10 Years Not Out....

Today is 10 years since my very first post here on Philofaxy.

I still consider it to be quite an honour to have been invited to be part of the site. In the last ten years a lot has happened, both to me and to Philofaxy.

In the beginning...

Let us start at the beginning. I bought my first Filofax Winchester back in 1986. I used it more as a journal than a planner, although I didn't realise that back then. By the early 1990's I had stopped using my Filofax and had gone over to using a Casio Digital Diary, a Psion 5Mx succeeded that gadget a few years later, and a fancy HP iPaq followed in 2004.

Filofax rediscovered...

By 2005 though I started a new job where I wasn't allowed to use any 'personal electronic devices' in the office because of the security regulations. So no mobile phones, no PDA's etc. So I went back to using a Filofax, my trusty Winchester at first. An A5 Finsbury soon followed that because it was easier to create inserts for.

Discovering Philofaxy...

Almost by accident in about 2008 I discovered Philofaxy. I think I was looking for inserts or similar to download and print out. In the time I had not been using my Filofax, a lot had changed to the company, the range of inserts had reduced drastically and I still had some of the old inserts in my brief case unused, and I was looking for some similar replacements.

Naturally, I found the blog interesting reading and set myself a goal to read all of the posts and comments from the very start. I took me a few days to do that, but it was quite an education.

I had started to recreate inserts and design my own pages which I shared on another website and I shared links to the inserts in the comments on Philofaxy.

Joining the team....

I had been in contact with Nan with regards to something on Philofaxy. Then to my surprise in 2009 Nan emailed me and asked me if I would like to join her and be part of the team to improve and contribute to the blog. Of course I said yes!

Now, a confession! I don't consider myself to be a natural writer (ok you have noticed!). It took me two attempts to pass my English Language exam at school, I did the second exam at night classes when I started work back in 1975. Whilst my ability has improved over the years, it slightly terrified me to be writing on such a public web site as Philofaxy.

I actually sent Nan my first few posts asking her to check them before I published them. Nan said just publish them Steve, no need to send her them every time.... OK then here goes!!

Additionally I had no clue as to what to write about. I didn't really consider myself to be a Filofax expert or a planner expert of any sort! OK I've learnt a lot about every aspect in the last ten years and as I've learnt so I've shared it with you.

Laurie joined the team soon after me, Laurie was already running her own Plannerisms site and was a very experienced Filofax user. We got to meet for the first time in April 2010.

I was still working and still living in UK in my first year on Philofaxy, so initially posts were not that regular or planned in any way really.

The readership started to increase as we all started to post more content. We settled in to some routine posts that you still see to this day.

The move to France...

In late May/early June 2010 I finished working and moved to France. At first I didn't know what I was going to do each day, I was scared I wouldn't have enough to do to keep myself occupied... ha ha!! Philofaxy took care of that!!

We were soon up to one post per day, every day of the week. I'm not sure how we have managed to keep up that pace for so long. Some weeks even now I have more posts than there are days in the week and I have to shuffle them around a bit! Let's hope we can continue bringing new or reasonably new content to the blog in to the future.

As I found my feet I started to introduce new ideas Philofaxy, some of them were just spare of the moment ideas, others were things I had seen done on other non-planner sites which I adapted to suit Philofaxy.

At this point of this post I could continue to describe all the things we have introduced to the blog in great detail, but I think that would be too much like 'blowing my own trumpet'!!

Instead I would like to focus on now and the future.

I've never considered myself 'the expert', I've learned a lot in the last ten years, mainly the hard way! As a former engineer, I am naturally inquisitive about how things go together and how things are made, I am always asking the question why?

I also wouldn't consider myself an expert in planning/organisation, again I've learned from others and from reading books, I will admit that only in the last couple of years do I think I'm getting the full use from my organiser.

In a way I have shared things as I have discovered them on the blog. I hope to continue to do that in the future we well.

This year I celebrated my 60th birthday, will I still be writing on Philofaxy in 10 years time? I honestly don't know, but I am certainly not stopping... I still have quite a few things I want to do in our community.

I would like to thank you all for your continued help and support in the last 10 years, for all the messages, the guest posts, the discussions face to face, on Skype. It has been a very memorable time in my life that is for sure.

Here is to the future of Philofaxy.

Thank you.