If you have a guest post idea, please contact steve at philofaxy dot com or if there is a topic you would like to see us cover or revisit also please contact Steve.
I hope you find this post useful, please let us know in the comments and we will do our best to do a highlights post each month.
So here are the latest Filofax and other brand blog posts from around the Internet. Don't forget to leave a comment on the posts you enjoyed reading, all bloggers enjoy getting comments.
We monitor over 400 blogs and sites, your Filofax/Organiser blog posts could appear in this list, just contact philofaxy at gmail dot com to be added to our monitoring list.
We can not guarantee people will read your posts, but we know there is a higher chance of people reading your posts and returning to read other posts if you make them interesting with pictures and good hints and tips. Do not forget to give your posts a title...
Your Filofax/Organiser posts could appear in this list, just contact philofaxy at gmail dot com to be added to our monitoring list.
For some general tips on Filofax Blogging, please see this post
And have you tried reading one of my Flipboard magazines yet? It works great on a tablet or smart phone, but you can view them on a desktop machine as well. Be sure to Follow the ones you like and you will get notifications when I update them.
How do you handle daily routines—the things that you want to track everyday, like morning and evening routines, exercise, water drinking, and daily chores?
- You don't record them in your Filofax—these things are habits
- You print your own diary pages with the routines built in
- You use a custom rubber stamp to place your daily checklist on each day's page
- You create separate tracking pages by the day, week, or month
Of course, since it's Friday, all discussion of ring-bound organizers is welcome!
The Filofax Clipbook is a bit of a 'Marmite' product, you either love it or you hate it! It is quite a novel design though and you can fold the cover back on itself to minimise the amount of desk space used when writing in it. It is now available in more sizes as well.
At first it looks quite a plain design with covers in a few plain colours, but that has its advantages as you will see.
If you are a bit of a creative person... and I'm not! Then the Clipbook is brilliant for doing lots of simple and effective creative things with.
Take a look at the videos recently released by Filofax to see what I mean.
Filofax are approaching their centenary year in 2021, having been established in 1921. Naturally they aren't going to let this milestone pass without bringing out some new products to celebrate 100 years of the personal organiser.
We were given some hints of what we might expect to see at PlannerCon Europe in October 2017 and some more details at PlannerCon Europe in May 2019 and they have at long last appeared on their websites.
The 'fILOFAX EST 1921' range consists with two models at present, with a full range of products expected to launch in the coming weeks/months with organisers, as well as folios and a range of leather accessories.
The Chester model has been on sale in Japan for nearly two years, as part of the upcoming centenary it is being introduced to other worldwide Filofax markets.
It will be available in A5 Compact, Personal and Personal Slim organisers sizes. It is made Italian Calf Leather, in Black, Brown and Red.
Filofax have been paying attention to what the competition is offering us and the Chester has two pen loops, in the personal and A5 compact sizes, so that gets my nod of approval!
The A5 compact comes with 15mm rings, personal with 23mm rings and the personal slim with 11mm rings.
At first sight the prices might look expensive, but they are similar to what people pay for a Gillio Compagna or Van der Spek Custom organiser.
The other model to emerge in the 'fILOFAX EST 1921' range is the Classic Stitch Soft model range. Again in a variety of organisers and other products and leather accessories.
The organisers are in A5, Personal and Pocket sizes in 25mm, 23mm and 19mm ring sizes.
This model comes in Black, Grey and Peach with a chunky looking clasp too.
All sizes have the full width back pocket, useful for storing loose papers.
Again the internal designs are new and up to date in terms of what people want from an organiser these days.
Please see the Filofax website for full details and availability of these new products.
This week we will see how Andrew uses his organisers.
My name is Andrew Coleman. I'm in my late 50s and live in Brighton, England. I work as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton and as a (town) planning and environmental consultant.
I'm also a Regional Rep for the environmental charity Surfers Against Sewage.
1. When did you start using an organiser?
I bought my first own-brand organiser from WH Smith in the late1980s when Filofax underwent a yuppie revival - and had the p*** taken out of me remorselessly by my colleagues in the public sector!
That one was replaced in the 1990s by a black Personal Buckingham. However, I was aware of them as we had some earlier ones at home - my grandfather had one during the First World War, according to my mother.
2. How has your use of an organiser changed over the years?
It has waxed and waned although increased over the last 10 years as my work and personal life has become more complicated with a 'portfolio' career, a spouse who works internationally and a daughter who has her own developing social life.
I struggle to maintain synced digital calendars on various work software packages and my Filofax is the place I sync them.
3. Which diary format works best for you and why?
I use 2 weeks to view as I find they get too heavy otherwise.
4. What other information do you keep and maintain in your organiser.
I have contact details and info I need to refer to frequently about work and my other interests (including a Fulham FC fixture list).
5. Do you use a 'system' of organisation, and how does it work in your Filofax?
I have a ruler/place-marker and a single sheet 'to do' list that I move forward through the diary and update every fortnight.
I aspire to using different coloured ink pens or highlighters to categorise the diary entries and to do items but haven't found a way of doing it easily (the multi-coloured Bic biros are too big for the pen loops). Other info is in the back.
6. What routines and structures do you use?
See above
7. Do you use one binder or several, and if several, how do you use them?
I'm now also using a slimline leather personal (which looked like it was supposed to be clipped into a bigger one) for holidays and a 'vintage' Microfile as a library for the diary I keep of holiday trips.
I'm toying with the idea of having a bespoke cover made by a local leather workshop which should last the rest of my life and be nice to hand on.
In the meantime, I've bought a secondhand Hamilton as I fancy a brown organiser.
