Guest Post - Filoflex - Alison

Thank you to Alison for sharing this guest post with us. 

I recently bought an A5 leather Filofax Flex in the gorgeous, blackcurrant lizard print. I loved all the pockets and the slim size but it just wasn't being used to its full potential. Then I saw the recent Philofaxy post by Steve  and the posts by Tim  and Holly and thought 'Aha! That's what it needs! Rings!!' Of course!

I toyed with the idea of attaching some rings to a Flex pen loop or something similar so that I didn't have to cut into my lovely Flex but then I decided to be brave and go for it! I found some 16mm personal sized rings on eBay. I think A5 rings would have been a bit too long and the ends would stick out. The 16mm rings fit very snugly within the binder and keep it looking nice and slim. The only problem with using personal sized rings for A5 paper is the metal tabs squash the edges of the paper slightly but it's fairly minor so I'm not planning on changing them...................................yet!

So here's how I did it! The rings came like this (see photo), with a plastic back strip.

The Flex cover has an inner and outer layer so I decided to slip the plastic strip in between the layers so that the fixings wouldn't show on the outside of the Flex. I measured up to make sure I got the rings dead centre (I didn't - they were slightly out!) then drew dots where the two fixing screws had to go.

Now for the scary bit! I took a deep breath and then made a horizontal cut about 1.5cm below where the top screw was to go and just big enough to slide the plastic strip in. I used a craft knife and was VERY careful not to go through both layers. I then used washi tape to attach the screw fixings to the strip so I could then slide it in without losing them! I slid the strip in and positioned it so that the bottom fixing was in line with the marking for the hole and, using the craft knife created a hole just big enough to push the fixing up through it. I did the same with the top one then covered up the cut I'd made with a small piece of tape. Then it was just a matter of screwing the rings onto the fixings.

I'm really chuffed with the end result and my new 'Filoflex' is getting much more use! I chopped up the Flex notebook and have punched and used the pages. I also used the front and back covers as flyleafs/page lifters with the addition of some washi tape to jazz them up a bit. Big thanks to Tim, Holly and Steve for your inspiration!!
Alison

The same 16mm A5 rings are also available on Amazon UK

Filofax Flex - Alternative ways of using the A5 size

An A5 Filofax if you need to carry it around can be quite heavy and bulky. There are a few models with just 20mm rings, but they tend to be in the more expensive price range.

The Filofax Flex now comes in leather as well as a synthetic material. I reviewed the leather one I bought earlier this year. I quite like using it, but as always I'm never comfortable with bound notebooks, I still prefer loose leaf pages... yes I'm a bit funny like that!

We have featured two people that have put ring mechanisms in to their Filofax Flex organisers. Tim managed to put in some 13mm rings from another organiser in to an A5 Filofax Flex. It was a two part guest post, which you will find here part 1 and part 2.  More recently Holly showed us how she had put in a two ring mechanism in to a flex to create her own organiser.

Well my solution doesn't use rings!! shocked and stunned...  So going back a couple of weeks. My dear wife Alison has recently produced a small book of articles that she has written for a local English magazine here in France about her novel writing and publishing. The booklet is about 60 pages of A5 or 30 A5 pages. Initially we booklet printed it on A4, but it became apparent that it was too thick to put a cover on and it did not look like a professionally produced book. So we put our heads together and came up with an alliterative solution.

We were both familiar with comb binders, but we didn't have a comb binding machine. I was surprised when I saw them for sale in our local supermarket at a reasonable price with all the other 'Back to School' stationery. So we bought one and whilst Alison was printing out the pages on some of my A5 paper, I sat their punching and binding the pages.

If you have never used a comb binder before, they are fairly easy to use. You just put in the sheets of paper and pull the handle and it punches a row of rectangular slotted holes along the edge of the paper. You then put the plastic comb on to the pegs and turn another lever and this opens up the comb and you drop the pages on to the comb,  turn the lever back again and the binding closes and you have a neatly bound book.


But one advantage of this system is that you can put the bound book back on to the machine, open the comb binding, slip off one or two pages to update them or replace them and close it back up again. So it is very similar to a ring binder in that sense... except you do need the machine to easily do that of course.

