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.
We are approaching the last month of the year. Yesterday, I prepared the 'blog calendar' for 2020. It is a simple Month on One page diary insert, but with some extra information pre-printed on to it.
It looks like a complicated code, but in reality it is just the posts that you see on a regular basis each week.
Over the years I've found it much easier to visualise the dates on when to schedule posts if I view them in the format rather than just the date on the blog editor. It also helps with post numbering too!
What do you pre-plan for the year ahead?
As always on a Friday you are of course free to discuss anything related to ring bound organisers.
Someone on one of the Facebook groups asked for recommendations for a suitable stand for their Filofax organiser so it was raised off the desk or countertop surface.
A list of suitable stands started to appear, quite a lot of them from Ikea (pronounced Ekr in French!).
So Steve and I started to put together a list of other 'suitable' accessories for planner users from the big 'Blue and Yellow' Swedish shop!
People often say that they would like to try using an A5 organiser but it is too big and bulky for everyday use or to carry around. I think I have found a way of solving this problem. It is something I've been doing for the last 2-3 years. However, what works for me, might not work for you, but read on and see if it might work for you.
Choose a suitable organiser.
We reviewed the new Filofax Chester A5 Compact last week, if you haven't read the review be sure to check it out soon.
For some people the Chester A5 Compact will be out of reach for their pockets. It is indeed quite a high price for a Filofax A5, but there are other solutions that might work for you.
There is of course the Filofax Heritage A5 Compact, but even that might seem expensive for a Filofax A5, so can you do better.
My challenge was to come up with alternatives that are as practical, but considerably less costly than the Filofax Chester A5 Compact.
I looked through my own 'collection' first to get some ideas to show you. Not all of these will be available new, but you should be able to find most of them at reasonable prices on various auction sites or one of the Facebook sales groups.
First of all I looked at any with just 25mm rings and the simpler the internal layout the better.
Ones I came up with are Filofax Original, Filofax Chameleon, and the Filofax Holborn. All of these pass my 'iPad slot in my messenger bag' test. Yes they are fatter than the Chester or the Heritage, but they fit reasonably well.
A5 Original
A5 Holborn
A5 Chameleon
I also have my Van der Spek A5 Custom which has 25mm rings.
In the current Filofax range, you still have the Original, the Lockwood, Nappa and the new Classic Stitch Soft, which has just been added. All with 25mm rings mechanisms.
Looking at previous models the Filofax Luxe and the Filofax Adelphi also look suitable as they both have 20mm rings and therefore they should be fairly compact.
The Filofax Boston A5 also came with 20mm rings. Reviewed by Laurie.
Also worth considering it you really want to be a little bit different is the William Hannah disc-bound leather notebook/planners these have 20mm discs and are even more compact than the equivalent ring organiser.
Set-up.
Once you have decided on which A5 to use, be it one you are already using, but you want to make it more 'compact' or one you have bought in addition to an A5 you already own. The next step is to work out how to use the Compact one as a 'Satellite' organiser to your main one.
This is what I did a few years ago.
The first step it to remove the sections/pages from your current organiser. Lay them out on a table so you can see all the different categories/sections you are using.
For each section decide on how often you access or write in that section. The sections you access constantly on a daily basis should go to one side and the others that you might only access weekly or over longer periods of time should go in to the other side.
When I did this I found the diary section and a few of the notes pages were the only ones I used on a daily/regular basis. The rest much less often, but I still needed access to them.
I therefore moved all of the diary pages and a most of my notes pages in to my 'compact' A5 and left the other sections in my 'main' A5. The 'main' A5 was still on my desk should I need it, but closed most of the time.
The 'compact' A5 though could be open on my desk and when I go out I can easily slip it in to the back pocket of my messenger bag and I have all that I normally need to hand at any time.
If you leave some spare capacity in your 'compact' A5 you can easily exchange pages between the two A5 organisers as required, replacing used notes pages for instance. Transferring say a list or a map in to your compact A5 for travelling etc.
Keeping to the same size and without duplication I have found is the key to the success of splitting my system in this way. What organiser you use for the compact is not critical, there are plenty to choose from and you might already own one already.
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.
Do you use your Filofax for fitness? I often keep a food journal in a personal size Filofax, and record weight, bodyfat, steps, sleep, etc. on a week-per-2-pages diary.
Do you have any tips you'd like to share?
