Time

By Godfrey Kneller
National Maritime Museum 

When we look at the different diary inserts we have available we can start to get a little obsessed with time and how it is measured, or is that just me!

There are two fixed intervals of how we define time on planet earth. The first is a complete revolution of the earth and how many of those revolutions it takes for the earth to orbit the sun. In short a 'day' and a 'year' or what we call each of those. 

Everything such as hours, minutes, seconds, weeks, months etc are all 'man-made'. We could if we wished divide up the day in something other than 24 'hours' or an 'hour' in something other than 60 'minutes' etc. 

However, I realising changing these long standing divisions that have been in use for decades would be difficult. 

Not all countries have always used the same 'calendars'. If you go back to the 1908 London Olympics you might notice that all other countries did very well in the shooting events, but nothing for competitors from Russia. This because when they arrived on what they thought was the start of the games on 10 July 1908 for Russians was in fact 23 July 1908. Russia at this time were using a different calendar!!

It is worth remembering that the earth takes 365 days 6 hours 9 minutes 10 seconds or for simplicity we can call that 365.25 days. Hence why we have leap years to account for that quarter day. 

A favourite puzzle to try on children is to ask them how many days there are in a week? how many weeks in a year? they will nearly always say 7 days, 52 weeks. But 7 times 52 equals 364.... where does the extra day come from? They will often say 'A leap year' "No that would be 366 days" They might be a little puzzled... but a year is in fact 52 weeks and one day.... 365 or plus 2 days for leap years. 

Times Are A Changing....

Last weekend the USA and Canada moved over to Daylight Saving Time (DST) for the Summer months. However, not all US States observe this convention, Arizona and Hawaii stay on their normal time zones (Standard Time) all year around. 

UK and Europe don't change until the end of March, so there are two weeks in between the change when the time difference between Europe and most of the USA states is one hour less than normal. For example Washington is normally 6 hours behind my local time in France, at the moment that has dropped to 5 hours, it will go back to the usual 6 hours once Europe goes to it's Summer time at the end of March.  

I have to be careful when scheduling blog posts at this point in the year, because the blog time is based on East Coast USA time, but we have to set the time on the blog posts based on our own local time! 

Since 2001 the change over to summer time in Europe has been governed by a European Directive, meaning that all EU countries changed over at the same time. Prior to that there were local arrangements for each country!

However, in 2019 the European Parliament voted to allow individual member states to choose if they observed the changing of time in the summer or not, or even to adjust to permanent summer time effectively shifting themselves on the time zone map... fortunately because of the impact of COVID no member states have made any decision on any of these radical changes yet. Basically watch this space!

Confusing isn't it, especially with some countries using half-hour increments such as Australia?  You will spot other areas using half hour increments as well. 

Given that a lot of us are working between different time zones these days, I find it essential to have a time zone map in my organiser. 

Time Zone Map

• A5 .docx .pdf
• A6 .docx .pdf
• Personal .docx .pdf
• Pocket .docx .pdf

Printing the above:

• A5 Print on A4 size paper then fold in half and fold back to the edge (Z fold)
• A6 Print on A5 size paper then fold in half and fold back to the edge (Z fold)
• Personal Print on A4 size paper cut to 171 mm high then fold in half and fold back to the edge (Z fold)
• Pocket Print on A4 size paper cut to 120 mm high then fold in half and fold back to the edge (Z fold)

If you want to use the PNG image for say a dashboard or divider it is here. 

• Time Zone Map

Time Mapping

Have you ever tried mapping your time, either in advance or in the past so you can see what you have been doing or what you will be doing?

One of our readers (Helen or 'Nellie') wrote in an email:

I have been very short on time recently, so thought I would time map my day to give it a bit more structure and to make sure that I don’t neglect important things like exercise. I thought other Philofaxers might like the template.  The template is in MS Word. You could either print out a blank one and fill it in, or, as I did,  fill it in using Word. I merged cells to create the timeslots I wanted and then colour coded the cells. Grey for work, green for health, blue for well being... It gave me quite a nice overview of how I spend my time. I put it as the first page of my diary section, so I can find it easily.

