Poll Results

Hi!


A couple of weeks ago I set up a poll on my blog about which was the better arrangement for work and personal stuff in multiple filofaxes of the same size when you are going to work: whether it is better to

1. Carry your personal filofax to work with the relevant pages from your work filofax, or
2. Carry your work filofax with you, with the relevant pages from your personal filofax.

The winner is...  Number 2!! Take your work filofax to work/uni/the library etc, with the pages you will need from your personal filo.

I wasn't surprised that number 2 won, 21 votes to 13. However, I was kind of surprised that number 1 got so many votes!
I can see the logic in number 2- as Bridgett said in the comments, "the likelihood that you would need to know what happened last week or next month in your personal life is slim. You have a much greater chance of needing to know some article you referenced in another paper last term." LJ concurred. I think that's a very good point! I would probably rarely refer to the personal stuff in my filo, but I would kick myself if I needed something that was in my work filo that I had left at home. I like Jotje's idea, about 'one life, one planner', but in this case I'm not talking about planning stuff- diaries etc- but rather the info, reference lists etc in my work filo. I couldn't fit all my personal stuff plus this in 1 filo, even if it had 50mm rings!!

I think overall that number 1 isn't so logical; as I said, personally, I don't think I will refer to my personal stuff that much- hopefully I can hold it in my head! Whereas I will need access to a lot of my uni notes that are in my work filo. However, option number 1 did win a lot of votes, meaning it works for a lot of people! 

Really, by asking this question to you all, I guess I was kind of looking for justification to carry my new A5 purple Malden personal filo with me, with some of my work filo pages in it! But after taking it to uni for a couple of days, I have got scared that my beautiful new purple Malden will become damaged; in the end, I would prefer to take one of my hardier filos to uni with me, like my Domino or my Chameleon, which by coincidence are my work filofaxes! So I guess that makes up my mind for me!

Now all I've got to do is actually set them up properly!

One True Filofax?

Hi everyone!

I was just reading Philofaxy's Free For All Friday and someone asked a question about the Ostrich filofax. This reminded me of Ro, who uses an Ostrich and it is her one and only, everything Filofax. For years she has used this and it is beaten up but each scar tells a story. You can read about Ro's Filofax obsession here on Philofaxy's Reader Under the Spotlight.

This is what I would call a One True Filofax (copyright: Me!! I'm coining this phrase and taking out a copyright on it!!!!! OK, not really...). 

Mr Ochre Malden here would be my One True Filo!!

So I'm particularly interested in what you guys think about this:
Do you desire an OTF? Do you crave finding the perfect solution? For you, is it a search for the perfect binder- the right leather, perfect colour, pocket layout? Finding the perfect size for you? Or, is it about the insides- finding the perfect set-up of inserts, dividers, planning pages, that will last you through the years. Or even finding the right diary format? I know Jotje extols the virtues of a one-life, one-planner philosophy- and I can see the virtues in this, definitely. Laurie has spent years, and established a wonderful blog, trying to find the perfect planning system for her.
Or, do you like the flexibility of being able to change between different binders, and even different sizes, as your life requires it? Do you value the ring mechanism of the Filofax for the ability to change the set-up of your filo with ease? Do you like change?

I think I am going to turn this into a regular blog feature, with guest posts and even a competition or two!! In the comments, please tell me if you think this is a good idea for a series, and if you would like to do a guest post! It could even be a guest video! Don't tell me about your One True Filofax or One True Set-Up yet, wait for the relevant blog posts :)
Get thinking about what you would like to say!!

Stationery Haul Wednesday 6th June!

Hi everyone!

This Wednesday I did a little bit of shopping in Liverpool City Centre, and also pick up a really exciting parcel! So technically I haven't bought everything in this stationery haul, but it still feels like a haul because there is so much reeealllyyy cool stuff in this lot!!

So I had to go to the Royal Mail delivery office to get a parcel which I had missed on the original delivery. It turns out going all the way to the delivery office, a few miles outside the city centre (but by a very easy 4 minute train journey) is an easier way to safely get your parcel, than having to wait for the lottery that is redelivery, when the post man only delivers your parcel to your house of the arranged day if he feels like it!!! After a 10 minute wait, I had my parcel in my hands! I couldn't wait, so I opened it while sitting on the platform waiting for the train.

It was the prize from Christa's blog competition! The competition was to do a blog post or a video about the set-up of your filofax, and I won!!!! :D :D

There's some amazing stuff in here!! I absolutely love the Avery tabs (can't get enough of them), the Post It super sticky notes- such a brilliant invention as they actually stick now!!, and the Get the Hint page markers- but I think my favourites are the Hello Kitty post-its (although they are so cute and I don't know where to find more of them, I kind of don't want to use them!!), and my absolute favourite is the Filofax pen!!! It's sooooo pretty!! Such a gorgeous colour! It's so sleek and beautiful!!
Thanks so much Christa!!

So after I made my way back into the city centre by return train, I went to some of my other favourite shops. Here's what I bought from them:

First I went to one of my favourites, Paperchase. I absolutely adore Paperchase, I could literally buy out their stock!! I really had to restrain myself! I had been wanting those magnetic page clips for weeks, and I finally bought them! They will go very nicely with my new dividers! I also bought some index stickers, buses and owls, as I will have lots of sub-sections in my dissertation filofaxes! And my favourite thing from there, some really practical and useful sticky notes, which are lined or squared, for lists, notes, diagrams etc for my dissertation filos. I know in North America they do quadrilled post-it notes, but 3M don't do them here, and these are the next best solution until they do, I think!!

