Reader Under The Spotlight - Leila

Today I would like to introduce you to Leila.

Hello, my name is Leila. Although I have always used a paper agenda ever since in primary school, I am new to the Filofax world. After reading so much on this great blog, I thought I could contribute as well. :)

1. When did you buy your first organiser and what was it?

I bought my first Filofax last year as a way of coping with the different tasks and schedules I had to juggle between study, work and taking care of my children. It is my only Filofax so far and it is the lovely personal-sized Filofax Saffiano in Aquamarine.

2. Out of the organisers you own which is your current favourite (Style and Size)?

As I have just one Filofax I only have a tentative wish for a possible future organiser: An elegant A5 Filofax for client meetings, eg. the A5 Compact Heritage in brown or an A5 Lookwood.

3. How many Filofax or other brands of organisers do you own?

See above, just one (at the moment).

4. What do you use your organisers for?

In these sleep-deprived times (My kids are young and bad sleepers) my Filofax is basically my external brain. I use it for scheduling and maintaining tasks lists as well as for keeping important information that I might need on the go.

5. How many sections do you have in your organiser and what is each section used for?

I have 5 main sections:

• Calendar
• Study
• Family
• Personal
• Work

The way I set up my Filofax comes from the fact that I easily get overwhelmed with my countless tasks and I tend to focus on the tasks that are the most urgent and that are related to my children or study – the two areas in my life that require the most urgent attention. As a consequence, I neglect the other two areas in my life that are not as urgent: personal projects and work projects. (On a sidenote: But wait, work is not urgent? You might ask. The thing is that I am freelance translator but I can only work on my business when I am not taking care of my children or study for my Master degree. You might see the problem now: As long as I prioritize the urgent areas of my life – children and study – I do not allocate time for my business.) To fight this problem I have consciously given the same amount of space in my Filofax to each area of my life.

Each section is then subdivided into three subsections: Jetzt, Bald and Information (Now, Soon and Information, for the non-German speakers). Each Soon subsection holds my projects for the particular life area. I then choose the project I want to work on and move it to the Now subsection. This way I do not get overwhelmed with the amount of work to be done because the projects I am not working on are hidden away. The Information subsection simply holds the most essential information I might need on the go or refer to often – telephone numbers, addresses, packing lists and birthday dates, yearly recurring tasks etc. (depending on the life area).

The Calendar section has the Filofax inserts W2P and a yearly overview. This section holds my schedule and the tasks of each of the current project of each life area. The Calendar section combines therefore the four life areas and ensure that I do not allocate to many tasks in a week. In the future, I might color-code the tasks in the calendar in accordance with the page color of the other sections but so far I have not needed it.

6. If you could design your own Filofax what would it feature?

I have a hard time coming up with a good idea. I'll think about it and will post it in a comment on Philofaxy. :)

7. What's your favourite Filofax tip or hack?

Not to change the system too often and give it time to see if it works before changing it. (I think this tip was from a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Plannerverse episode.)

8. Have you ever attended a Philofaxy meet-up? if not do you intend to one day?

I do not have attended a meet-up so far. I don't think I'll attend one in the future. However, I might join a Skype chat at some point. :)

9. What was the last movie you watched?

Ex Machina

10. What was the last book you read?

Abbadon's Gate by James S. A. Corey

Thank you Leila.

As you know we are always looking for new people to appear in our 'Reader Under Spotlight feature, you don't have to be 'well known' or a long term user to be considered to appear in this 'spot'.So please contact Steve philofaxy at gmail dot com today.

Thank you.