You can get comb-bindings in a variety of sizes from about 5mm diameter up to over 25mm diameter, and in a variety of colours too. You can buy them in boxes of 10 or 20 or just individually.

When I was sat there binding these books as usual got me thinking.... what if you made a planner with this sort of binding... ah ha... and used a Filofax Flex to contain the finished bound books. They would be fairly flexible, the plastic combs are reusable over quite a long time, so quite cheap to use. With the Flex of course you could carry two or three such books, may be a planner and another for notes and/or addresses even.

A5 size of course is common to all the inserts we have in our Diary Inserts page already. So I printed one off to show you how it might work.  I added a rear cover which is heavy paper (about 120 gsm) and the front could be the same or even clear OHP film punched.

I had a spare copy of a diary insert to hand so I thought I would try it out.

Now I realise that the expense of the comb binding machine might be a bit much, but you might be able to find an office services company around you that has one and will put your booklets together for you, or you might have access to one at work (like I did a few years ago!)

Felix the Filoflex - Guest Post - Holly

This 'Filoflex’ is inspired by Tim's creation of 2012 (Part 1 and Part 2  here). Mine is rather more 'cut once, measure after' and 'not really meant to be a wine glass coaster'. It is just as well I am not very precious with things. Prior to photos and explanation of the set up, a run down of how the Filoflex, affectionately known as ‘Felix' came to be;

After the post-Funfax wilderness years involving notebooks of all types and  'diaries' scribbled on the back of pay slips, I acquired a pocket Songbird, which suited my organising needs until Personal became more my thing. Then the rings got in the way and I took too many notes and people gave me too many bits of A4 paper to look after. It was all going a bit wrong for me planning-wise in a year (2012) that was already proving to be chaotic and emotionally draining.

Personal life aside, at the time, I was both training in retail management and trying to complete my Masters degree in conservation and restoration with part time self employed in same. I carried note books for both, but I would sometimes find myself dropping out of one 'life' and into another sometimes without warning - a shift needing covering here, a meeting in my capacity as branch and area representative or an impromptu trip to the library or laboratory there.

I bought a Flex on a whim in early 2013, imagining a Flex would allow me to use the paper size I wanted without the cumbersome A5 Filofax rings and bulk in my bag, but I soon missed having more places to stow away loose bits of paper securely and also my beloved Dodo Pad. I also didn’t have the cash to spend on an A5 Filofax to try for size. This is where Tim's post inspired me. A few ebay auctions and trips to shops followed, and much procrastination led to this:

Unlike Tim I didn’t have a decent binder mechanism to hand. I ordered an A5 15mm 2-ring binder from Snopake. I hacked it out from the plastic with brute force and the biggest pair of scissors I could find. I measured the holes, deciding to use haberdashery eyelets to secure it into the Flex.

I used Hemline eyelets, with a 7mm external diameter, 4mm internal. The provided punch was useless, so I just used a hammer to secure them to the binder - I didn’t really measure where to put the mechanism in the Flex, I just roughly lined it up to the centre.

Very quickly into using Felix, two issues became apparent. Firstly - I couldn’t bare the fact it didn’t close, my bag is messy enough without a half open Filofax getting on my nerves. I’ll get to the second later. To remedy the closing problem I tried threading a pen between two pen loops, as others have done, but it was no good owing to the sheer amount of stuff I cram in there.

Inspired by my old Domino, I simply looped two pieces of black elastic and threaded them through the holes created by the eyelets. As you can see - the result isn’t exactly neat, but later photos will show that with my inserts, the knots are not visible most of the time. Personally it doesn’t bother me, and they will be easy to replace if they get slack or start to fray (which you can see if already happening!)

Onto the inside of Felix - I use Moleskine cahiers as my notebooks, with my ‘Conservation’ notebook kept at the front and my retail notebook and Flex jotter pad at the back (no prizes for guessing where I work, the evidence is littered in this Filoflex!). As a side note, the front ‘card’ pockets store various cards, knick knacks and my passport. First in the binder section is my ‘dashboard’ of sticky notes.

My dividers and the secure top pocket are both Martha Stewart for Avery - I love the colours of the dividers, matching the sticky notes and tabs I use regularly.

