When I'm off over the Christmas period, I always have my normal clean and clear out of my Filofax. As part of the process, I consider what has worked well and also about what changes I might want to make for the coming new year.
Something that I have been doing more of in 2025 is using ad hoc trackers for habits and projects, like the one below for my current 100 days of meditation. I use my Hobonichi stencil and find that it's the quickest and easiest way for me to create a tracker as and when I need one. I find that this can work well for projects, such as when I'm working through a backlog of something, and want to keep track of where I got to or how often I'm working on it. In those cases, I'll often just use the stencil to put tick boxes on a sticky note and have that on my dashboard or a divider for quick access. These trackers are working really well for me, so I will definitely be using them on a more regular basis during 2026.
Do you use trackers in your organiser and if so, how do you do this?
And as always on Fridays, please feel free to discuss anything organiser related. I hope that you have a great weekend.
I also use various pages to keep track of things like medication and lists to break down plans into easy steps. I'd never considered a stencil though, so thank you for the tip -
ReplyDeletea-shopping I shall go!
Where did you find the little stencil? I just switched back to my pocket planner and I could use something like this...
ReplyDeleteIt's a Hobonichi Stencil; the 'Basic', in this case. There are other stencils available.
DeleteAs someone who used Rotring Micronorm lettering stencils in my youth, the incorrect use of the '8' stencil amuses me; seen here, and in some vendor websites... The Rotring stencil had the two circles horizontally offset, with the intention to draw one, slide the stencil across, and draw the second circle, with the assumption the stencil would rest on the parallel action of a draughtsman's table. I'm sure the Hobonichi is intended to slide the stencil up to draw the lower circle, this forming a normal figure 8, with connected circles.
The '8' stencil has to be made with two circles, because a single, open 8 would not be easy to follow with a pen.
Where did you find the little stencil? I just swiched back to pocket and I wish I could find one of these...
ReplyDeleteI used to make a grid with one row for each habit and one column for each day that I would fill in with a coloured pen. Now that I am in a Hobonichi planner, I use their yearly overview to do the same, but with one column per habit and then the days are preprinted vertically and I am using a coloured brush pen, with one colour per month.
ReplyDeleteI like filling it in like that as it both looks nice and it nudges me to do (or not do for some habits) whatever it is so that I can fill in that box and not have a blank one.
I've been chatting over (Saturday) lunch with a London-based barrister who had never heard of Filofax but is very interested in the concept and how he could use it in his working life. Like myself he is generally tech-sceptic, and I've promised to show him one of my Personal binders next time we meet.
ReplyDeleteSo my question is, given the pretty poor quality of Chinese-manufactured binders, what binders would you recommend to a barrister who wants something at the top end of the range, and who would be willing and able to pay for it? Both vintage and new options considered, but (i think) new would be better.
Does "Personal" refer to the size, or "in your possession"? Size is important, also required ring size.
DeleteFor the top end, the question would be whether it should be something exclusive like Cordovan, Ostrich, Real-Croc, Alligator, Salmon or Sturgeon.
So what would be the starting point? Size, punch pattern, or leather type?
Hans
Personal is capitalised and therefore refers to the size. Ring size would be up to my friend, but for ease of recommendation for now I'd go with 23mm, or 7/8 in old money. My friend is fairly old school (like me) so leather, and in a professional-lookibg colour, black, brown or tan most likely.
DeleteThe top notch in non-exotic professional looking would be the Brelio Nagasawa Cordovan. 20mm rings and non-Filofax brand, though.
DeleteI recently searched for other brands and non-standard finish. The craziest find was a Mulberry Agenda Black Alligator. Unfortunately US only, but I think it would not pass customs anyways.
For regular leather Filofax, i would have to pass on to the philodaxy community. So starting point is Personal size with large rings, black/brown/tan leather. Anyone?
Hans
My recommendation would be in the case of a new purchase to avoid Filofax, the current quality of the leather is very variable and generally fairly poor.