Also attached is an example. The only problem is that being personal sized it is quite small, so doing it on the computer is probably easier. Once printed out, it’s fine to read. You can print it out using the instructions I sent through a while ago.

The file is available in the files area and linked to in the above.

Thank you Helen for send in your idea.

Time Mamangement with Filofax - Diary Options - Update

I have done some further research in to the availability of diary options I mentioned in my previous post. Oh I wish Filofax had an international site it would save us all a lot of time!

The Personal Day on two page insert used by Jotje are also available from the Filofax Germany site, sadly the German site will only despatch to Europe and not outside of Europe. It is also available on the Filofax USA site. It's code number for 2011 is 6841711

The above inserts also appear in a very recent blog post by Kanalt with comparisons to Day Runner inserts.

In addition to the inserts I discovered in my last post there is also a Week on Two page insert that appears to be available only in French on the French site:

The French Filofax site does offer international delivery.

Time Management with your Filofax

So enough about shiny new Filofax organisers and people being happy and smiling.. it's time to get back to the serious stuff!!! OK well just for a few minutes ok...

Thanks to Colie for spotting these posts from back in 2007. I thought it was worth pulling them from your comment and putting them in to a normal post so they are easier to find in the future.

• Why a Filofax - Part 1 of GTD with your Filofax
• Using a Filofax for GTD - Setting up the pages for tasks and calendars
• Filofax for GTD - Tickler file

I've sent David Mackay an email to ask if he will be writing any more articles, sadly the last post on his blog was in August 2008. I will let you know if I hear back from him. 

Time Management with Filofax - Diary Options

I've seen many comments about finding the ideal diary refill to enable people to do the right sort of time/task management on a typical day.

It is all about juggling time, tasks, appointments and remembering all those small things that go together to combat our busy, hectic modern lives. It doesn't matter if it's fitting in those four clients before the end of the week or working out if you can fit in that hair dressing appointment before the children come home from school, we are all trying to get 30 hours out of a 24 hour day.

'My day is already full and unfortunately I can't add any more hours to it' 

Which is a play on my favourite quote

'The radio spectrum is already packed and unfortunately they have stopped making any more of it'...

From the cries (yes!) I've seen in the comments on the topic of diary refills in the past, there is no obvious one that works for everyone... and before you get your hopes up... I'm sorry people, I'm not going to throw you a curved ball and point out to you that magical one that we have all ignored... well not quite... read on.

A few weeks ago we 'uncovered' the Filofax Time Management series of refills. I've tried to contact the 'Time Management Team' at Filofax, but I've not head back from them.

So I've had another detailed look through the various Filofax on-line sites looking specifically for suitable refills.

Going back to this photo of Adam's A5 at the London Meet up in November 2010:

Adam's not confirmed it (I guess he's busy), but I believe he's using the A5 Business refill, this refill is a day per page with space for appointments, To-Dos, Notes etc:

Now I know a lot of you will say ah yes but it's in A5 size... too big.. but in case there is anyone that says it's not big enough... there is an A4 version. I had to include it for completeness.

OK, let us now look at what is available in Personal size. You will of course all remember Jotje's excellent guest post on Task and Time Management. In it you will recall the Day on Two Page refills she uses:

Take a look at Jotje's post to see examples of these pages filled in, this will give you a much more accurate picture of how it works for her.

Another feature of Jotje's Filofax is her use of Undated Planner Pages:

You will also find my own version of these type of pages in the Files page: 

• A4/A5 Day Planner undated - .doc .pdf
• Personal Day Planner undated - .doc .pdf  

Note: there are a whole host of new Personal Size pages on the Files page now as well.

So far these are all 'English' pages, although not all of them are available on the UK Filofax Site. So going a little further a field. I came across the following Day on One Page design on the Filofax Germany website:

Then there is this refill available on the Filofax Denmark site:

It's also a Day per Page refill with space for notes and to-do's in the right hand column. The layout of these pages are very similar to ones available from Quo Vadis here in Europe (France)

This particular example is in Personal size (Timer 17)

Day Timer also do a similar set of refills in their Portable size that fit Filofax Personal size, here is just one example:

Franklin Covey Compact size is similar to Filofax Personal size, but the pages are wider so they would stick out in most Filofax organisers, not ideal.

