Web Finds - 15 August 2015

So I hope you have had a good week.

So now it is time to enjoy a great collection of blog posts and videos from around the internet, so grab a drink and make yourself for our weekly round-up.

So here are the latest Filofax blog posts from around the Internet:

1. How to Make a To-Do List Using Categories - Homemakers Daily
2. Some unusual Van Der Spek custom designs - The Bug's Life
3. Rings or strings? - Just happy Me
4. Should you write a journal? - Carrie L Sunday
5. The creation process of Jane’s two tricolour Van Der Spek Binders - This Bug's Life
6. It’s Time for a Filofax Break - This Hobbit's Life
7. Filofax New Releases 2015 // The Saffiano Limited Edition Gold Organiser - Sea Salt & Paper
8. Filofax Duplex DML F7/8 in black - The Bug's Life
9. How to build your perfect planner system? - Week 10: Goals - From Chaos to Order
10. Using my pocket Bethge as a wallet - Love All Planners
11. Filofax Duplexes are like buses - The Bug's Life
12. Why I Use a Monthly Calendar AND Daily Pages - Homemakers Daily
13. Van der Spek Nomad TN - Review - Travellers Notebook Times
14. From Digital planner to Paper planner – why? - The Bug's Life
15. What’s In My Filofax? - Renew Your Space
16. 3 Easy Ways to Add Storage to Your Planner - Live Love Planners
17. 11 reasons why a Filofax is better than a smartphone - The Bug's Life
18. How to Carry Paperwork in Your Planner - Giftie Etcetera
19. Unemployed and in need of a planner? - Planners & Nail Polish
20. Very rare Filofax in Sharkskin meets WWII Sharkskin Diary - The Bug's Life
21. New York Gift Show - Quo Vadis Blog
22. Van Der Spek LV binders in red, yellow and green with matching Traveler’s Notebook cover - The Bug's Life
23. An Organised Life Leaves Room For Random - The Filofax Blog
24. Van Der Spek Undyed Binder – 10 months - The Bug's Life

• We monitor over 400 blogs and sites, your Filofax/Organiser blog posts could appear in this list, just contact philofaxy at gmail dot com to be added to our monitoring list. 
• We can not guarantee people will read your posts, but we know there is a higher chance of people reading your posts and returning to read other posts if you make them interesting with pictures and good hints and tips. Do not forget to give your posts a title... 
• Your Filofax/Organiser posts could appear in this list, just contact philofaxy at gmail dot com to be added to our monitoring list. 
• For some general tips on Filofax Blogging, please see this post

We are on the look out for more people to take part in Reader Under the Spotlight. If you would like to appear in this feature then please contact Steve : philofaxy at gmail dot com  Thank you.

And here are a selection of the latest Filofax videos for your enjoyment.

1. Filofax A5 Purple Malden ~ August 2015 Set Up - Michel Watson
2. Filofax Flip Through and Why Plan - Jodi Planningourpath
3. Filofax Personal Malden - MindyLou
4. My 2015 Summer Filofax Setup! - ItsKathyRey
5. A5 Filofax setup {August 2015} - MadeWithLoveCrafter
6. What's in my Filofax A5 Domino - Barefoot Izzy
7. Filofax Set Up (Dupe) - Anni_FiloFaxing

• For tips on how to improve your videos, please see this post.  Also this video too Webfinds 
• Your Filofax/Organiser Videos could appear in this list, just contact philofaxy at gmail dot com to be added to our monitoring list. 

My Week Posts

1. My week #31 - She's Eclectic
2. My week #173 - Paper Lovestory
3. My Week 32/52 - Twenty5Seven
4. My Week #32 (2015) - Joanny White
5. This Weeks Decorated Pages // Week 33 - Sea Salt & Paper
6. Week planner 101# 102# 108# - Lucy Wonderland
7. Weekly Post #112 - Miss Mai's Adventures 
8. The Great Outdoors - Planner Pages - Mrs Brimbles
9. Weekly Post #113 - Miss Mai's Adventures
10. Week of 8/10: Weekly Decoration Post! - Live Love Planners
11. My week #32 - She's Eclectic
12. Weekly Post #114 - Miss Mai's Adventure
13. My Week #32 (2015) - Joanny White

Here are some Philofaxy posts you might have missed this week:

1. Reader Under The Spotlight - Lindsay
2. Guest Post - Filo Tips - Amanda
3. Free For All Tuesday No. 236
4. Lefax Radio Handbook
5. Experienced User - Carla
6. Free For All Friday No 352 by Laurie

Enjoy

Free For All Friday No 352 by Laurie

I'm having some serious planner overwhelm at the moment. My kids start school next week, and I'm already inundated with dates for class trips, after-school activities, dentist appointments, weekend events, on and on. This calls for an upgrade!