Thank you Andrew. If you would like to take part in this series please email steve@philofaxy.com and mark your email 'Experienced Filofax User'
So here are the latest Filofax and other brand blog posts from around the Internet. Don't forget to leave a comment on the posts you enjoyed reading, all bloggers enjoy getting comments.
We monitor over 400 blogs and sites, your Filofax/Organiser blog posts could appear in this list, just contact philofaxy at gmail dot com to be added to our monitoring list.
We can not guarantee people will read your posts, but we know there is a higher chance of people reading your posts and returning to read other posts if you make them interesting with pictures and good hints and tips. Do not forget to give your posts a title...
Your Filofax/Organiser posts could appear in this list, just contact philofaxy at gmail dot com to be added to our monitoring list.
For some general tips on Filofax Blogging, please see this post
And have you tried reading one of my Flipboard magazines yet? It works great on a tablet or smart phone, but you can view them on a desktop machine as well. Be sure to Follow the ones you like and you will get notifications when I update them.
Over the years I've gone back and forth with my journaling. For several years I used a page-per-day diary as my journal. Later I switched to regular notebooks, and did a type of bullet-journaling with day to day stuff and lists along with notes and journaling. I found that to be a good catch-all. But then it degenerated into just my to-do lists, so I decided to do normal journaling in a designated notebook. I liked that because I could write just what I wanted to remember and details I wanted to capture. Then after awhile that started to feel like homework so I quit.
Last year I used my Filofax as my daily planner, and incorporated journaling into it. I really liked that at the time; if I had an eventful day, or went on a trip or vacation, I wrote about it on blank pages then hole-punched them to go into my Filofax within the weekly planner pages, so I had everything all together. Then when I archived my pages, I had everything from that year in the archive binder: plans, records, and journaling. I also liked that I was able to put in other things too. For example we visited the Tower of London and I put the map in a zip pouch on the rings among the journal pages for that trip.
I enjoyed journaling this way while I was using my Filofax as my planner. But this year I'm using a different planner because I needed a page size larger than A5. As a result, journaling in my Filofax doesn't feel the same. And now I have a new notebook I really want to use, so I think I will go back to journaling in a bound notebook.
After writing my previous post, my custom standard Van der Spek arrived more quickly than expected and I am SO delighted with it! Petra kindly sent me some photos to include in this post.
The outside has a wonderfully pebbly texture in the red Janet Leather and I love the contrast with the smoother burgundy inside. It's funny how much I like the burgundy as I really wasn't sure at first when I received my leather samples.
Janet Leather red (108) with light grey ostrich stitching
Janet Leather burgundy, light grey ostrich stitching, 25mm silver rings, extra pen loop, big back pocket, no stiffener
Once I'd completed my order, I did consider asking if I could instead have matching stitching inside and out, instead of the contrasting light grey. I wasn't sure if it would work, but I am so glad that I didn't change as I am a little obsessed with it! Maybe that's a little strange, but the stitching is beautiful and the contrast works well with both colours in my opinion.
Before I got to the checkout, I had a good think about buying a zipper compartment, but I only really need a zipped pocket when I use my binder as my wallet, which isn't very often. Aha, I then remembered that I still have my trusty plastic pencil case that I hole punched (7 years old and still going strong).
The only thing that I didn't think about was that the thicker Janet Leather with the big back pocket means that it didn't initially lie flat, which was a surprise. However, in the short amount of time that I've been using it (since 15th August), it has already started to improve and squashing it down a little helps too.
I just removed the contents from my Ascot and plonked them straight in.
I haven't started to properly use the pockets yet, but this one at the back is perfect for holding my Hobonichi stencil.
I've never owned a personal sized binder with a big back pocket, but I really think that they should all have one as it's so handy for storing A4 paperwork.
Another consideration for when I was ordering was whether or not I wanted to move up to 30mm rings. In the end, I decided against it as I wasn't sure how heavy it would make the binder, and if I really need all that extra capacity. I'm glad that I went for 25mm as my binder holds a surprising amount more than my Ascot.
You can see here the difference in ring sizes:
25mm in standard size VdS
23mm in the Ascot
To check the difference in capacity between the two, I filled the Ascot up with paper and then moved this into the VdS. You can definitely see that there is room for quite a bit more in the VdS.
Another comparison that I did was to completely fill both, remove the contents and measure how high the inserts were: - the Ascot had 14mm vs. 27mm in the VdS!
The VdS is slightly larger and wider than the Ascot, but I'm very happy as between the larger ring size and big back pocket, it consequently holds so much more.
View from the top of VdS
View from bottom of the VdS (profile quite slim without the big back pocket)
As my overall plan was to get back again to owning one binder, I have now sold the Ascot and it's currently on its way to a wonderful new home in the US. Ironically, my work colleague then gave me back a mini Kensington that I gifted to her many years ago, so for a short while I was then back up to three binders. Whilst the mini Kensington is lovely, it is also on its way to a new home in the US.
I've never named any of my Filofaxes before, but as this binder is such a special one, I started to think about what I would call her. How to choose? Some of the names that I considered were Binky (Death's horse from Terry Pratchett's Discworld books), Valentina (Tereshkova, first woman in space) or Yuri (Gagarin, first person in space). However, none of them really stuck. And then a perfect name came to me whilst writing this post... My VdS is a real TARDIS as for its size, it's much bigger on the inside, like Doctor Who's time machine. I'm a bit of a Doctor Who fan, so I then remembered an episode that I loved called the Doctor's Wife (written by Neil Gaiman), where the TARDIS is placed in a human body and the woman's name is Idris. I also like the actor, Idris Elba, so we have a winner!
Finally, I'd like to say a huge thank you again to my friend that helped me raise the funds to buy Idris, and to everyone at Van der Spek for making me such a wonderful organiser.
Further Information.