In the above photos are where the second issue with Felix becomes apparent - standard A5 non-paper inserts such as dividers and pockets are too wide (you can see the clear pocket interferes with the line-up of the divider tabs) and the hole placements on everything are generally wrong.

I had to cut down and re-punch all the Martha Stewart dividers and I have to re-punch all my Dodo Pad pages and blank Filofax paper. At home I keep a single hole punch and approximate hole placement but for the go, I just use a pen or a scalpel! The Dodo Pad is a non-negotiable part of my organisation (even if this week currently looks quiet! It will soon change) and one of the main reasons I ended up creating my Filoflex, so I don’t mind the re-punching.

In front of the business card holder and secure pocket, I keep a section of blank paper for things that fit into neither of my ‘lives’ - random notes or information I need to give away. I use the coloured Paperchase ruled paper, which is again re-punched to fit. Behind the secure pocket of knick knacks like stamps, elastic bands and passport photos is where I keep loose bits of paper I need, or at least ones I can punch. Ones that need to be intact without holes are tucked into a pocket of the Flex, or the flap pocket in the back of the Moleskines.

My 'Filoflex' is by no means neat, tidy or probably even vaguely professional, but it works for me, and I smile whenever I look at it. I use it daily and it really meets my needs, combining the flexibility of a traditional binder system with the principles of the Flex without having to work around enormous rings or deal with a brick in my bag.

I’m happy to try and answer any questions any have regarding my set up - Holly

Thank you Holly, I'm sure a few more people might follow your example.

Filofax Leather A5 Flex note book cover.

I got a leather Slim Flex last year and sort of hankered after the A5 version for a while after that. I spotted some A5's in the sales in January, so I ordered one straight away. There was a slight delay in receiving it because I had to get it delivered to my son's office address in UK, but I wasn't disappointed when it finally arrived here in France

The leather is very similar to the Slim Flex, soft with a slight pebbled surface.

As you can see it has a different pocket arrangement to the Slim model, but is also has a side opening expanding pocket which can take an iPhone or similar smart phone. I've not really used the other card pockets in the A5 yet, but they would take quite a few business cards or even a Field Notes note book

I happen to have a Moleskine notebook which I've added to it. I use the Flex for when I go to my French classes once a week with a notebook for my French vocabulary and the other one for general notes it works well. Also all the hand outs are on A4 paper, folded in half they tuck in to one of the pockets easily and it is also nice and compact too.

The leather Flex is also available in other colours as well now, see the Filofax site for details. I noticed that there is now blue, red and orange as well as black

Chrissie recently bought the natural leather cover which also looks very nice. Take a look at her review here.

I'm really pleased with these two, very adaptable, and I've been discovering other notebooks that will fit them as well, so I don't have the expense of having to order from Filofax and paying the shipping each time.

I didn't think I would be able to adapt to using a notebook, but dedicating a book to a particular task does seem to work for me.

Filofax Flex - Slim in Leather - Review

It is some two and half years since Filofax launched their Filofax Flex range. I did the first review on a trip to UK. Back then I had only been sent the A5 and Pocket models to review. I was recently sent a Leather Slim model as a gift. But I thought it was worthy of reviewing as well.

The Flex range has been expanded since it's initial launch with a greater range of models they now include leather models like the one reviewed here. The basic design is the same. You can swap the inserts around as in the first versions, with inside and outside pockets.

So the leather has a slight 'pebbled' finish but it is very soft and supple. There are no stiffening in the covers, these get their form from the inserts or the pen loops which are mounted on a thin plastic card.

On the inside front cover has three card slots plus a larger gusseted lower pocket.

The Flex comes with a slim lined note book and a jot pad and a single pen loop.

The gusseted pocket will easily take a smart phone such as my iPhone shown in the picture.

I've added a Filofax iPad Stylus Duo pen which neatly fits in the pen loop and I can use it to jot notes down if I get a call, and the soft tip works perfectly as a stylus on the touch screen, especially someone like my self who doesn't have particularly elegant thin fingers!

By adding a second pen loop, one in the front the other in the back, you can put your pen through both loops and this holds the Flex closed, a simple solution if you want a form of closure.