Thanks Colie for reminding me... There is also the DaVinci inserts that you can import from Japan.

I've most probably only touched the surface, have you found anything else similar to these? Drop a link in to a comment and share your knowledge.

Thank you.

Time Management - Readers links

The following are links recommended by our readers. Thanks to everyone who has submitted a link in a comment, I will continue to capture them in posts from here on so they are easier to find on the blog.

Thanks

• Why You Must Define Your Time Management System - TMN
• The Best Dead Simple Way to Start Your Day - TMN 
• Four Buckets for Maximising Your Time - Day Timer Blog
• Building a Smarter To-Do List - 43 Folders
• Getting started with Getting Things Done - 43 Folders
• Time Management Tips & Strategies - Growth Cheat Sheet

David Allen the well known author of 'Getting Things Done' has a free downloadable article on his website called Organising a Paper Planner, in it outlines how he would set up his planner sections to fit with his GTD philosophy.

I used his recommendations for setting up my A5 desk planner. To get a copy of the article and his other free articles go to his website and click on the 'Buy Now' links, they are free, but you will have to set up a simple account on the site.

Time Management from Filofax

So continuing with our Task and Time Management theme. As well as all the inserts we are familiar with and the organisers themselves, Filofax you might not have realised have a Time Management range of inserts, these fit in to any A5 Filofax organiser.

If you didn't know about these, it's most probably because the link to this section of their UK website is not very obvious, see the picture below.

Click on the Time Management link and it's like going through a Worm Hole in to another dimension!

What you will find is their range of Time Management inserts. Details of the training courses they run in conjunction with an external training company, Time Workshops.  Has any of our readers ever attended one of these courses? 

The TM inserts are quite different to the usual ones you can buy from Filofax. They are sold as annual update packs with the option of a Week to View Dated, or Day to View Dated, both in A5 format. Also included in the packs are various monthly, yearly and project planners. 

There are also Undated Packs available that contain some of the usual pages you will find in a regular Filofax fill, but there are some additional ones that aren't on the normal part of the site that are dedicated to project planning and performance monitoring etc. Check out the To-Do lists, very different to the normal ones.

If you click through to the Filofax site from the links above and then click on the various links you will see all the pictures of these different packs.

You can also buy some of the sheets individually on the Refill Stationary page.

Do any of our readers use these Time Management Packs? What is your experience of using them? Please share your experience with us via the comments or please consider sending us a Guest Post by email. Thank you.

Then I remembered this photo from our November 2010 meet up... 

That if I'm not mistaken that is Oni looking at Adam's A5 Filofax and he appears to be using the Day to a View TM pack?

Task and Time Management with your Filofax

This is a short introduction to a series of articles to help you (and me) get the most from our Filofax Organisers, whether you only have one or several of them.

I think before we get stuck in to this topic too deeply I think it's worth stating the following:

• Just because you have a Filofax doesn't automatically make you an organised person... although it can of course help you become one.
• It doesn't matter which organiser you own, the content of your organiser is more important to becoming an organised and efficient person. This is no different to having an expensive digital SLR camera, until you know how to use it, you will still make the same mistakes as you would with just a point and shoot camera.
• Which particular organiser, style, colour, material etc, is a very personal choice and for now we will put that choice to one side and concentrate on the content of our organisers and how we use them to achieve your goals in life.
• There is not just one way to use a Filofax to organise your life/work etc. We all have different demands on our time. Some of the ideas we will share through these articles you might already be using, which is great. Some might not work for you, why not? Tell us, we might be able to suggest a variation. Let's learn and share together.
• I don't pretend to know everything there is on this topic, so I would like to ask you now, if you have any input then please contact me with your own ideas, which I will include in future posts or as a guest post on their own. 

What we hope to cover over the next few weeks are the following topics:

• Why Manage Your Time? The benefits, advantages, improvements for you;
• Online resources - website,  articles, templates etc;
• Book reviews - which ones are worth reading? 
• Filofax Time Management inserts, courses;
• Case Studies - how different people use their Filofax organiser to help them get things done/manage their time;
• And anything else that we discover that is relevant to the topic.

