placed in a brown Osterley, re tabbed with my new Letrag Labeller ( how dull was life before that came into my life?) and has more sections for strategic planning, ten year plans etc while archived pages of the last twelve months worth of project records remain in the Malden at the moment.
My Filofax injuries usually relate to getting my fingers trapped in the rings when closing them - but that is definitely caused by my own ineptitude :-)
DeleteI moved into a new setup in my A5 Holborn Zip a few weeks ago now, so did a big review of what I needed and what I didn't. So far (touch wood) it's all working out rather well for me and I haven't even thought about making any changes - result!!!
I have the same problem and I think mine is caused by ineptitude as well.
DeleteI'm constantly adjusting my setup, but that's not seasonal. The last thing I did was remove the shopping list section, since I don't use it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe next year when the novelty has worn off...
I think we all say that, but it keeps on calling us back for "just a little tweak, you know you want to...", or even worse "but look what that person's done to theirs - don't you think that would be great in me...?" :o)
DeleteI have a Holborn A5 Zip as well and have to admit to commiting a big no-no - I almost always have to open via the rings rather than the way you are supposed to do it due to the intractable stiffness in the opener/closer mechanism. Perhaps if I tried more often they wouldn't be so stiff! [sigh] I am very careful when I do this but the guilt remains for a while nonetheless!
ReplyDeleteHappy Friday everyone!
I have a Cavendish which is in great condition, however I am so worried every time I open it in case the popper comes off. It is the old style leather popper, it's not even loose but is there a preventative measure?
ReplyDeletewhat are the best fitting inserts for an A5......Day Runner or Franklin Covey???
ReplyDeleteTimeDesign (TimeSystem in USA/Canada) fits the A5 binder no changes.
Deletehttp://www.timesystem.us/
Also look at Time Manager International
http://www.timemanager.com/
If it is a Filo A5, neither DayRunner or Franklin Covey will fit. The ring spacing is completely different
ReplyDeleteyes.....but which one takes less modification?
ReplyDelete
DeleteThe DR and the FC have the same page size and they they both have the same rings so it would be a toss-up. I used FC for years and prefer to DR.
The Original is looking quite interesting on the German site.
ReplyDeleteInteresting times on the train to London this past Tuesday. As usual, I had my Personal Hampstead out on the table in front of me, when a man slightly older than me got on and sat at the table across the aisle from me and pulled out....a Personal Hampstead! Given that these were discontinued in roughly 2001, what are the chances? I wasn't inclined to strike up the conversation (he didn't look the type, and I'm not really, either), I was intrigued. And he was obviously, like me, en route to London on business.
ReplyDeleteAfter a while, a younger cha got on and took one of the seats opposite me. Blow me, if he didn't pull out a third Filofax! This one wasn't a Hampstead (what would the odds on *that* be?), but a really neat fine grain leather black job. It had no FF 'F' stamped on the spine, so it may not have been FF brand at all, and he had some *very* nice 'high white' inserts (that was as far as my nosiness and spying technique would take me) which definitely weren't FF - although my limited knowledge of non-FF inserts prevented me from a proper identification.
So there we all were - three males, all en route to London, all apparently on business, all with ring-bound planners.
Rather makes me wonder again about the suppposed and oft-asserted global take-over of gadgetry.....
That is quite incredible David, made me smile just two people, but to add a third as well!!
DeleteI was pretty amazed myself, given the odds. I suppose I've in part succumbed to the accepted view that Filofax is a) dying out, and b) becoming the province of fashion victims who 'like to make notes' (if Ms Bloomer is to be credited). But three males on business? My faith has been in part restored.
DeleteI'd still love to know what guy #3's inserts were though!
This week has led me into a number of conversations with tablet-users, partly because my laptop, while not yet geriatric, is getting on a little, and I've decided that it would be better to think about my replacement strategy than to wait until it dies/catches fire/dumps my data into the ether/all of the above.....