I've been struggling with the small page size in my personal Filofax for about a decade now. During my less-scheduled summer it worked fine. But now with lots of daily details and things to schedule coming my way, I have upgraded to my A5 Boston Filofax (which I reviewed here). With 20mm rings and a smaller-footprint cover, it is slimmer and lighter than any of my other A5 binders. In fact, I've streamlined my pages so that my A5 Boston weighs just about the same as my fully loaded personal size Filofax, about 645g. It's still a little weighty, but much better than the 1100+g of my other A5's.

Are you, like me, starting a busy time of the year? How have you upgraded your Filofax to cope?

And as always on Fridays, feel free to discuss anything ring-binder related!

Experienced User - Carla

Hi, Carla here.  Admitted planner, stationery, and sticker addict.

Somewhere, sometime, I found a quote that fairly accurately describes my planner…

 “Nothing about me is original.  I am a combined effort of everyone I’ve ever met.”  – Chuck Palanhniuk

That said, thank you mucho, mucho, much to everyone who’s knowingly, or unknowingly given me ideas for this journey that’s spanned many summers. 

1. When did you start using an organizer?

I’ve kept lists and charts since the 3rd Grade, when I first started reading the Nancy Drew series. At least, that’s as far back as I remember. I had a chart of all the titles, checked off which I’d read, and plotted how to talk my grandparents into buying another book, or two, or three. Countless lists and trackers later, I got my first “planner binder” in the early ‘90s and never looked back.

2. How has your use of an organizer changed over the years?

My organizers have run the gamut of sizes and styles. Color coded bullet journal-type entries. I am U.S. based, so obviously they were American brands.  Like many, I’ve tried the electronic route, both bound and spiral-bound books, but none could ever give me the flexibility of my ring binders. Now I’m happy to say I’ve settled and streamlined into a FF Personal, FC Compact combination.  

3. Which diary format works best for you and why?

I’ve gone through 2PPD, 1PPD, Wo2P, Wo1P. I am toying with the idea of downsizing to a Pocket.  I even bought a little Saffiano from eBay. No matter what calendar/agenda format I tried, this size just does not work for me.

So for now, it sits snug in its box, waiting for the next round of delusional downsizing. Through lots of trial and error, I’ve landed on FC Compact Vertical Wo2P. As these inserts are ½ inch wider than FF Personal, my writing is a bit more legible. Just a bit. I like FC’s paper but not their vertical form.

So with the clean design aesthetics of Becky at Planner Fun, I print my own and can choose to use whatever paper I fancy.

4. What other information do you keep and maintain in your organizer?

No simple answer there.  That would depend on which binder brand and size.  In my EDC, I start off with a capture section, left over from my failed GTD experiment, then go into my Focus section.  This has pictures, prayers, sketch of Anglican Rosary, favorite quotes and poem, anything that helps center me when I’m totally frazzled. Third section, is the calendar. When using a Filofax binder, I keep 3 months worth of monthlies and weeklies, a page or two for future planning, current notes and lists. When in my Franklin Covey Compact binder, I can have the entire year. Then when things get really busy, out comes the big boy, 1 ½ inch rings!

5. Do you use a “system” of organisation, and how does it work in your Filofax?

Whatever binder (accessory) I choose, the “system” does not change. My EDCs are only Personal size, so switching back and forth is no problem. The innards  are a Frankenstein mish mash of paper sizes.  The calendar pages are in FC Compact (4.25”x6.75”) and all Notes, Lists, Trackers, are close to FF Personal size and in whatever color or design I feel like at the moment.

I’ve studied and tried various systems, but not everything within one system worked for me. So I’ve taken bits and pieces to make what’s uniquely mine.  That’s where the real beauty of the ring binder shines.  You can mix and match to your heart’s content, and it’s all good.  Add in all the colored bits and bobs, but nail down that system.  That’s my “planner peace”.  Peace, because I know my system works for me. Efficiency does not mean visually boring.  My ‘auxiliary brain’ is just as quirky as I am.

6. What routines and structures do you use?

Routines, that’s simple. Open book. Read. Do.

As for structure, after 20+ years of tweaks, I’ve learned a few things about myself.

First and foremost, I am LAZY. I don’t like flipping between sections. I want to see what I need, in one glance.  Taking inspiration from DIYfish, apologies if I’ve misspelled, I’ve printed the month grid on the left two thirds of a Letter size sheet, in landscape. Then Z-folded. I am a leftie, so it makes the most sense for me to pull-out on the left. Then with the week on 2 page spread, I get a complete month and week view.

Should I need it, I have an FC Swingpad with my daily docket, which pulls out to the right. Appointments, due dates, deadlines, events, anything time sensitive, are written on the month spread. If I need to flesh out my abbreviations or codes, the space to the right of the grid is available.  Or, I can grab a sticky note. The only tasks noted on the month grid, are repeating tasks – which are circled to grab my attention.

Day-specific tasks are entered according to context, directly on the weekly or daily pages. All notes and lists pertaining to that week are hole-punched and slit for easy removal, then interleaved between the week pages. At review time, any Notes become part of a File. I use the A-Z tabs as a filing cabinet. You guessed it, contacts are in “C”, active projects are in “P”, and the Someday/Maybe… lists would be in “S”, or depending on the status of my tasks, be added between the week pages.

