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30 November 2019

Web Finds - Saturday 30 November 2019

I hope you have had a good week

So now it is time to enjoy a few blog posts from around the internet,  so grab a drink and make yourself comfortable for our weekly round-up.

Here are some Philofaxy posts you might have missed this week:
  1. Web Finds - Saturday 23 November 2019
  2. Silent Sunday
  3. Compact A5 Organisers
  4. Free For All Tuesday - No. 460
  5. Video Web Finds - Wednesday 27 November 2019
  6. Ikea items for planner people
  7. Free For All Friday - No 577 by Steve
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.
  1. A decade of Plannerisms!!! - Plannerisms
  2. Classic Croc: The Perfect Companion Home or Away - The Official Filofax Blog
  3. Time management Monday: Which thing should you do first? - Quo Vadis Blog
  4. Make Your Planner Work for You - Looking through a frosty window…
  5. Filofax spotted in the wild - This Bug's Life
  6. Bob’s GTD Story - Getting Things Done
  7. Do You Have A Daily Journaling Routine? #LoveYourLife - Typecast
  8. 4 Tips from a Compulsive List-Maker - Looking through a frosty window…
  9. Tips for an Organized Thanksgiving - FranklinPlanner Talk
  10. Solving the problem of organizing next action lists on paper - The Old Ways
  11. Customer review: medium Compagna Croco Eye Purple - Blog | Gillio
  • 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
  • Consider joining our Facebook group - Filofax for Philofaxy fans
Enjoy






29 November 2019

Free For All Friday - No 577 by Steve


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.

Have a great weekend.

28 November 2019

Ikea items for planner people

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!

And here is the list we came up with!

Raskog trolley


Grimar bamboo tablet holder


Vivalla bamboo veneer tablet stand


Brada laptop support


Isberget tablet stand


Knallbage bag organiser


Kuggis drawer/box insert


Knallbage accessory bag, set of 3


Samla insert for box


Forfina packing bag set of 6


Pleja desk organiser


Kvissle desk organiser


Malaren, box set of 7


Stationery


27 November 2019

Video Web Finds - Wednesday 27 November 2019

So I hope you have had a good weekend.

So now it is time to enjoy a great collection of videos from around the internet.

Here are a selection of the latest Filofax videos for your enjoyment.
  1. Pocket VDS planner used as my wallet - Christina Lovesplanning !!
  2. Moterm Pocket Rings Flip - AllThePrettyStories
  3. Gillio Firenze pastel planners - Stationery Love
  4. Planners To Use For 2020! (Customizable, Undated, Affordable) - Life With Holly Lifestyle
  5. Planner Set Up - Alondra Aguilera Puentes
  6. 2019 Planner Wrap up Gillio Black Epoca Medium Compagna and Mega Sneaker Weeks - Mod Plans
  7. Fitting Everything In One Book || Pocket Filofax || List In My Wallet || Monthly Sticker Pack - Life With MJB
  8. Filofax A5 Domino Dots - November 2019 - Setup / Flipthrough - Project Planner + DIY Canva Pages - Managing MomLife
  9. November Setup in Pocket Filofax - Planning_n_Journaling
  10. Thanksgiving Dinner Plan With Me - A5 Filofax Rings - Meal Plan - Plan Hers - Plan Hers
  11. November Planner Flipthrough | Filofax Malden Pocket - Ganchi_mH
  12. Filofax Saffiano Metallic Violet! - Rodesita S.
  13. Filofax Original Personal Planner Flip | Christmas 2019 - arlene rocha
  14. 【手帐】手帐灵感本安排(filofax A5活页) - Peachbaby桃子同学
  15. Keeping It Simple! | Current Planner Setup- Pocket Filofax Holborn | The Pixie Planner - The Pixie Planner
  16. Rainy Coffee Date | KW 46 im Filofax - dekoRIAt
  17. Filofax Wochendeko KW 46 - starflower_plans
  18. Filofax Deco - First Snow - Diamondis Creativ
  19. Planner Season Episode 4: Ring Bound Planners Explained | Day Designer, Notiq, Filofax - E.Michelle
  • For tips on how to improve your videos, please see this post.  Also this video too Webfinds 
  • Your Filofax/Organiser Videos could appear in this list, just contact philofaxy at gmail dot com to be added to our monitoring list. 
You might also be interested in Planner Spread Love on Facebook. 

Enjoy






26 November 2019

Free For All Tuesday - No. 460

So what questions or discussion points have you got for us today?

It doesn't matter if you are a beginner or a more experienced user of organisers, we want to hear your thoughts, questions, opinions etc.

We are here to answer your questions.

Make today the one day you post a comment or a question.

It is Tuesday after all so fire away with any questions and comments.

25 November 2019

Compact A5 Organisers

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.

Give it a try and see if it works for you.

24 November 2019

Silent Sunday

A5 bronze Domino Snake (discontinued)

23 November 2019

Web Finds - Saturday 23 November 2019

So I hope you have had a good week

So now it is time to enjoy a few blog posts from around the internet,  so grab a drink and make yourself comfortable for our weekly round-up.

Here are some Philofaxy posts you might have missed this week:
  1. Web Finds - Saturday 16 November 2019
  2. Silent Sunday
  3. What is in a name?
  4. Free For All Tuesday - No. 459
  5. Video Web Finds - Wednesday 20 November 2019
  6. Filofax Chester A5 Compact organiser - review
  7. Free for All Friday No. 576 by Nan
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.
  1. November 2019 Planner Setup - Dispatches From The Frat House
  2. Classic Croc: The Perfect Companion Home or Away - The Official Filofax Blog
  3. Not often my planner looks pretty! - This Bug's Life
  4. Time management Monday: How planning ahead can help you focus on the present - Quo Vadis Blog
  5. Project Management for Small Business Owners - Flow-e
  6. Introducing our NEW HerStory Planner - FranklinPlanner Talk
  7. Episode #55: David Allen on Removing System Drag - Getting Things Done
  8. The Day Kate Missed a Tea (Kate Spade planners) - vanilla folders
  9. Thoughts for Thursday – 21 Nov 2019 - Looking through a frosty window…
  10. DIY Page Markers for Planners & Journals with Silhouette America - Wendaful Planning
  11. Hyrum W. Smith – A Tribute To A Legend - FranklinPlanner Talk
  • 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
  • Consider joining our Facebook group - Filofax for Philofaxy fans
Enjoy






22 November 2019

Free for All Friday No. 576 by Nan

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!

21 November 2019

Filofax Chester A5 Compact organiser - review

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.

The Filofax Chester model name has been used before, but it looks nothing like this latest iteration.

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. 

See the Filofax Website for full details of the full Filofax Est 1921 Chester range

Again thank you to Filofax UK for providing the sample for review.