Your Organiser and Your Profession? - Reader Question

This topic was suggested by Gaynor during the Philofaxy Round Table Skype chat last weekend. I thought it was a great discussion topic and wrote it down quickly!

The question she posed was 'Does your job/profession influence how you plan in your organiser?'

I thought about it for a moment and of course in some jobs I'm sure there will be an influence.

Teachers I would think would be more at home with diary inserts that mirror their academic year. I wonder if accountants would prefer ones that started and finished with the start and finish of the tax year?

Then there is the type of layouts people prefer, does a vertical layout work better for some jobs compared to a horizontal layout?

Let us have your thoughts in the comments below. But I would also be very pleased if any of you would like to submit a short guest post on how your profession influences how you use your organiser.

Free for All Friday No. 301 by Nan

In many places, the new school year begins in September or perhaps August. For teachers, students, and others whose life revolves around the academic year, most manufacturers, including Filofax, offer calendars starting in July instead of January.

Even though I'm not in the academy, I look at the beginning of September as a New Year of sorts. It's my second chance to change things that aren't working, especially in my organizer system.

Are you planning to do anything differently come September?

Dodo Acad-Pad personal size Filofax insert

The Dodo Acad-Pad is the academic-year version of the Dodo Pad diary. This is a very popular planner/ diary for students, teachers, school administrators, parents and others on an academic-year schedule. The Acad-Pads sell out every year (so everyone is encouraged to get theirs soon!).

Most of you have read about Dodo Pad diaries, whether here or over on Plannerisms. For the uninitiated, you can check out www.dodopad.com to see what these fun, quirky diaries are all about.

Due to popular demand, the Acad-Pad academic-year diary is now available as an insert for the personal size Filofax (or equivalent size binder)! There were a lot of customers who couldn't live without their Filofax, but didn't want to have to sacrifice the intelligent fun of their Dodo Pad diary. Now these lucky people have the best of both worlds! The 2010/ 2011 Acad-Pad Filofax inserts are available now, and the 2011 Dodo Pad Filofax inserts (both A5 and Personal size) are available now for pre-order, to be delivered in early July.

While I was in London last month I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Rebecca, Managing Director of Dodo Pad. She very generously gave me samples of the Acad-Pad diaries in all their forms: original desk size, wall calendar, mini pocket size, and the new Filofax insert! She told me about formatting the diaries and the way they were able to scale down the weekly grid and the artwork to fit the size and shape of the personal insert pages. It was an interesting glimpse into diary design!

Here is an excellent short You Tube video of Rebecca at the London Book Fair being interviewed for the Book Channel. In this video she talks about the Acad-Pads and Dodo Pads, and various ways to use them. Rebecca also mentions several of the other Dodo organizers. It's a great insight into the products.

Here you can see the entire range of Acad-Pads: the diary insert in my purple personal Finsbury (which I think looks great. Of course I love this year's cover color!), with the Mini size Acad-Pad lying on the inside cover. Bottom right is the original desk diary Acad-Pad, and on the bottom left is the Wall Acad-Pad, which is identical to the desk one but hangs up on the wall.
Below is a photo to show the size difference between the desk diary and the personal size Filofax insert. For scale, the desk diary measures 9 1/2 by 7 1/2 inches (24 x 19 cm).
You can also see some of the formatting changes required to fit the Personal size page (which you can see more easily if you click on the photo for a larger view).

Below is a photo of the personal size insert with the Mini size Acad-Pad, which measures 4.25 by 5.25 inches (11 x 13.5 cm).The weekly grid in the Personal size is just slightly smaller than in the Mini, but the Personal has more room in the margins for notes.

Here are a couple more close-ups of the inside pages (click photos for larger views):


Look closely at the picture in this one to get a glimpse of Miss Peabody, and Lord Dodo himself!

There are endless ways to use the weekly grid. Some people label the columns morning/ afternoon/ evening, with to-dos and deadlines. Or, you can do what I do in my A5 Dodo Pad diary insert and write across the boxes. It's very flexible, and you can use it differently week to week if you want to.

For more information about the range of Filofax-compatible Dodo Pad diary inserts, you can read Miss Peabody's blog post about it on www.dodopadblog.com.

Those of you who use an A5 size Filofax and are interested in trying the Dodo Pad insert for it, the 2010 inserts are now available on ebay for a very low price while supplies last. If interested click here to check them out.