I only use 2 pens.  A dark color (blue, purple or green) for any scheduling, and a bright (red, pink or orange) to highlight. Many of my tweaks and tricks come from Kristy of GiftieEtcetera, and Patty of HomemakersDaily.  Without them, my planner would be one hot mess.  

So, clear as mud, right?

7. Do you use one binder or several, and if several, how do you use them?

Eek! At last count I had 28 binders in differing sizes. This is embarrassing, but remember – 20+ years! Here goes:

10) FC Classic: 7-ring 5.5”x8.5” -

• Home, Work, Travel, Reference Notes, 
• 6 for storage

  5) FC Compact: 6-ring 4.25”x6.75”

• 2 for storage, 1 reference notes, 
• 1 in active rotation (along with 3 FF Personals 
• 1 for purely sentimental reasons – PURPLE Garfield (yes, the cat)

11) Personals (includes Filofax, Day-Timer, Day-Runner, Mead, Cambridge,  At-A-Glance, Kate Spade, Barnes and Noble Punctuate)

• 3 are in active rotation, 
• 7 for storage, 
• 1 is used to store my portable jewelry making tools

  2)  FF Pocket:

• 1 Saffiano, 
• 1 4-ring bit of cuteness from ’88-’89 ?

I wear many different hats in life, there is no way, no how, everything would fit into one little Personal size binder.  For this month, it’s a Raspberry Saffiano.  The color makes me happy.  If I’m not happy, I’m not opening the book. If I don’t give the book a chance to tell me who, where, and what…chaos ensues. Not good.

Thank you Carla.

If you would like to take part in this series please email steve@philofaxy.com and mark your email 'Experienced Filofax User'

Lefax Radio Handbook

It is just over two weeks since Alison and I returned from our long trip to North America, we have more or less caught up with our selves and we have settled back down to the slower pace of life, as well as not having to haul a suit case around and re-pack it every few days!

We are still living on the memories of the places we visited and especially the people we met on our travels.

Completely unexpected in Los Angeles, I was presented with a small parcel and some cards and envelopes. I thought what is this? I opened it carefully and inside the parcel was a Lefax Radio Handbook. WOW!!! I was very touched by the messages in the card and the individually written letters from everyone who had contributed to this marvellous present.

I suppose I better quickly explain my connection with radio engineering, as it is a theme that seems to pop up quite often.

When I left school a long time ago when I was 16, I got a job as a trainee radio technician working for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office(FCO). I went through my training with them and went on to do various radio engineering jobs looking after radio communications equipment linking UK Embassies overseas with the FCO in Whitehall, London.

I worked for them for about 10 years including a 2 year stint in Cyprus.  After I got married I changed jobs, still doing radio but more frequency assignment type work for VHF broadcasting in UK. I then worked at a radio laboratory for about 18 years before I finished off being the Radio Spectrum Manager for a branch of the Ministry of Defence in Kent.

So for about 35 years I've known nothing but radio. In parallel to my salaried job I've been a volunteer spectrum manager for the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB), I've done that role for over 21 years and this is still on-going, it is the only radio work I do these days having resigned/retired from paid employment in 2010.

Over the years I have collected a few radio reference books of historical interest, so the Lefax Radio Handbook was an excellent choice of gift for me, it connects my past with the present beautifully really.

As you can see I already have a Lefax Radio Log and a Lefax Radio Engineering set of inserts, click through to read about those.

So looking at the Lefax Radio Handbook. All the inserts and pages are dated 1922 or 1923, all in remarkably good condition considering their age and the way they have been stored.

The handbook is split up in to various sections, clearly labelled on the section dividers as shown below.

The binder has 13mm rings... and yes that is 16mm worth of inserts. Crammed full it certainly is.

But on removing all of the inserts, the rings are in like new condition, I've not done anything to them. Like the Radio Log the two sets of rings are independent of each other, the top tab only opens the top set of rings. The bottom tab the lower set of rings.

As you can see on the back cover it is a No. 655 Lefax binder. Looking in to various catalogues it is Moroccan leather, on a board backing with some form of backing material on the interior. There are no pockets or clasp or pen loop, just a simple 6 ring binder in the same size as a Filofax Personal size organiser. It is in very good condition. Much better than the similar Radio Log which is now very fragile by comparison.

I've only had a brief look through the inserts,  but they will give me hours of reading during the dark winter nights. They are shown here in the different sections.

There are some fold out inserts too. Lefax also sold monthly updates, these all date from 1923 as well.

There appear to be a few sample pages from the normal Lefax planner range shown in the photograph below in the lower row.

The stamp you can see with the name Max G. Jensen appears in a couple of places, on one of them there is an Radio Amateur callsign W6SFC which when I checked is still an active licence. So it has an interesting history.

Lefax also did other handbooks, Alan Marshall showed me his Mathematics Handbook whilst I was in Toronto.

I am very grateful to my North American friends for giving this wonderful gift, thank you.

Free For All Tuesday No. 236