Naturally the phone increases the bulk of the folder, but it is still slim enough to slip in your jacket pocket

The Flex Leather Slim model is currently in the sale at £24 a very good price I think. They do a similar model to the Slim in A5 size too. They would make great partners. Or use the Slim with your normal Filofax even.

Again thank you to Filofax for sending me this Filofax Leather Slim Flex for review.

Flex-ing some creative muscle! - Guest Post

I love Filofax. I really do. I only (re-)discovered them a few years ago and naturally developed a collection in a very short time – as you do. I love the leathers, the weight of the binder in my hands, the look of a paper stuffed gold mine of information. It just doesn’t seem to … well, love me back. I have read up on models, systems, sizes, printable templates (thank you, Philofaxy!). I have tried to make one Personal Filofax do everything (it doesn’t). I have had combinations of A5 notebook and Pocket diary (un-coordinated). I have had large rings (too stuffed, too heavy), small rings (too small), compacts (easy to carry, not enough room) and slimline (okay for bedside notes to be transferred, which most of the time they’re not). I really have tried. It’s not them, it’s me.

The problem is I want to use it for everything. Like so:

• Diary: I translate novels for a living and work from home, so I don’t go to meetings or need lots of space to jot down appointments and tasks. I don’t need more than Week per page to organise my personal and work life, interleaved with lined note paper for quick jots. Add a horizontal planner for work progress and deadline overview, and I’m sorted.
• Work: I’m obviously working on my PC and make notes on a separate document which can be edited, added to and shared while I work. In the Filofax work section I keep notepaper for jotting down ideas when I’m away from my desk, a Month to view planner with daily goals and a list of autocorrect codes. Not a lot there either.
• Travel: I travel a lot for business and for pleasure. Before I go I stuff my passport and printed travel documents into my Personal Malden and insert a card holder with relevant travel cards, job done. I could use any old folder or wallet really. But I would like to keep the planning notes and lists, info, research etc for my Camino trips in one place. Printing my own maps and itineraries would be great – not so great in a Personal, though.
• Info: Sometimes when I travel I have to (or like to) read up on things and make notes en route, to make sure I make the most of (and a good impression at) meetings, seminars and even social but still work related events. This means either formatting docs to print out in Personal size but not being able to scribble in margins, or taking A4 printouts that just don’t fit in and look really unprofessional if I fold them and stick them in. Or of course taking another file or folder, which defeats the all-in-one object.
• Projects: I’m struggling to find a system of organising my (copious) writing notes on paper so I can work offline and off-PC, typing on an Alphasmart Neo. I am Municipal Liaison for our local Nanowrimo group and we have all day Write-ins throughout the year, which really works for me. I prefer making notes on paper rather than on a laptop and normally carry notes for several projects, some first drafts, some in the planning or ideas stage, some needing editing and reworking. Ideas from conversations at Write-ins. Notes on characters, on plot, progress, goals. Ideally I want a combined notebook and a place to keep printouts. What I need is something that works with the way I work.

The perfect size is A5. Great writing space, easy to print your own stuff. Enough room to make notes in the margins or even on the left hand page, which I never write on anyway because of the rings. So far, so good. But as we all know, a well fed A5 is murder to carry around. I might as well bring the laptop.

So the perfect size must be Personal, then. Smaller, lighter, handbag friendly. But not as nice to write in, my hand knocks into the rings, so I tend to only write on the right; and even if I write on the notepad and then insert them into the rings later … well, it’s not always so easy to ‘just insert’ something if the binder is too stuffed – the leaves come loose, the dividers fall out, you have to rearrange it all outside the binder and then try to get everything back in; it is all too fragmented. And what about the stuff you have to take out to make room for something else? It would have to go into a storage binder – in which case I can promise you I will leave it there and forget it. I can also forget about printing my own pages. It just involves too much cutting and mess and is never really done.

But then surely the perfect set-up is double Filofaxage, right? A Personal or Pocket for my diary, work and planning stuff, to be taken out and about, and a nicely three-quarters full A5 with projects only. Oh, I know, and I really have tried, but then I make notes when out and about and forget to transfer them to the A5 and because the sheets are smaller they sort of disappear and need rewriting into the bigger size … No. The double Filo set-up doesn’t work for me either.