ReplyDeleteIn conducting these conversations, I've had the opportunity to talk to people about their personal organisation, as 'the cloud' now seems to be touted by many as 'the only way' to keep diaries, contacts, tasks and info in sync. At the same time, I've been able to make it clear to people that I'm a dedicated paper-user when it comes to all things organisational, and that I won't be transferring my loyalties to gadgetry (again) any time soon (like, ever).
It's been very interesting. The wistful looks not just of nostalgia, but of actual envy, if I'm not mistaken, have confirmed my opinion that for many people, the transition to digitalia has been a step backwards rather than forward, and that they would love to move back to paper if not for the peer/advertising pressure to stay digital.
I'm so glad I have my Filofax. It's the bedrock of everything I do organisationally, it keeps me in line with my own priorities, enables me to pursue (if not to achieve) my goals, tells me what my week is going to be like (for any given week in the next 30 or so), keeps me from over-committing and holds my 'key' information, not to mention bank cards, membership cards, business cards (mine and others), postage stamps and 'bits and pieces' in perfect order. As I've said so many times before, I know that when I leave the house, provided by Filofax is with me, I have everything I need with me, every time.
I wonder how many digital users, especially users of multiple gadgets, can say that.....
David,
DeleteThe 'excuse' I've been frequently given as to why people are slaves to Outlook/iCal/Gcal/Cal is that it binds teams together, so organising team meetings and conferences is easier. Obviously depending on the size of the team, I would counter that argument.
Back in the day when I also had to use Outlook whilst it worked fine, it falls down when one or two of your team fail to keep it up to date. You go to organise a meeting with your team for a set day or time only to find them declining your meeting request, oh but I'm on leave that day.... but it's not showing on Outlook, it shows you as available....
There is also the notion that these mobile devices are always in contact with network... are they? Take a read of this post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-pavley/mobile-technology_b_3034234.html
Like you I am not convinced I could stay completely digital these days. Yes I do use iCal linked to iCloud and it works, but it's not my main planning tool and never will be.
It is so much easier to enter a meeting/appointment in my Filofax that is always open, never needs charging etc on my desk, it doesn't go in to stand-by mode if I don't flick the pages every 5 minutes.
I like technology, but it has it's place in my life and planning isn't one of them!
Steve, that was exactly the comment I got back from my client this Friday, that because they all need to access each others' diaries, they need (in their case) Google Calendar to make it work. It certainly has the ability to do that, but I wonder what happened to the old fashioned team planning meeting, when diaries could be opened and conversations could be had around meeting attendance requirements etc. As for task management, I've not yet come across a digital solution I'd be really happy using, and my experience with Google is that sooner or later it encounters a synchronisation problem with my BlackBerry which then renders all trust in it mis-placed. As you say, it's so much easier to enter an appointment into a Filofax, and so much quicker to access as well. Like you, I like technology, and there is no denying that it has made many aspects of life immeasurably easier, and certainly many aspects of business, but it just doesn't provide the speed of access, security of data and flexibility I need.
DeleteDavid, You have jogged my memory... Yes we use to have section head meetings on a Friday afternoon at 3pm. Only 4 of us, always limited to 30 minutes no more.
DeleteAt these meetings we would help the lab manager complete two charts for the forthcoming week. One was to indicate what projects staff were working on. The other to indicate what lab facilities were in use and for which projects.
Each project had a unique number so it all worked reasonable well.
Of course the other benefit of the face to face meetings was that the detail of the projects were discussed and any issues about measurements were discussed and quite often an answer or further discussion took place to solve the issues.
All in all very productive 30 minute sessions. And this interaction is all lost with electronic team calendars!! Progress? I think not!
Steve
I used to conduct weekly staff meetings for my section when I was working in the Lloyds of London insurance market, and I think the old fashioned staff meeting had a lot more value than just diary sharing. Face to face meetings facilitated real sharing of opinions which digital sharing just doesn't equal. Later in business life, I chaired a weekly meeting of my own staff where tasks and responsibilities were allocated and agreed on a weekly basis, and I can't imagine anything digital producing the same sense of mutual commitment.
DeleteYou're right Steve - just another of the many examples of 'progress' just making things worse.....