Happy New Year! Welcome to the first Free For All Friday of 2025!
In the spirit of personal growth, here's a question for you:
What are some Filofax lessons you wish you had learned (or solidified) earlier?
Here are some of mine:
A5 Filofax binders with large rings are too big and heavy for me to carry everywhere. I've tried multiple times, and I just end up leaving it at home. (A5 binders with smaller rings changed my life.)
I don't need to have everything in one binder. I can have multiple binders for different uses.
Be consistent and have a method with archiving pages so it's easier to find things later.
What are some Filofax lessons you have learned that you wish you had learned earlier?
And as always on Fridays, feel free to discuss anything Filofax related.
Wishing you all the best in 2025!
Lesson 1: there is no optimum organiser size. Everything is a compromise. You can spend a small fortune trying all the different models and set-ups and (like me) end up going around in circles!
ReplyDeleteFor example: A5 is spacious, printer friendly and works great on a desk. However, even a Compact or Clipbook can quickly become heavy and cumbersome when out-and-about. Pocket is light and truly portable, but printing in this size is always problematic and the page size too small as your eyesight deteriorates with age! Personal works for many, but the narrow leaves are a pain for left-handers and (again) printing can be a faff. A6 ought to be perfect but is not widely available. I’ve yet to discover a slim A6 organiser. And then there are all the other myriad of sizes that manufacturers have launched (personal wide, Franklin Covey, Time Manager etc). Then you find a compromise that can work - such as Flex by Filofax or Filofax 140mm x 90mm Pocket Notebook - and the company quickly stops making it! Such is life!
"A6 ought to be perfect". That's what I thought. But the reality of a Mulberry Agenda is that it's really not much smaller than a Personal. So I am sticking with my PocketA (Pocket height, A-series aspect ratio).
DeleteThe other lesson I've learnt is that modern binders have unnecessairly thick covers, with all sorts of padding. I much prefer older binders, with simpler, more 'honest' construction, even to the very simple two layers of leather, sewn around the edges. So early 90's Windsor or Sherwood Pocket, etc, are my current favourites, as they fit my PocketA inserts, with very little unnecessary binder excess.
Kevin
Hi Kevin. Definitely agree with you about modern binders. My discovery-of-2024 has been the Winchester I randomly bought on eBay. While the inner layout is fairly primitive by modern day standards. It really does do the job it was designed to fo, of being a File of Facts. I think modern binders are designed to be multi-purpose and as a result are less good at all those things - the one possible exception for me being the Cavendish.
DeleteI think I'll be using the Winchester a lot in 2025.
Everything is possible it is only a matter of accepting the compromise. For example, A5 is the most practical for work use as it is easy to print inserts, plenty of aftermarket inserts and printables available, you can actually write in both sides of the pages without having to take it out and you can fit so much in it too, but you have to carry the weight with you. Compared to my work laptop, cables, rucksack, spare layers, bike lights/lock, etc it is not that significant but the bulk is more so.
ReplyDeletePersonal is too narrow, pocket is too small, mini is even more so, FC have nice inserts but the annoying people there chose not to do an A5 size. Same with some of the others. What exactly is personal wide useful for, doesn't it tie you in with thosee few suppliers and their inserts? And so on.
You will try several sizes and develop plenty of setups. You will switch to another system entirely and I mean not another ring binder brand but another system / product, before possibly coming back to FF and similar.
Change is good and healthy. So it is with your filofax setup. Review and improve regularly.
Do you really need to keep it? Archiving is oft talked about but when you are reviewing and renewing your setup but do you need to keep everything? If you run a diary section, how often do you go back and look up dates? Have you looked at all those dozens of years you have archived? Is there not a few years of potential need then they are just sitting there with no further use for them?
I know that I have put last year's A5 in a plastic folder on the shelf. I have not looked at any of the past stuff despite putting the last month's diary pages in it at the beginning of each new month thrroughout 2024. I reckon I might keep December 2024 in it and bin the rest. For me it has no use.
WIth the various Philofaxy inserts, how easy is it to modify them for your own purposes. How much messing around with making it fit do the creators have to do when they change things? SImple things like retitling sections on a planner is no issue but adding sections in word is a bit more messing about. Any tips or tricks? I must admit that at times reesizing to print has beeen problematic for me and I suspect there is something about the brother printer app and drivers messing things up.
ReplyDeleteI have not found anything that is quite right for my needs this year so I think I will start with something from here and see where I can take it. I am looking for something that works better for the way I work at my job. I have no colour printer so monochrome and I need appointments and I think I might makee a few other sections for my own needs. Perhaps looking at prioritisation columns and three priority tasks sections. No trackers or personal things like that. A bit like the A5 business two page per day insert from filofax but with changes. Just need to remember to keep a front page so I am not creating it with the pages on the wrong side when printed. I might look at making the front page into a personal info page and front page. Seems a waste to just create a title and year on the page personally. It would be so much better to have your personal details with what you want than what FF think you want. I don't think I want NI number, Health service info, insurance details and bank details in there that obvious like FF think you want with their inserts.
I think if I can sort this out it will open up the insert opportunities for me. I did think of a few things I thought would be helpful to me in my A5 FF.
I use the 'front page' to provide a year-on-one-page calendar (much like the Filofax diaries). This is followed by month (4 weeks) to one page, and then week-on-2-page diaries. Generated by my own scripts, that will take a page size parameter, and spit out correctly scaled (mostly...) pages.
DeleteI also created a script to reproduce the Philofaxy 'enhanced time manager' insert, again, autoscaling for any page size. This _could_ be modified to generate different 'task' pages, but it would need Steve & Ray's permission to use it, since it is recreating their design. This script actually generates an input file for another, generic table-generating script which actually spits out the insert for printing. I have used this table script to create various 'planning' inserts (Inbox, Event, Project); this might be used to create your desired other sections (though interleaving with diary inserts would need something like PDFSAM to interleave two files (diary & 'section')).
Kevin
OK, so here are my 2024 Filofax lessons. Mostly from the latter part of the year and all specific only to me - obviously!
ReplyDelete1. Give up on the idea of using fountain pens in the FF. Pentel Fineliners are perfect for the job, and I have several. The paper just isn't up to the standard and it's just too much faff to be continually trawling the internet for alternatives......
2. I need a week on two pages diary view. I have one for 2025 but it's not one I like. The search continues.
3. I don't need multiple diary formats - it just confuses my brain. Note to self - remember this whenever tempted, and stop continually trying to combine layouts into something I know won't work.
4. I don't need fancy internal layouts. A standard six part divider set works fine.
5. The Winchester is simply the Best Thing Ever. Not just for the simplicity of design but for the legacy this particular Winchester carries (I'll write a post about that soon). It will continue to be my go-to binder in 2025.
Astonishing! In points 1 to 4 you speak from my heart.
DeleteAfter years (40+)of on again/off again use of FF, I now happily use a personal size Heritage (no snap) with a week on two pages. I know myself well enough now to realize that I’m lazy and will not keep up with detailed inserts, print my own custom inserts or try to catalog my life in an organizer. In other words, I do not aspire to having a “Swiss Army Knife” organizer. The best that I can do is use it to schedule events and appointments, with a few reminders.
DeleteI have also found that the uniball vision pen with blue ink looks good on cream paper and that it fits perfectly with the Heritage pen loop.