Also after a few years of rings I realise I miss having a diary which I can save in its entirety for the future, not just loose leaves which tend to get thrown away month by month to make room for more notes. I am starting to think about keeping diaries and notebooks in self-contained volumes – I miss the chronology and the scribbled out stuff, the doodles and notes in the margins.

So … what about the Flex? Plasticky, cheapo looking Flex with its boring grey notebook covers and rubbish cardboard pen holder. A5 size … but hardly bigger than a Personal. Slimmer … lighter! Infinitely flexible …

Let’s see what I can do with it: 

• Print my own notes, chapter lists, timelines and add, edit and change as the story changes! *like*
• Print a Philofaxy © diary instead of buying a big diary book, then just fold and insert.
• Fold my travel docs just once and they’ll fit in the outside pocket, easily accessible – and they have inside slots which are (presumably) passport sized.
• Scribble to-dos on to-do-list pad (even if it’s ridiculously expensive for what it is).
• Add a notebook – or add two, in fact add one for each project! Or one ruled and one unruly! And never mind the boring grey – use Moleskine Volants in bright and happy colours!
• Invest in (hello, stationary!) more stickies to mark pages and add notes as I go!
• Print out relevant meeting/seminar notes and read on the plane, scribbling to heart’s content in the margins!
• Take some of the notebooks out before elegantly laying it on the meeting table – it’s not as if the leaves are going to end up in a chaotic heap as soon as you open the rings, after all!
• Adjust the footprint (or rather, desk print) of the set-up depending on the situation and room available (think plane) – again without opening rings.
• Slide my Kindle into one of the slots when I want to work on translations during flights, waiting times etc.

So I ordered a first edition A5 Flex. I will be trying it for capture, storage and reference throughout February, when we are having a 30,000 word writing month, followed in March by two three-day work seminars. I will be reviewing it again afterwards to see how it compares to a ringed binder. Positive first impressions are:

• The black cheapo plastic cover actually doesn’t look – or feel – that cheap! I am pleasantly surprised. Will probably upgrade to leather if this works well.
• The vertical pocket on the left hand side does indeed fit a passport. Even printouts folded to A6, if you trim them ever so slightly. I assume the vertical ones in the leather updates also take the same size.
• I can write on both sides of the paper!
• The Flex notebook has very nice paper in it. I don’t use fountain pens, so don’t know how it stands up to ink.
• Moleskine large Volant books fit perfectly and leave room for a pen loop because they are 18mms narrower.

The supplied Flex notebook fits snugly into the back of the cover so you have to leave the pen in one of the outside slots.

• When I have two Volants in the inside slots – I like a small desk print – there is still room for a true A5 notebook to slot in behind them = 3 notebooks in one!
• I got a Moleskine diary as well to slot in – I know they will be available year by year and I want to keep them for the future, to track my long term goals, books translated etc.
• Wire bound A5 soft cover notebooks will also fit, as long as the spiral isn’t too wide.

• The size is perfect – smaller than an A5, slimmer than a Personal, as light or heavy as I make it. 

• You can buy an additional pen loop if you prefer to have two. Put them in the outside slots and thread the pen though both to keep the cover closed!
• The Slimline notebooks and diaries fit into the horizontal slot on the first edition A5s! A pocket size Moleskine Cahier also fits, or any A6 jot pad, I suppose. 

• I can – and will – colour code projects by notebook cover colour, and replace them when needed.
• You can make it look fun and colourful or businesslike just by choosing your notebooks.

Negatives and solutions:

• The card with the pen loop is great when you keep it in one of the outside slots, but I want my pen on the inside, in the gap conveniently left by the Volants. The loop points straight forward, so the pen ends up scrunched into the fold and makes the cover really tight, so I trimmed it by maybe just less than 1cm and it’s perfect! And it will still do the job in any outside slot.
• A4 folded printouts go all the way to the back of the cover too. Unfortunately you can’t put many sheets of folded A4 into any of the slots before they buckle and make the cover quite bulky. 

They would have to be trimmed down – or fastened to a notebook cover with paperclips, maybe? Or some lengths of thin elastic string wound around the middle of the cover, allowing me to slip the crease of the folded papers into the elastic, keeping them safely in place. I might even make it a permanent solution with a needle!

