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22 April 2016

Free For All Friday No 388 by Laurie

If you use monthly pages in your ring binder (in addition to your daily or weekly pages), do you prefer the monthly pages together in their own section, or embedded within the weeks/ days? I think the answer depends on what you started out with and what you are used to.

In my first ring binder, I used weekly pages with separate monthly pages. When I graduated to my first real Filofax, I started using Filofax inserts which print monthly and weekly pages back to back, which means the monthlies can't be spliced into the weeklies. This is fine with  me, because I use monthly pages to plan ahead, so it's more convenient for me to be able to easily flip month to month to see what's coming up.

Later I discovered Franklin Covey, which has its weekly and daily inserts designed to allow monthly pages to be embedded within the weekly or daily pages. This allows the month calendar to be at the start of the month, followed by that month's weekly or daily pages.

This doesn't work for me for a couple of reasons: 1) I don't like to flip through all those pages to see ahead to future months, and 2) I don't like the flow of my weekly pages disrupted by monthly pages. When I turn the week's page, I want to see the following week.

Recently I asked some FC-user friends why they like having the months embedded in the weeks. Most said that was just what they were used to, as long-term FC users. Josh summed it up well by saying the month allows for an easy overview of the upcoming month, and having the months embedded in the weeks presented all the pages in chronological order which works for his brain. This makes sense to me, even if I don't use them that way.

In the US, many bound-book planners have monthly pages embedded within the weeks, so apparently there are a lot of people who feel the same way Josh does.

Do you like your monthly pages embedded within the weeks/ days? Or do you prefer the month pages to be separate in their own section?

And as always on Fridays, feel free to discuss/ ask anything ring-binder related!

12 comments:

  1. I like the monthlies spread through the dailies/weeklies. One of my planners has the Philofaxy wo2p A5 wrapped in a monthly full size printout (month on one side, work schedule on the other). It's not exact because the first of the month doesn't always start on the right hand side, but it's close enough for easy access and for filing.

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  2. I have it sorted accordingly:
    first the year overview (which is my monthly overview, too)
    second the weeks
    third my d2p.
    Everything else would confuse me to no end. I need to find the months quickly for overview and reference and I do not want to search too long for the weeks I need.
    One could use tabs for that purpose but that would make everything a little bit crowded at the sides/tops

    Actually, I'm quite happy with my setup, didn't change anything for over a year now :-)

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  3. I have sort of a mix. Behind my calendar tab, I have the current month so it's right there for the whole month and clipped to that tab. Then all my daily pages for the month (bookmarked to current day). I keep the future months all together at the end of that section right in front of the next tab so they are easy to get to. They are fold out pages so easy to spot, and I have a bookmark where they begin.

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  4. Hi everybody! Could you please recommend a Filofax that has a fewer than 25 mm standard size rings and the cover that is not huge in terms of - of the space around the pages should not be big as in most filofaxes. So the cover itself should not be much bigger than A5 size of the paper. I want a really compact Filofax to carry around.

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    1. The only one I've found is the A5 Boston, which I did a review of here awhile back with lots of photos: http://philofaxy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/a5-boston-filofax.html

      The Boston is discontinued but you can still find them online sometimes.

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  5. And to answer the question from the post- I preferred monthlies and weeklies together because it seemed logical to me- you look at the whole month, than into details of this month. Now I prefer monthlies together in the front, but not back to back, with the free pages before and after the monthly (as in FC). It gives me the flexibility to put between monthlies the projects that I plan to do this particular month.
    And I do the same with my weeklies if it is my own printable planner-I have free pages before and after weeklies to put big projects in front of this particular week to do this week.I do it because there is not enough space on the weekly to put my projects on it.

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  7. Laurie- have you written a post about how you use your A5 Filofax? I'd like to read it since I want to move into an A5.

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    1. No, I haven't written about it, but it's basically the same as how I used my personal size, just upgraded to A5. I wrote about how I used my system here: http://www.plannerisms.com/2014/10/back-from-iceland-and-back-to-filofax.html

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  8. Last year I had a month calendar in my A5 binder. I do not use one in my Franklin pocket binder. In the pocket binder the pages of my week insert are between the month dividers. Too many sheets are not conducive to the small rings. My week insert provides a large space on all days. I trimmed file folders for a set of plain dividers. It was a chore but they resemble the Filofax personal ones.

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  9. Maybe it's just that I started by using FC binder and inserts....but I like the FC approach, just feels right....

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  10. I was always used to having the monthlies mixed in with the weeklies. It never bothered me that the weeks were split when the next monthly was the next page - that's how all my "planners" were growing up (the tiny spiral bound ones I used in junior high and high school). But the inserts I bought recently have the monthly and weekly separate, and I find that it doesn't bother me at all.

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