DeleteAt the low end of the price range and at similar prices to most Filofax organisers my money would go on a Van der Spek Standard (Personal size) from their ready to ship 'Touch Me' range. Those come with good quality leather and Kruse rings.
You can request it in 30mm rings or 25 mm rings. Current ones have two pen loops as well as the full width back pocket. I think they represent very good value for money and will last a long time.
That's a good call.....I'll bear it in mind when I next see him. I suspect lunch in chambers may be involved 😀
DeleteWasn't there also a nice luxury British-made brand a while back? I can't remember the details......
Thanks Hans - but are these actually ringbound planners?
DeleteYes Smythson of Bond Street https://www.smythson.com/uk/ but looking at their site they no longer appear to sell ring bound organisers only bound ones.
DeleteSmythson would have been a great choice. If it's true that they have moved away from ringbound that's a great shame
DeleteAsprey used to make ring-bound organisers, too; not sure if the still do. I am still not over missing a lovely Pocket because of eBay's bidding function failing to work... I think there's a nice Personal still going; too rich for me, but maybe not for a London barrister. Or even a London barrista...
DeleteGood condition vintage might also have the gravitas a lawyer might appreciate. A nice Argyll, Buckingham or Gloucester perhaps? Or a Duplex... More recently, a Kensington?
Hi again Hans - now I can see that they are. Very nice choices!
ReplyDeleteYes, there is a huge variety of ringbinders.
DeleteThey can differ in hole spacing and paper size. This means when you are aiming at a certain paper size, there might be different hole spacings. But within a paper size and hole spacing selection, there can be different manufacturers. This leaves the option of changing the ring binder, while keeping the inserts the same.
Unfortunately, some manufacturers discontinued non-popular formats, which narrows down the selection, or leads you to the second hand market.
The mentioned Mulberry Agenda format, for example, is the only one that is designed for true ISO A6 format of 105x150mm. And Mulberry also had the M2 format, they unfortunately named "Mini".
Regarding Personal, this format is called "Bible" in Asia, espacially Japan. Nagasawa also has a special "Winchester Stone" edition, but the "Stone gray" is a matter of taste.
A German Manufacturer "Org-Verlag", formerly known as "Org-Rat", has ringbinders with metric spacing based on a 20mm grid. They also narrowed down their range, but they offer a larger variety of finishes including Salmon and Sturgeon for their "Junior" planners (similar to Pocket in Size).
Hans
As a funny coincidence, over at Reddit, the report of a happy buyer of a genuine Ostrich Filofax appeared.
Deletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/filofax/comments/1pfz1bu/i_finally_found_a_filofax_ostrich/
bethge.store from germany have a small but rather uncommon selection of planners. i managed to find and buy an old model whose quality is excellent but cannot provide any insights into the quality of those available now
DeleteThanks for the hint, I did not know that store.
DeleteGiven the prices of the true leather/hide planners, I suddenly got the idea of maybe trying to use fake skin vinyl adhesives on a cheap plastic planner.
The French manufacturer Venilia offers some really nice structured fake skin vinyls (e.g. beige Lizard), and also the Oracal-975 series has some nice structures (although some are discontinued now). I just don't know how the spine would look like after some time. But you could re-apply it several times from a 13 Euro 45cm x 1.5m roll in case of Venilia. The Oracal-975 are harder to find in end user quantities, but some shops offer sample sheets.
Hans
Gillio and Van Der Spek also make true A6 binders.
DeleteI found the printable diary files yesterday and spent some time going through them all - it’s such an amazing resources! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI am planning on printing one for my new, very slim A5 6-ring cover that I recently bought, although I’m not sure which one to choose yet. The rings are only 15 mm in diameter (I think). Maybe a monthly one, or daily one and keep it in a separate storage binder.
I also want to make an A5 booklet with monthlies to have in my work notebook (A4). But then I thought of also printing the monthly pages single-paged A4 and glue them into the notebook at the beginning of each month, leaving the opposite side empty for an index of sorts for quickly finding important entries from that month.
So many options! :D