Bound books don’t fit. I have a big, thick but flexible notebook from Paperchase I thought would slide into the inside slots but it’s too thick. I’d have to trim both cover edges, which defeats the object of using a big, bound and beautiful notebook which I can remove and keep as is. But then again it would be very heavy, and that’s what I am trying to avoid. Unfortunately this means that Laurie’s Plannerisms planner wouldn’t fit either.

Er … well, it’s a Filofax product, so it would be rude to have just the one. I have decided to keep my Camino travel planning and notes, maps and itineraries in one, one writing project which is almost finished in another, and keep a third for my everyday all-in-one; diary, two notebooks and some printouts paperclipped into the relevant notebook. Rearranging content is so easy I can be ready for a seminar or a Write-in in a minute carrying only the essentials! And yes, I have treated myself to a leather one …

Possible improvements:

I do think these should be made with say three elastic strings vertically along the middle of the inside of the cover, to keep folded printouts in place. Or maybe even make a horizontal A4 pocket along the cover, like the notes section in a Pocket size ringed Filofax. Being able to store A4 papers without folding them would be great.

Speaking of outside pockets – I’d like one secretarial pocket on the outside too, for folded A4 papers, not quite as tight as the ones meant to hold the notebook covers.

Or how about selling a flexible card, like the one with the pen loop, with a set of 13mm Personal size rings on it, as an accessory? That would be the best of both worlds!

Oh, and please make some notebooks in more cheerful colours – even black would be an improvement!


Anyone else tempted to try it? I’d love to see more reviews of the Flex and how people use it!

Linda 

Thank you Linda for your Guest Post

How Flexible Is The Leather Flex?

Thank you to Helen Fennell for her review of the new Leather Flex cover. 

The Delightful Mr F has had a Flex to use at work pretty much since they first came out. He is not a user of a traditional Filofax, but really liked the Flex and it works really well for him. I had been wondering about one for work too. For me it is best to use a bound notebook rather than a binder for meeting notes etc, but I also have some loose lead bits and pieces I need to carry with me, which fall out if tucked inside a normal notebook.

Then I saw that City organiser had the A5 leather Flex covers in stock, and I thought it would be rude not to buy one!

I chose the blackcurrant leather cover. The cover is lovely, the colour is a very regal looking purple, and the leather is nice, and has that lovely leather smell. It is quite floppy, which I guess it needs to be for this purpose.

The layout inside is slightly different from the First Edition covers. The pockets on the left hand side are horizontal instead of vertical.

It still has the large slots on either side of the folder, and a small slot for a jotter pad.

One of the pockets on the left hand side expands so you can slip your iPhone, or in my case my Blackberry into it. It fits well, and I can see this being very useful around the office as I need to carry
my phone with me.

The folder comes with a pen loop, a jotter pad and a notebook. The pen loop is mounted on a piece of gray card, and I can’t help feeling that this is a bit of a disappointment compared to the lovely leather binder. Although I am not sure what other design solution there is. When the loop is slotted into the opening on the left hand side, it sticks put a long way and looks awful. However, when slotted into the outside pockets, it goes in much further and looks much better.

I had always thought that the Jotter pad looked a bit pointless, but now I have one I find myself using it for “things I must do today without fail” lists. I’ll see how it goes, but I may well adopt that permanently.

The notebooks I don’t like at all, and neither does The Delightful Mr F. They aren’t very good quality, especially compared to the Moleskines I normally use.  Mr F uses hardback Moleskines in his first edition version. They are a tight fit, but they do go in the slots. I tried to get a hardback Moleskine in my leather one, and again it will fit in the outside slots, but it is very tight and I would be worried about damaging the leather. Instead I am going to use Moleskine Volants which fit easily.

When everything is in place it is very thin and neat. I haven’t’ yet quite worked out my system, so when I have, hopefully Steve will let me share it with you.

On the whole I am very impressed with the cover. It feels nice to use and I think it will stand up to the wear and tear of the office. I’d love to see how other Flexers use their Flexes.

Thank you Helen for your detailed review, some interesting changes they have made.