Where have all the bloggers gone...... far far away?!

You might have noticed that blog posts from other sources are becoming a little scarce for inclusion in the weekly Saturday Web Finds posts. 

My system that I use to find the posts, monitors the RSS feed of each blog and it pops up the title of the post when there is a new post. It also highlights when a blog ceases to exist. 

Looking at a selection of blogs to boost the post last week I noticed that whilst a lot of the blogs are still live. Most of them didn't have any new posts for a number of years. 

It almost seems like a lot of them stopped posting after 2015, it was as if someone out a notice that declared the end of Filofax blog posts on the last day of 2015.... Clearly I didn't get that Office Memo!

I will obviously continue to gather together the posts each week. If we have a bit of a sparse week I will dip in to the archives of some of the now 'dormant' blogs.

[Update: Things are looking better this week. Plus I've had a couple of new sources sent to me to monitor, so we will have more than enough posts this week and in coming weeks.]

William Hannah - The Library

It is very rare these days to see a new blog being launched that will be of interest to the Philofaxy audience.

However, I'm pleased to share with you that David Round of William Hannah is bucking the trend with the launch this week of 'The Library'

He is hoping to create two posts per week, but he has started with a bang with the articles listed below.

We wish David well with 'The Library', I will be monitoring it for inclusion in Web Finds.

• Happiness is often a lot closer than we think...
• Don't give up on your goals just yet...
• GUEST POST : Steve Morton
• I want to change, but I don't know what....
• The contents of my Pencil Case....
• Book Review - Anything You Want by Derek Sivers
• The Tension of a Daily Routine...
• What do you get to do today....?
• How do you start your day ?
• The 50 Day Intention pack, and how to use it [Video]
• Don’t waste your time…
• Energy vs Experience
• Developing Perseverance, One Day at a Time….
• How (and why) I write a Daily Post.
• How to harness the power of why we do what we do [Video]
• Finding your purpose.
• Welcome to The Library [Video]

William Hannah are the makers of leather disc bound notebooks/planners, made in England using Italian leather. You will find past blog posts about them here on Philofaxy.

Blog-o-Fax

This is nothing new, people have set up Filofaxes for keeping notes about their blog before... but I thought I would tell you about mine...

So in the run up to Christmas I have been writing lots of posts to try and get over the Christmas period, so you still had stuff to read and, I could sit back and relax and enjoy Christmas with the family... I'm a bit selfish like that you know! Well I don't see my son that often other than on the other end of a Skype call, so to see him face to face is a bit rare these days, ok enough of the excuses Steve...

All the routine posts on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays are easy to do in advance, it's thinking through the ones on the other days of the week that needed thinking through a bit.

So I was going a bit stir crazy with dates and posts and trying to slot them all in. During a break to wander around the supermarket to get bread and the usual stuff I thought... Blog-o-Fax,  yes need one.

Now I could have just done this with a wall calendar and some marker pens... but where is the fun in that? I 'needed' something that would show me several weeks in advance but would still give me plenty of space to write in the boxes. So a month on one page may be...

Naturally I wanted to avoid buying anything new.. so I thought yes... my A4 Classic, it is sat in the cupboard just waiting to be used. A4 would be easy to print a calendar off for and also it would give me plenty of space to write in the boxes, nice and clear and I will be able to see at a glance where I needed to write posts for.  Yes I know the Classic is a bit of an overkill at £150... but I didn't pay that much for it when I bought it last year, and I have it sat in the cupboard.

So I popped on to the computer and put in the dates of FFAT, FFAF (Tuesdays and Fridays) and then worked out a suitable layout and size etc. Printed off the calendar in colour as well!

I took out some of the other pages in the A4 that I would no longer need, put them to one side and then concentrated on what I would need apart from a calendar. Some notepaper, and a couple of To Do list pages, can't do anything without a To Do list!

I've been using this for the last two or three weeks and it really has made a difference with my blog post planing.  I can now easily see where the gaps are in the schedule, what is coming up, what I can shuffle when more time important posts come along. So the schedule does change and get updated quite often in a week.

Once this next few weeks is out of the way, I might try transferring the idea in to my A5 desk Filofax, but it's been a useful exercise to try it out in a separate one first to see what I actually need over a few weeks before I make any changes to my main set up. 

Creative Filofax Dividers

Some of you have spotted this one already! But in case you haven't, take a look at this blog post:

http://theartisticstampercreativeteam.blogspot.com/2010/09/such-organisation-by-sarah-anderson.html

Knowing that quite a few of you are very creative... more so than I ever will be... I'm sure this might inspire you to come up with some interesting designs for your section dividers.

