02 August 2013

Free For All Friday No. 246

Our son was here in France for a holiday last week with his girlfriend and our discussions included what they were doing for Christmas. I know it is terrible thinking about Christmas and we have only just entered August, but the airlines get booked up so quickly these days!

He sent through the flight dates and times by email this week. They only just fit in to my current diary insert.

So it is time to seriously think about what diary inserts I will be using next year. I don't think I will be changing much. I will go back through this years with a critical eye to see if I need to make any small tweaks at all.

So have you thought about your inserts for next year yet? But as it is Friday you can of course discuss anything Filofax or for that matter any ring bound brand of organiser related topics.  Have a good weekend.

19 comments:

  1. Yes, actually I have. When you have kids in school (especially high school) you get schedules for the year early! i.e. Band Schedule!!! Competitions and Football games, University visits to plan for senior year. Ugh Sad part is... if you, like me, use a month on two page that was custom made... the people making it don't intend to send out NEXT year until October. OY! It's hard to be as organized as you'd like when others influence your accomplishing it. So... I go with adding it page by page by page. Crazy!

    I also see needs for a new goals section... especially in the finance Filofax as college needs will be creeping up on us soon and we have to plan for my son taking a European trip as an Iowa Ambassador of Music next summer which he was recommended for by his band director. Quite an accomplishment and one that may never come again... 13 countries in 3 weeks will cost a pretty penny but we can't deny the opportunity. Yes... my finance Filofax will probably move to an A5 ALREADY!!! ;-/

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    1. I've already got my 2014 Wo2P diary (Swedish cream version) courtesy of the lovely Lieselore, who had a spare set and mailed it to me from Belgium (I think). I already have the 'skeleton' of 2014 key dates done, so I'm pretty happy. The wider system doesn't need much attention, so I guess it's 'business as usual' here!

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    2. I have already purchased my 2014 inserts for my ARC planner. I discovered Gallery Leather and found a beautiful refill with gorgeous ivory paper. I thought about using a Filofax calendar (I already use some FF inserts), but the dimensions aren't quite right and the paper is of lesser quality. Not rushing the last half of the year, but I can't wait to start using !

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  2. I made some week on two pages inserts for next year, by hand. (I detailed it here, there's photos too! http://fourwordsfourworlds.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/i-made-my-own-filofax-inserts-for-next-year/)
    I haven't added any important dates or anything yet because I'm beginning to think that maybe two days to a page might be better for me, but I don't know what I'd do with the WO2P I've already made.

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  3. Yes, I am starting to think about it mostly because I always forget how much I end up spending and its a good idea to slread th enurden acr oss months but I still need to be ahead of the new year
    Across several filos I need
    1Page on two day personalfrom France ( very spendy!)
    2.Week on one page with notes
    3. monthly tabbed
    All those for my planner which is personal sized
    Then in various topic related binders
    4. Week on two pages personal for Eating and exercising log
    5. Year planner for yoga class log
    6. A5 week on two pages for studio planner
    For work I buy a Letts A5 diary and hack it up as I need a full page but no appointments
    For my blog planner I use a Philofaxy self printed month on two pages
    Phew! But the system work so I am mot going to mess with it much. I might be daring and change the orientation of my yearl planners (wooo!) but thats about it.

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  4. I have not sent away from my 2014 inserts yet but I will soon. Not a lot will change and I now use a Cuban A5 , open on my desk for the RFDS fundraising events that I need to organise. This will also include the meeting dates for the year. The Windsor I will use this year as my personal FF and give the Malden a rest. Week on two pages, one vertical one horizontal is all I need.

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  5. I am so thrilled with my TM Ray and Steve planner that I have printed my 2013-14 academic year version already. A bit fiddly, as it meant straddling between the 2013 and 2014 downloads. I have modified the second page into work tasks and home tasks, with the weekend in 1 box and have put work and home e. mails/ phone calls at the bottom. I have removed the calendar on the right hand page and added lines to take recurring tasks.... eg de- frag computer etc. Next year I may modify this as too few lines left over really to take both categories or only use this for red inked vital MUST DO phone calls/ e. mails.But so far it works for me. I decided to highlight the title boxes and make them lemon coloured. Works with my new ochre Malden... 50th birthday present from my uncle and aunt, as I was born in Chelmsford and my parents lived on the outskirts of Malden. I use my Time Management A5 diary as a whole diary covering work and home, my annual overview to record supply work days and school holiday times, my monthly diaries to record job applications and deadlines and my daily job search activities. My daily pages are used for planning the day ahead, to time chunk what I plan to do. I only do literally today.... the night before.. otherwise I feel over diaried!!! No point!!! I still could only get mail merge to change 1 item.... and that was the colour task items. So at least 1 item mail merged. But any more and my computer would just not do it..... even 1 item at a time. It would come up with the whirlpool swirly please wait symbol and then 4 hours later would still be there!!!! So again..... changing to thicker lines by hand was the only option. But took me less time, as I have a generic second page now. Thanks for the diaries though, love them!!!! xxxx

