Guest post series - 'Filohax' No.1 - Paul

A big thank you to Paul for this first instalment in his guest post series about his original late '80's / '90's usage and contrasting that with his new Filofax voyage now.

The road back to Winchester

I'm sure like many group members my Filofax journey started back in the late 1980's. I suppose I was ideally placed to be a Filofax customer in Thatcher's Britain in the mid late '80's - a wannabe Yuppie, fresh out of Art college, forging a career in Advertising and with folding bread in pocket!

I still remember walking out of the swanky department store feeling like a proper Designer having blown a decent wad of early salary on my first Filofax - the Winchester 4CLF 7/8 (although it took until joining this group (Filofax for Philofaxy Fans) recently to find out it had a name!).  

For anyone not familiar with the model, you can find more Winchester photos and details on the wonderful Filowiki. 

I even built my Advertising agency out of its address book in the '90's - look closely and you can see my Winchester underneath the yellow lamp! 

However after a decade of loyal service my Winchester journey took a turn for the worst - into a PDA cul-de-sac… 

Fast forwards 30 years and a change of career, and getting bogged down chained to the PC. Managements solution? "We'll get you an iPad". That was three months ago, the iPad hasn't even been ordered, and if it ever is would take a developer months and thousands of pounds to build apps specific to our needs… And that was when I had my epiphany - get the Filofax back out of retirement. 

The Winchester out of hibernation

Within a week the Winchester had replaced my crappy A4 desk diary and Excel project spreadsheets, and within a month my whole office was held safe within the leather covers of the Winch - save for e-mail and a web based job logging system on my work mobile phone. Within two months I've added a small 'personal' section and am getting creative again!

Getting to work via Winchester

Prior to the Winch I carried a small jotter for making on-the-go notes as I moved from location to location.

 

As you can see I used a multi tipped coloured pen to colour code my scribblings - and boy was it messy! Add to that the confusion caused whenever the most commonly used nib (black) ran out and it was next to useless - and stress inducing.

My 'Filohax'

The Filofax personal gave me much more real estate than the jotter ever did, but I gave myself the seemingly impossible task of containing all essential office based information within it. Therefore I had to totally change the way I had remembered using it 'back in the day' - when I used to keep a whole year's worth of day per page diary inserts, and my address book in it. This time though it was all about keeping track of multiple projects/ tasks / quotations and contractors - on the go, while having an up to date appointments schedule with me at all times. I quickly realised that space-wise this meant a week plus notes on two pages. Add to that the need to include my personal life on those two pages. My old muscle memory of trying to corral a whole day's appointments/ to-dos/notes on to one page per day nearly torpedoed the project early on, until I watched a few YouTubes on bullet journaling and in-boxing.

 

In-Box or - 'Now' tab

Bullet journaling was a revelation to me - the simple act of deciding on a series of icons to represent a range of different actions, turning lists of almost shorthand notes into meaningful actionable information, drastically reducing the space needed and allowing long lists of notes to be quickly scanned, categorised and actioned.

In-boxing wasn't a new concept to me having used email from the late 1990's, but using it in a Filofax was, and helped me break free from the space wasting and or limiting 'one page per day' routine. To help link date sensitive notes to the diary section - but without having to squeeze it onto a diary page - my stream of work notes are held in a tabbed section I call 'Now', right next to a tab called 'Week', which is next to 'Month' - all tabbed across the top edge of the Filofax. My 'Now' has become the jumping off point for all new information entering my day - so for instance an idea that occurs to me eating breakfast goes on to the next available line in the Now tab, and so on throughout the day. 

 Thank you, Paul, and we look forward to your next instalment!