To get us started, you might like to take another read of Jotje's excellent guest post on how she has set up her own Filofax. As you can see it's still one of our most popular articles on the blog. Lots of useful tips and some great info in the comments too. What can you learn from this article, what have you started to use?

I'm looking forward to learning and sharing our thoughts together, lets make it both informative and enjoyable too...

Thanks.

Guest Post: Task and Time Management with Filofax - Jotje

Thank you to Jotje for sending me this article about how she uses her Filofax for Task and Time Management, several of you requested the details in the comments recently.

Okay, since some of you asked, I’ll finally detail my current Time management system for my personal Filofax.

I’ve been using an A5 Filofax solely for work and a Mini for private. However, I discovered that this didn’t work as well as it should be. While I was rereading Julie Morgensterns books, one sentence really hit home: you only have ONE life, hence you only should use ONE planner. It does make sense!

Then I met this beauty

My decision to downgrade to Personal size was made that very instant! I could go on and on about the wonderful leather quality and it’s smart setup (I love that little zipper pocket on the lefthand side), but there’s been enough praise of the Malden already and no one is waiting for my repetition.

Back to the TM setup.

Step 1: 

I first defined which life categories I have and want to spend my time on. In my case that is:

1)     Business I share with DH (green)

2)     My own translation business (blue)

3)     Family (orange)

4)     Relationship (pink)

5)     Home (yellow)

6)     Me (purple)

I‘ve added the corresponding colour, more about that later.

Step 2: 

What big-picture goals do I have for each of these categories? To keep a general overview I kept it at no more than 3 goals. I have written the goals each on a sheet of note paper in the corresponding colour. They are all after tab 6 of my Filofax.

Step 3: 

What activities will help me to achieve my set goals?

I wrote those on the backside of the coloured note paper.

Step 4: 

Then I made  a time map. I have used a blank time map in A5 format, that I had left-over from my Time/System days. After completing it, I shrunk it on the copy machine and punched it to fit into my Malden. There’s plenty of Time Map Templates on the internet btw! The important feature is that it has printed hours and weekdays.

I first defined the fixed time slots, like “waking up”, “getting kids ready to school”, “lunch hour”, “cooking and dinner”, “fetching kids from school”, clubs you may attend etc. (Advice: Do it in pencil so you don’t feel inhibited to just jump at it. If you change your mind, you can easily change the sheet.)I find it vital to create time blocks and make them visual. So if I  lunch at 12.00 h and it takes me an hour, I block out the timeslot from 12.00 to 13.00 h.

For the remaining time blocks I decide on which life category I want (or have) to spend it on. I write the category down, and specify according to the activities list I made in Step 2. For example for the green section (shared business with DH), I have hours blocked for administrative work, acquisition and meetings.

After I finished my time map, I highlighted the time blocks in the corresponding colour of my life categories. I’ve done that with coloured highlighters. My timemap is sitting behind Tab 2 in my Filofax, in front of the 2PPW refill.

Step 5: 

I note down appointments on my weekly pages. I’m using a week in columns format with appointment times (behind Tab 2) so that I can block out the appropriate times of an appointment. Before I agree to an appointment I quickly check my Time Map to see if I am really available on that specific time. Nothing is as misleading as empty and blank weekly pages, because you easily get the impression that there’s seas of time! While in fact, I had already committed that time to my home or family in my time map! Obviously there’s situations when you have an overlap, but then you get to “swap” those dedicated time slots against each other (e.g. if you meet with a customer during the time you reserved for weekly errands, you’ll do the errands a work-related time slot. Obviously this is possible if you are self-employed. However your boss might not like you to go shopping during office hours ;-)).

Step 6: 

Todo’s. I have my Todo sheets behind Tab 1. On the top of the sheet I note the month and then the sheets get numbered. At the end of the month the uncompleted Todo’s are transferred to the next month (even if I don’t plan to do them for several months; I find it’s important to get a constant reminder, so I’ll know that I am planning to do them at any given time). The old Todo’s are then getting archived.