Why not share them with us on the Philofaxy Flickr Group.

Weekend Filofax Blogs

Start of another week folks, but take some time out if you can and have a read of some of these blog posts about Filofax Organisers.

As always it's great to see some great pictures and descriptions of other people's set ups.

Enjoy

• My Paper of Record - An interesting article about the dated information we retain;
• I love My Filofax - Don't we all!
• Organise in style with a Daily Planner - a brief review;
• Filofax Heaven - A brief look at the Neal Street Store;
• Working with Clients - Book extract;
• Filofax Planners ;
• My Fabulous Filofax  

And another one this morning!

• Leisa's Delights

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Blog Post Round-up

So here's some more posts from around the interweb that I've come across..

• Filofax Love - Charlotte tells us about here latest purchase... thanks for the link back to us..
• My Filofax Obsession - Sofia's Journal
• Filofax Rotation - Paper rush
• Things I love Thursday - Gala Darling - interesting quote about journalling 
• Our Favourite Things - NZ Girl

Hope you are all having a great weekend
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Blog Posts for a Thursday

I came across a few more today, all worth a read...

• My Planner - Susanne writes about her new Filofax;
• And the obsession continues - Susanne describes her set up;
• Getting Organised and the Filofax - another recent convert!
• Cupcake Couture - Rhinna - Nothing Filofax related yet, but their announcement on Twitter this afternoon '@sojeanbrodie has left the moleskin posse and joined the filofax massive. I think my life can't be any more organised now. Oohh hello filofax accessories'  which I thought was quite amusing so worth a mention here. 

That is about it for today, if you come across any posts we miss that you think are worth mentioning, or if you are a blogger about Filofax yourself, send us the details to philofaxy at gmail dot com


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Filofax blog posts that we think are worth a look...

We don't point out ever single blog post that we become aware of that mentions Filofax, there are just so many, and also so many that just mention it in passing as a comparison to some electronic device or gadget thing... of no interest to the majority of you I'm sure...

But today's search is an exception and it turned up several that are worth a read:

• Ebay Filofax
• Avon-o-Fax
• Filofax Collection
• Hi! My name is Sophie and I'm a Filofax addict - Cider with Sophie
• Technophobe 2.0—Resisting the Pings and the Pokes « Woman Around Town - Pen Mighty 
• Filofax! -  Off High Street
• Filofax Neal Street London  
• Unrealised Potential

Enjoy...

Some older blog posts

I'm not sure if these have been mentioned before or not. They didn't look that familiar to me, so may be they slipped under the radar!

Anyway, I'm sure you will enjoy reading them again, just incase there was something you have missed or forgotten about.

• http://craft-werk.blogspot.com/2010/02/post-it-insert-for-my-filofax.html
• http://www.allthebestblog.com/2010/02/return-of-filofax.html
• http://mrrdesign.blogspot.com/search?q=filofax
• http://kalldoro.livejournal.com/1162270.html
• http://www.johnsadowsky.com/?p=322 (mentions "Philofaxy”).
• http://theenglishmuse.blogspot.com/2009/02/whats-in-your-filofax.html

Thank you to Judith (Jotje) for sending these to us.

Filofax Blog Posts

More and more people are blogging about Filofax and how they are coming back to it, or reviewing their latest purchases. I pointed one out to your yesterday. But here are two more for you read with a cup of tea or coffee... go on relax..

• Karen - Filofax Resurrection
• Onigiri - Review of the Pocket Urban
• Hey Jewel - What you've got boy is hard to find
• Glamourous Grad Student - My fabulous Filofax
• Cheveux Fluorescents - Such Idolarty

Enjoy

Fashion?

So are Filofax organisers or 'planners' (generic) coming back in fashion?

Have we at Philofaxy inspired enough people to start using a Filofax for the first time or to get that once loved Filofax out of the bottom drawer again, load it with some pages and put it back in to regular use?

Well there seems to be more and more of us talking about 'planners' and of course included in that is Filofax. In the last few months a few new blogs have appeared dedicated to planners, all friends of Philofaxy of course. Take a look at the links in the left hand side bar, we have added those we know about.

Will 2010 be a year when we see more and more people using a Filofax on a regular basis?

I wonder if Filofax will bring out more niche products in 2010 like we saw with the Beauty Gift Box? May be something aimed at guys?

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Plannerisms blog

Hi everybody, shameless plug here. As much as I love Filofaxes, I'm also fascinated by other planners, notebooks and accessories (as anyone who has seen my Flickr photostream will know).

