What else is in your organiser?

Your diary insert is most probably the most important component of your organiser, or the most frequently  viewed pages and pages you up date the most often. 

What else do you keep in your organiser? Here is a list of 'stuff' currently lurking in my own organiser. 

• Maps - I have always loved maps from a young age. I have them for France, London and transport ones too. 
• To Do Lists - Some long term things, my daily to-do tasks live on my planner pages. 
• Notes pages, these include my travel packing lists, I also keep a few sheets of blank lined paper here too.  
• Reference pages - These are fairly random in terms of the contents, but they contain pages that I've created or printed from various sources of miscellaneous information that I need to easily find without a computer being available. It is where my maps live as well. I also keep a copy of my Popular Paper Sizes chart in here too. 

What else do you carry? What accessories do you include? 

Time to reorganise the contents of your organiser?

Is it time to reorganise your Filofax?

Give yourself an hour or so to sit down at your desk or table.

Remove all the pages from your personal organiser. Separate the pages in to the different sections you already have.

Now go through each section and decide on the contents as follows:

• Keep: Pages you continue to need every day that are not available elsewhere; 
• Archive: Pages that can now be archived; 
• Transfer: Pages that contain information you want to say transfer to your home organiser and that you do not need to carry with you all the time. 
• Update: Pages that you need to update, refresh. 

In my case I was able to archive the first 6 months of the year diary pages. I discovered I had two year planners! I also transferred out my UK maps which I don't need here in France. I'm also considering dropping the need to carry a full set of names and addresses with me all the time, I would prefer to have that information at home and may be a smaller number of pages with just names and phone numbers on them.

The end result is that I've slimmed down the number of pages sufficiently to be able to try out using a Compact size organiser.

I also think that having less pages will be more effective in the long term. Having more relevant information to hand will definitely mean that 'less is more' and I will spend less time looking for a particular page with information on it!

I realise over time the number of pages will gradually increase again, but at least with this system of maintenance I will be able to rationalise things easier in future.

How many months or weeks of diary inserts do you carry at any one time?

I wrote this post back in July 2014, it is still relevant today, it has had a few minor edits to tidy it up a little. 

Organiser Sections

What sections/dividers do you use?

I based my divider sections on an old article by David Allen of GTD fame. The free article is no longer available on his website, it has been replaced with a paid for article, which goes in to more detail than the previous one.

You can find the current 'Setup Guide' here.

I have been using the following sections for nearly 10 years

• Notes In - This is a simple section with a few pages of lined paper for immediate notes to capture things on the move. 


• Planner - This is my Enhanced TM Week per View for all my future and daily planning requirements. 


• Blog Planner - I use a Month on One Page adapted to the routine schedule of the blog posts.  


• To-Do - I use these sheets for long term goals, so I have a 'House' sheet, 'Personal' sheet etc, on those I just list the headings and some details of things I hope to get done in the coming year. 


• Notes - Stuff I jot down for projects, Philofaxy posts, random websites to record them somewhere before I file them some where more appropriate. 


• Information - This is where I store my maps and reference information. 


• Address A-Z- All of my contact sheets printed off from a Word document that I merge from my Apple Contacts application. 

I tend not to carry lots of spare sheets if I can help it. Overall this keeps the weight and bulk of the organiser within sensible constraints. 

When I go on my 'travels' I break out the first three sections in a compact A5 along with any specific pages from the Notes and Information sections. 

I treated myself to a new set of dividers, the old ones were looking a little 'tired' after many years of service!

What sections/dividers do you use?

Tabs/Sections

What Tabs or Sections you divide your Filofax or organiser up in to are frequent questions I see on Philofaxy and elsewhere.

Some time ago I discovered a document about organising a paper planner as if you were starting from nothing. It was written by David Allen of Getting Things Done fame.

David Allen free PDF ORGANIZING A PAPER PLANNER is available on his website.

He recommends for Getting Things Done:

• Notes/In... is a trusted place to freely capture input as it occurs, without having to analyse or organize it. It is the first section, because it can come into play instantly, anywhere.


• The next most frequently accessed information will be the actions you need or want to take at any time. They are best organized in three sections (and most likely viewed in this order):


• Calendar... is the first place you’ll look to know what has to be handled today, and how much time you’ll have otherwise to deal with all the other things you have to do, which you’ll see on your Action Lists.


• Actions Lists... which let you know all the single actions and next steps on your projects, to be done as soon as you can get to them.


• Agendas... hold all the reminders for items to discuss with people and in meetings.


• When you are in control of all of the above, you will next want to connect and update all your actions by reviewing:


• Projects/Goals... which will remind you of the final outcomes you want to accomplish. For some of these, you will want more detailed...


• Project Plans/Notes... which will ensure greater comfort that you have all the right action steps needed to move things forward effectively.

I adapted the above to my own requirements and I went with:

• Notes In - Basically the same function as recommended above.


• Planner - This is my Enhanced TM Week per View for all my future and daily planning requirements.


• Journal - For this I use my Week on per View Journal insert which records all or most of the things I have been doing in the last day or so throughout the year. I don't keep all 12 months of this insert in the organiser though.


• To-Do - I use these sheets for long term goals, so I have a 'House' sheet, 'Personal' sheet etc, on those I just list the headings and some details of things I hope to get done in the coming year.


• Notes - Stuff I jot down for projects, Philofaxy posts, random websites to record them somewhere before I file them some where more appropriate.


• Information - This is where I store my maps and reference information.


• Address A-Z- All of my contact sheets printed off from the Filofax Address Book Software which I've been using successfully this last couple of years.

Whilst most Filofax organisers come with pre-named tabbed dividers (Diary, Notes, Projects, Information, Financial and Addresses) are these the right titles and are they in the order you should have?