Since I only have ONE planner, ALL Todo’s get noted, in no particular order. “Sending proposal”, “buy new shoes for DD” and “make plans for next years holiday” are all noted alongside. For a visual separation I highlight the Todo-line with the appropriate colour marker (again: orange for family, green/blue for work etc.). Another option might be to have one Todo-sheet (or section) for each life category, maybe even on coloured paper. I have not tried this.

When I write down my Todo, I add the date to the left. Then when I’ve done it, I check the box and at the completion date. I am doing this so that I can find back notes on any Todo. I’ll get to that in a minute.

When I note my Todo’s I also think about when I want to do it. If it has a fixed deadline, I note it in the blank area of the relevant weekly pages.

Step 7: 

Your daily plan:

Each night I draw up my daily plan. My daily pages are behind Tab 3. I check the Todo’s on my Weekly pages and decide on what specific day I need or want to do them. On the righthand side of my 2PPD-pages I note the list of Todo’s to be completed on that particular day.

On the left hand side, I first block out the fixed time slots (getting kids to school, lunch hours, fixed appointments). Then I check my time map for what time I have reserved for which category and assign a timeslot for each and every todo on the righthand side. This means you have to train your estimation skills! How long does it take you to write that proposal? Treat every Todo as an appointment! 

Now, the lefthand side of the dialy pages has 2 columns. All of the above is written in the lefthand column. For the righthand column I have found several purposes. One: I note appointments of my DH, so I’ll know if he’s out on any given moment and if I need to arrange for our babysitter during that time. I also write down which of our four kids has to go to what afterschool activity or playdate and at what time she or he needs to be picked up again. Third: if a task has been planned for 30 minutes and eventually took me much longer or shorter, I mark this on the right with a pencil line. That way I hope to improve my time estimation skills.

At the end of the day, I review my daily plan. Todo’s that didn’t get done and need to be transferred, are immediately written on next day’s Todo list.

That way I don’t need to carry months worth of daily pages with me. I usually carry only 2 to 3 weeks of daily pages.

I am currently using the Day Planner pages from Filofax to tide me over to the next year, when I will be using the FF 2PPD format. Here is a picture:

What else is in my Filofax? 

The weekly pages are divided with the monthly register tabs. Yes, it’s annoying that the weeks get “split up”, but I got used to it pretty fast.

Behind Tab 4 are my Notes pages. I date all notes and at the end of the month, I archive them together with the past weekly and daily pages.

For quick reference I have added a red sticky tab that says “Notes”.

Behind Tab 5 I have 2PPM sheets that carry the very irregular working schedule of my DH. Since I have to maintain this schedule, I find it invaluable to always have it with me. To find the current months as fast as possible, I have added a yellow sticky tab with “Maand” on it (which is Dutch for “Month”).

I use the slimline address register for the login names and passwords of frequently visited websites.

In the back of my Filofax are 2 plastic envelopes for tickets, receipts or anything I don’t dare to loose.

In the front I carry some paracetamol in the zipper pocket, so I’m prepared should a serious headache come up. Behind this zipper I’ve managed to stuff a small ink eraser pen. Since I write with a fountain pen, I like to be able to change things neatly. My Lamy is tucked in the rings, because the pen loop is occupied with my BIC pencil.

 

And here’s a side view of my fat and invaluable life companion!

Other Time Management Tools I use: 

A large monthly planner in the office, that’s a copy of his working schedule. It’s actually a Printout of the monthly Outlook pages in a common A4 sized ring binder.

A Weekly Family Planner, with a column for each family member. It also has a plastic overlay sheet to note down the recurrent events (like after school activities of the kids, classes my DH or I attend etc.). It  hangs on a prominent place in the kitchen and functions as a control center. I update this planner every Sunday night.

The Organised Mum Life book, a 2 Pages-Per-Week ringbound planner that has my cleaning and household schedule in it. It lays open on the counter and I refer to it during the time slots that are marked as “Family” or “Home” time. It also has the weekly menu plan. Menu's are written noted with a red Stabilo pen, so it stands out.

Well, that’s about it! Hope you enjoyed reading this, please feel free to comment!

What time is it?

With the clocks changing back to Winter time and our chat being this afternoon, this should help you get on line at the right time.

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