So in order to keep Philofaxy strictly (mostly) Filofax-related and yet still indulge my obsession for other types of planners, I have started another blog of my own, Plannerisms. My apologies to NHGrrl for copying the same template, it's the prettiest one!

I hope you like Plannerisms, if not as much as Philofaxy (of course!) then enough to check it out:

http://plannerisms.blogspot.com

Laurie

Your Blogs?

If you have your own blog or website, and you occasionally do a blog post about Filofax, tell us about it.

Post the address of your blog/website in the comments of this post. I'm sure others would love to read your blogs.

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Preaching to the Choir

I was watching some movie a couple days ago that contained a scene taking place during a Sunday sermon. It struck me that preachers are the spiritual forebears of bloggers. Every Sunday, a preacher gets up and pontificates to an audience on whatever topic the preacher desires, linked only by a general continuing theme (supplied by the pertinent religion). One week, it's "Our religion tells us this about loving our family." The next week, it's "Our religion tells us this about work." The preacher could get up and tell the flock what their religion tells them about fast food. Or sports teams. Or whatever the hell the preacher wants.

That's blogging.

The preacher has two huge advantages over schmuck bloggers like me. First, the preacher has an audience that believes it may be eternally damned if it doesn't listen to the damned sermon. No Sitemeter is necessary for these preachers; if attendance is low, they can sprinkle their sermons with a few choice words about fire and brimstone to guarantee standing-room-only next week. Schmuck bloggers have to rely on content. Yuck.

The second big advantage is that preachers are expected, generally, to come up with their content once per week. They get a whole fricking week to think about a pet peeve, and then just a half-hour to talk about it. Now that's a cush job.

Which brings me to me. Damn, I'm lazy. I am not even going to make excuses about being busy, blah blah blah. When a blogger posts an entry like that, it's the surest sign the blog is just beginning to amass a record-setting collection of dust. No, I have time.

I have no excuses. But, if you've made it this far along in my masturbatory rant, you deserve a hack. Filofax -- even in A5 garb -- is a small format. The calendar pages, in particular, require some compression of thought and expression. If, like me, you are a former user of a Device, then you may be accustomed to unlimited virtual storage in your calendar. Confined to paper, however, you can't make every appointment include every last datum about every last detail.

Or can you? I use cross-referencing. I have numbered every blank page in my "Notes" section. When I make a calendar entry that requires more data than allowed by calendar space, I put the rest of the data on a page in the Notes section. Then, in the calendar entry, I make a notation like "5" "5B" (page 5 or page 5, back). Whammo, blammo. Quick, painless access to storage space of unlimited expansion capability.

Strange Days

I have a long and proud history of quitting. Throughout my life, I have, at one time or another, considered almost every possible hobby my own. Let's review a few prime examples.

- Writing fiction. This one has come and gone through my life. When I was a little kid, I wrote short stories about military battles and techno-medieval fantasy worlds. As an adult, I've written short stories about people with ruined families and affective disorders. I've taken a few writing classes. Once, I even sent a story off to some literary magazines for their rejection. One corner of my mind is constantly grappling with the fantasy of devoting myself to writing -- maybe even getting an MFA. The other three corners, however, are more interested in TV.

- Painting and drawing. I have, again from early age, demonstrated some talent at the visual arts. Again, I've taken some classes. After classes ended, I resumed watching TV.

- Photography. Um, ditto. TV.

- Blogging. As most of you do not know, this is my second attempt at blogging. I used to be a contributor to one of the blogs to the left of your screen. (Shucks, no need to be coy. It was Banality Fair.) Then, I sort of lost motivation and quietly ducked out, feeling more shame than pride about my (lack of) contributions to the site.

So here I am, trying again, struggling against the eternal urge to watch TV.

The idea for this blog unexpectedly arose one lazy day. (There was nothing good on TV.) Without doing much thinking, I just started it. I mean, it was up and running less than two hours after the idea sprang up. In my risk-averse world, it was like jumping off a cliff. Holy crap. What am I doing? What if I quit again? I will have contributed another dormant husk to the growing pile of internet detritus.

Let me tell you, I am not someone to jump off a cliff. I would never, ever skydive. I wouldn't bungee jump. I've never even been skiing, in part because I grew up in a non-skiing Kansas family and in part because I am afraid I will break my leg. Starting a blog on short notice about something that has been in my life a short period of time -- my Filofax -- is damned crazy for me.

So far, I'd say the results are mixed. As my past suggests, my motivation -- both for blogging and actually using my Filofax -- comes and goes. Some days, I'm a pissing racehorse as to both. Other days, I just watch TV.

Right now, I'm sitting on my couch in front of the TV, but the TV is off. Strange days, these are.