My Philofaxy journey

I haven't been reading Philofaxy for all of its 10 years, but nearly. I first discovered Philofaxy in the spring of 2007, when my son was a baby and my daughter was a toddler. We were expats at the time (and still are, but in a different country now) and I was barely clinging to sanity adjusting to overseas life with two under two with no babysitter or outside help of any kind. It was, shall we say, not an easy time of my life.

I had already been using a ring binder planner for many years. I used a non-Filofax ring binder for about six years before I upgraded to my first real Filofax, a personal size Buckingham that I got at TJ Maxx for $25 in 2001. That Filofax did a lot of hard traveling with me, and I have great memories with it. It got me through graduate school, work, the births of my children and moving overseas beautifully.

Then as my life got more complicated, so did my planning needs. So I went online in search of Filofax usage tips and ideas. Let me tell you, back in 2007 there was not a lot out there. Nothing like the flood of planner blogs, videos, images and printables that exist online now. It was slim pickin's back in the old days.

Luckily, I found Philofaxy. Back then it wasn't the fully fleshed out, daily-publishing blog machine it is today. New posts came sporadically. I refreshed it several times per day, hoping for a new blog post. I scoured the previous posts, gleaning every bit of information I could. I pored over readers' comments and followed every link I could find. I was desperate for ideas. I made lengthy (and, frankly, embarrassing to read now) angst-filled comments of my own.

Fast forward to 2009, when Nan very generously asked me to join the team along with Steve, and later Anita. Around that time I also started my own blog Plannerisms.com, for even more of a planner outlet.

Over the years my Philofaxy participation has waxed and waned as my life got busy (with an international move), settled down a bit, then got busy again (with yet another move, work, kids, and life in general). My Filofax use has waxed and waned over the years too, from frantic multi-Filofax full-on usage, to none at all (gasp!). I've grown quite a collection of Filofax binders over the years. Some I've bought and sold on, most I've kept.

Currently I'm happy in my A5 Boston Filofax with my own printed pages. It has been quite a journey, both online and in the physical world, personally and Filofax-ually.

My favorite part has been all the people I've met online and in person who love Filofax as much as, or dare I say even more than, I do. We have a wonderful, world wide community. I even got to go to the Filofax headquarters which was a huge thrill for me!

Just for sentimentality's sake, here is a photo of my first Filofax, my personal Buckingham complete with battle scars from its hard life (it's not the years, it's the mileage) with my A5 Boston. Where I started, and where I am now. Full Filofax circle.