Discovering Filofax - Szabolcs

Hello Philofaxy!

My name is Szabolcs, and I’m from Hungary. I’ve been learning English for quite a long time with varying success, but for translating this document I decided to rely on a language model instead.

I have been following your blog for quite some time, and I’d like to share my own story with you.

Back in the early 1990s, a remarkable man from “the great America” visited us. His name doesn’t matter here, but his presence certainly did.

He radiated an incredible elegance, and imagine this: he carried a black leather zippered organizer under his arm. He only stayed in Hungary for a few days, yet he honored our small community in Szekszárd by sharing his business experience with us.

When he put his organizer on the table and opened it, I was mesmerized by the colorful dividers he used to organize his tasks, projects, and contacts. At the time, I had no idea what it was, but I knew deep down that I wanted one for myself. Our little town has always had a rather limited selection in the shops. Back then I had to wait quite a long time until I finally found a ring binder in a stationery store—with a puffy plastic cover. Today I know it was “personal size,” but it was made especially for children, complete with class schedules, classmates’ lists, and teachers’ names. I still have those inserts untouched to this day—how I wish I had used them back then!

Since then, I’ve bought several ring organizers, but all of them ended up gathering dust on the shelves or in the attic, untouched. Then one day, something happened…

As an adult, I started my university studies. By that time, I already had five professions, but only a high school diploma. At the age of 41, I managed to get accepted into a technical university—it was time to take things a bit more seriously. On eBay (by then I was already working in the printing industry as a printer and graphic layout designer), I came across a fantastic organizer. Even second-hand, its price was half of my monthly salary. But I got it! And that was when the magic began.This is the organizer I still use today: a brown Filofax Personal Hampstead. Its genuine leather interior offers plenty of useful options, which I happily make use of.

Because I was studying engineering (and as you may notice from the first photo, I like to stick to old but reliable tools), I used to keep a small slide rule in the mesh pocket at the back. Older readers will remember this as the ancestor of modern calculators.

Since I worked in the graphics industry, I wanted to customize my organizer to make it as colorful and unique as possible—partly out of my love for printing. My knowledge of editing software allowed me to design completely accurate, custom-made inserts for myself. Please allow me to share some photos of what I used back then.

The colorful dividers were grouped into three sets.

The top row contained everyday essentials: my Agenda, the original TODAY ruler, and my Timetable, which was crucial for university lectures.

The side tabs were dedicated to my university studies: Bus Schedules (I commuted from another town), Books (mandatory and recommended readings in technical sciences), Tasks (homework and assignments), Students (contacts of my university groupmates), and Supplies (a checklist I ticked off before each trip—umbrella, sweater, etc.).

At the same time, I was also working as a temporary system administrator at a local vocational school (with the serious responsibility of configuring teachers’ computers, the network, and printers). For this role, I had dividers for: the Website server configuration (file and database access), Printer settings, Router configurations, all teachers’ PC setups (technical details, addresses, fixed IPs, MAC addresses…), and finally, Notes.

Over the years I created countless custom inserts depending on what I needed them for.

Fast-forward to today (2025): I’ve successfully completed three technical universities and earned three engineering degrees. However, during this time, my marriage and family life fell into crisis. Now my first step is to rebuild my relationship with my beloved wife and reconnect with my child. For this, we are receiving outside help, which requires an extremely strict time schedule. I joined the Husbands’ Club, where many men share their experiences of strengthening their marriages, while my wife joined the Wives’ Club. It’s a fantastic community with tasks, challenges, and study materials—all designed to help us improve our relationship.

My wife is a culinary instructor (cook, chef) at a school for students with disabilities. Since I (at the age of 51) still can’t cook, I also enrolled in a professional cooking course (after all, four hungry mouths wait for my wife to come home in the evenings). Meanwhile, my main job is in the field of cybersecurity.

Imagine this: I completely restructured my Filofax for these important aspects of life: Tasks, Challenges, Ideas, Study Materials, and Notes. At the same time, I’ve been struggling with health issues for quite a while, so I had to include daily health-tracking inserts as well: Blood Pressure, Blood Sugar, Doctors’ contacts, and Medical Appointments.Bit by bit, I am shaping my own structure so that my Filofax becomes a true companion in my daily life.

In our small town, I also managed to find an original A5 Zip Metropol, which I truly love. However, it’s far too big to take with me to work every day or to carry everywhere. Unfortunately, it had been sitting in the shop for too long, and its transparent ruler got damaged, so I’ll need to replace it with a black six-hole TODAY ruler. For some reason, these have disappeared from shops in Hungary. They are available on eBay, but the TODAY print has vanished from them… Sadly, I can no longer find the Hampstead organizer anywhere (not on eBay, not on Amazon). If it were available in A5 size, I would certainly invest in one. Unfortunately, the Metropol zip design makes it even bulkier than the traditional A5, which affects its portability.

My wife’s favorite color is purple (violet). When she became a teacher, I gave her a ring binder with Professor inserts. Since Filofax is not available in the shops of our small town, I surprised her at Christmas with a Saturnus binder. It came with inserts designed specifically for teachers, making it useful in her daily work. Unfortunately, I could only buy it in red—the one color she doesn’t particularly like. Recently, I found a Hungarian retailer that offered it in purple, with the option of adding her name. I ordered it for her, and she was absolutely radiant with joy. That meant I could “move into” the red binder myself, and now I use it to collect recipes—either ones my wife shows me, or those I’ll be learning at school in my late years.

I am very grateful for the Philofaxy blog and community, because I draw endless inspiration for organizing my life and designing my Filofax setup.

Please allow me to offer my help: if anyone needs custom inserts (or dividers), I would be happy to design them in professional print software during my free time. I can export them to PDF format, making them easy to print at home—I’d just need a simple sketch to get the dimensions of the tables right from the start.

Thank you for letting me share this noisy but precious companion of my life. I’ll be happy if my story could bring even a moment of joy to someone.

I remain your follower, and I sincerely respect the work you do:

Szabolcs Szabó
Szekszárd, Hungary

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Thank you Szabolcs for your detailed post about how you discovered and how you are using your Filofax.