Of course, since it's Friday, all ring-bound planner discussion is welcome!
The Filofax Chester range has been recently released as part of the Established 1921 range to celebrate the upcoming 100th anniversary of Filofax personal organisers.
Chester is a former roman city situated on the River Dee in North West England. It is also close to where I spent my childhood years. I lived about 12 miles (18km) from Chester, so I've visited Chester many times. It still has a medieval wall surrounding the centre of the city, and a wonderful zoo on the outskirts of the city. Therefore, you can imagine this model name has quite a lot of personal connections for me.
I'm very grateful to Filofax UK for supplying this Filofax Chester A5 Compact in brown for me to review and share with you.
The Chester range was released initially in Japan by Filofax, but thankfully they have added it to their web stores in all countries as far as I can tell.
The organiser comes in a sturdy cardboard box.
The pattern on the interior of the box matches the pattern used back in 1921.
The leather has a very obvious printed pattern on it. The stitching is in a contrasting colour and it to a very high standard at 12 stitches per inch, that is equal to what I've previously measured on Gillio and Van der Spek organisers. A Filofax Malden is typically 7-8 stitches per inch.
On the inside front cover at the foot is the embossed labelling of the model number and size in the usual way.
Without any inserts and opened you can see the overall internal layout of the Filofax A5 compact. I think it is very practical and better than the Heritage A5 Compact.
There are two pen loops provided, but they are not elasticated pen loops, therefore you might have difficultly finding a suitable pen.
I found pens over 9mm in diameter would not easily fit in either pen loop.
On other A5 organisers Filofax often make the left hand pen loop larger in size to the right hand one. With the Chester A5 Compact they are both the same size.
Despite the restriction on size, I found my Pentel P207 mechanical pencil and a Borghini V5/RE roller ball pen fitted the loops perfectly.
In addition to the pen loops there are 10 credit/business card slots available and two full height slip pockets, one 10cm in depth the other approximately 13.5 cm deep. These will be amply in capacity to hold various items of paperwork you might need to carry with you.
On the reverse inside cover in addition to the clasp and pen loop there is a full height zip pocket (19cm opening) and a full height slip pocket again about 13.5 cm deep, with the zip pocket being fractionally deeper. The zip clasp when closed can be tucked behind the leather of the slip pocket, a neat solution.
The Chester Compact A5 does come with inserts, but it doesn't include a diary insert. On the transparent fly leaf there is a sticker which states: Want a Diary? Content excludes a diary, so you can buy the one you really want.
So in my case that will be one I print from the Philofaxy collection 😏
They have included a good selection of other inserts for you to use:
transparent flyleaf,
1921 collection front sheet,
1-6 number indices,
8 sheets of cream ruled paper,
8 sheets of cream dotted paper,
8 sheets of cream plain paper,
8 sheets of blue ruled notepaper,
8 sheets of green ruled notepaper,
8 sheets of pink ruled notepaper,
4 sheets of to do lists,
8 sheets of contacts,
brown ruler/ page marker,
top opening envelope
The rings are quite small at '15 mm' internal diameter, but from my experience of using the same size in the Heritage A5 Compact it is surprising what you can comfortably fit on to such small rings. I managed to get a full 12 months of Week per View diary inserts, plus all of the fill it came with, minus the 24 sheets of coloured paper.
The rings are quoted as being 15mm on the website I measured them at just under 16 mm.
They are the same PXR type rings as fitted to the Heritage A5 Compact. This means they are replaceable (if you can find a supplier), but they aren't easy to remove. However, the contrast to that is that they are very secure. I removed the top plate to check what type was fitted.
The size of the Filofax Chester A5 Compact is very similar to the Filofax Heritage A5 Compact that we reviewed back in 2016. It measures approximately 18 x 23.5 cm or 19cm x 23.5 cm if you allow for the clasp and pen loops.
In terms of weight, the Filofax Chester A5 Compact without any inserts weighs 286g/10 ounces.
The Filofax Heritage A5 Compact without any inserts, but including the leather fly leaf weighs 279g/9.84 ounces or 211g/7.44 ounces without the fly leaf.
The Filofax Chester is also available in regular Personal size with 23mm rings and Personal Slim size with 11 mm rings and no clasp. Additionally there is a full range of accessories and writing folios in A4 and A5.
So I hope you have had a good week