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  6. Tina, what a marvellous opportunity for your son. Just awesome, and yes you must simply let him do this if possible. No question.I wonder if sponsorship through the EU would help them? Or if the Fulbright organisation might offer some funding? I taught music in America, Portland Connecticut, for a month,all kick started because a colleague went on a year's Fulbright.... and American teachers came to our school to teach in return. Yes, this is a superb opportunity for your son and he MUST go.... what an honour too to be asked. He will remember this for a lifetime. As a musician myself, I felt a glow of pride for your son and of course for you as parents. You must be so very proud of him and his achievements. Our local Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra too is world renowned and does so much with educational outreach programmes.... so a good point of contact in the UK..... they tour obviously, but are based at The Lighthouse Arts Centre in Poole. All the best with it.... I hope you manage to visit at least one European country yourselves, to hear him in concert at some point. xxxxx

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  7. Yes, I make my own, and have begun work on the monthly calendar for 2014 already, because as Tina says, next year events are creeping in already and need to be put somewhere...

    My inserts are pretty much set, but I can't quite get comfortable with the way things are broken out with my current dividers. Tweaking is part of the Filofax addition though, so its fun, not frustrating to work on! :)

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  8. I'm consolidating back into one planner, and it will be a FranklinCovey which is much more functional than anything available for the filofax. Sadly this means that my Winchester will be stored for the time being. I may use it as a journal, as I'd like to keep it in use.

    FranklinCovey and DayTimer both sell diaries to start in any quarter. My current supply is July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014 and includes monthly planning calendars to 6/2015 and a one page 2015 date planner for more forward planning. Quite handy. In the filofax, I've often added a notes page at the end of the diary to pencil in upcoming items which fall past the scope of the current diary, and when the new diary is inserted I transfer the information. Has worked well.

    I'm considering trying out a Plannerisms planner this coming year to keep better focus on the "big picture" and continue to improve my time management. I will, hopefully, be enrolling in a Library and Information Science graduate program in January and between funding the tuition expense and managing the workload I feel I will need to apply a greater focus on big picture planning, using the FC 2PPD planner for the minutia of my days.

    Just made a video last night, which I plan to upload to youtube this evening, outlining my progress with two planners. It works decently but ends up being more work than it's worth. I am planning to retool into one FC next week to eliminate the extra bother and work and potential confusion which comes from the bifurcated planning process.

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    1. Looking forward to the video. I was wondering how you were doing with your new system.

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    2. Me too, turning an ordinary Friday to a special Friday YAY!!!

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    3. Ditto! I am seriously switching back to Franklin Covey too... my personal Filofax works, but at a price. Will you stick with the Compact FC? The issue for me is that I love the FC pages but get so turned off by the actual binders. I want productivity and efficiency but also something aesthetically pleasing!

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  9. Who needs inserts when there is wonderfully blank paper? :P

    Seriously though, I'm going to order a new dodopad for my personal sometime next month and some white card stock paper since my dividers need refreshing but that's about it.

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  10. I made my own diary for this year (kind of a week + notes version) and have now sketched out one for next year (using excel, which made things very simple as I could make every date relative to one on the sheet, so next year, I can just change that date and the whole thing will update without having to do any kind of merge stuff...). I will do a trial print of that (and if it works, I will blog about it!).

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  11. Yes I have - I was in London so I bought a 2014 set of Filofax Time Management inserts for my A5 which are almost impossible to get anywhere else. I also bought 2014 vertical WOTP for my personal.

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  12. I am a Filofax lover, and hoarder, but I use a Planner Pad. I just bought my 2014 planner and am waiting for it to arrive. I am hoping that either Filofax will adopt a "Planner Pad" version, or that Planner Pad execs will sell cuter, less heavy covers, a la Filofax. A girl can dream, right?

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  13. I've started! I'm not buying any inserts this year ... Why would I when Philofaxy has pretty much everything I need?! What I love is that I can download the word doc and then tinker around with fonts and colours until I get what really works for me.

    I've printed off a MO2P for my teaching A5 Finsbury, and put all my birthdays/term dates etc. so far for next year ... that took a while ... I've also just printed a MO2P for my personal Chameleon which I'm using primarily as a wallet, but which is slowly becoming more and more useful to me while I'm on hols. I'm going to make my own 2 days per page or summat like that for my other A5 journalling Finsbury.

    I've even used the raw Excel files to do detailed day by day term plans through to summer next year! Thank you Philofaxy for making it such a dream to customise everything!

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  14. Ive also decided to consolidate my multiple planner (4) system for two of them. So far, my plan is to use my personal Crimson Malden for recording every day appointments and household matters. My pink Kate Spade is also personal size, and has 1.5 inch rings--i use their happy inserts with great paper, as a daily diary. My only A5 is a black Luxe, which I share with my husband--we use it for more formal meetings.
    If and when I get a Gillio gift for my upcoming birthday, my plan is to have it replace my crimson Malden.
    I will continue using my Ostrich to keep my bookcase warm and cosy.

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