Then I went into Rennies, which is an art/craft shop, also with a gallery/painting shop. They had some loose scrapbooking paper/card, and I had a really good look through these, changing my mind several times and putting some back and choosing some more! Finally I settled on the 3 sheets above, which were all under £1 each. I really love the Cath Kidston-esque prints at the moment, and I am going to make these into dividers for my new A5 purple Malden!! They also had packs of scrapbooking paper, but these were expensive, around £15 for a pack of about 50 sheets, with duplicates of each pattern, and I definitely won't use them all. I had a very good look around the rest of the shop, and the staff were very helpful. I have been living in Liverpool for almost 4 years on and off, and I don't know why I never thought of going in here for filofax pretties before! I had a look at their sticker collection, and I found some Blue Nose stickers that I don't already have! I love these so much, I am never going to use them, they are too cute!!

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend! I am going home tomorrow for a couple of weeks! :D

Au revoir!!

Poll: Which filofax arrangement?

Hi everyone!
I want you to help me work something out. If you have 2 filos (of the same size), 1 for your personal day-to-day stuff and 1 for your uni/work stuff, but you only want to carry one with you when you are going to work or to the library to study etc, do you think it is better to:
a) Take your personal day-to-day filofax with you to work/the library with a section full of the relevant work papers you will need that day, or:
b) Take your uni/work filofax to work/the library with a section of the personal/diary (i.e. planner) stuff you will that day?
There's a poll in the top-right corner of my blog, or leave a comment below!

Thanks! Have a lovely Bank Holiday!!

Some planning realisations

This summer I have no essays, just 2 giant projects: my 20,000 word MA dissertation, and my PhD application. I have barely any appointments, and my shifts at work will be straight-forward. Therefore, I was planning on using a simpler planning method for this summer. If I had so few appointments, surely a week on 2 page planner in my personal filofax, or even in my pocket filo, or EVEN a week on 1 page planner, would suffice?

Well, I'm finding the answer is no. In my boring, long summers, the days go very quickly and I find that I have done barely anything all day. Worse, all the days merge into 1, and I can't even remember what day of the week it is! Suddenly, the summer is over and I feel like I have wasted all that time, during which I had intended to do so many things I had never finished or even started. So just now I realised that I don't need a simpler planner- I need a complicated one!!

Imagine 2 types of planners: a week on 2 pages filofax insert, and a day on 2 pages insert. The first one is almost empty because I feel like I have nothing to write in it. So I don't realise I actually have things to do that day, and what's worse, because I feel like I have nothing to do, even if there are things to do in it, I don't actually check it! Then, imagine the day on 2 pages insert. It is full of to-dos, notes, reminders, and even though there are no appointments, I have structured my day. It is all colour-coded and organised, unlike the week on 2 pages which is so unstructured it is a huge muddle. Because I know there are lots of things written on it, I remember to check it a few times a day. Even though I don't get everything done on that page, I get some of them done, and that's more than I would have got done if I were using the week on 2 pages insert.

So this is my plan: switch to my A5 filo, which I am going to use for dissertation/PhD stuff anyway. Print out a few day's worth of Steve and Ray's day on 2 pages A5 insert. Test it out! If it doesn't work, no big deal, that's the beauty of filofax- I haven't wasted money on a whole planner. But I think it will work better for me than what I'm using now...

I'll keep you informed!!

Filofax hack: Pen loop inside the rings!

Hi everyone!

I have finally finished my last essay of my MA, now I have to do my dissertation and apply for PhD, but for now I have no immediate deadlines, so I have some spare time to write blog posts again!!

On Philofaxy's Free For All Friday yesterday Shanananana asked if anyone had tried to make a pen loop that could fit inside the rings of a Filofax, so a pen could slot in there easily. I thought about this, and it shouldn't be too hard. This morning I had a go at it, and it's quite easy to make. At first I only used sellotape, because it's cheap and I already had some, but when you work out how to make it properly you can use something nicer like washi tape. That's what I used for the pen loop I'm going to show you now. Here's my step-by-step instructions:

1) Choose a pen (or pencil) that's not too thick. I found that a Lamy Safari was too thick and the pages in my filofax couldn't turn properly. However, my Coleto 4-colour multi pen worked, and so any pen around this size, like a Bic multi-pen would fit, and also any pen that's less thick. The easy way to work out if your pen will fit is to slot it inside the ring mechanism and try to turn the pages- if they don't turn easily, it's because the pen is too thick. Also, a pen with a rubber grip on the barrel might not work well because it doesn't slide easily into pen loops. I find that I don't need rubber grips on my pens- so if your favourite pen has a rubber grip, but you still want to slip it into a pen loop, you could use Tracy's trick of putting a piece of washi tape over the rubber.

2) Get a fly leaf, or divider, or today ruler. It needs to be positioned in the middle of the pages in your filofax. So if you have 200ish pages in your filofax, put it at about the position of pg 100. This doesn't have to be exact, but roughly in the middle- this means that the pages shouldn't get stuck on the rings because the pen is in the way.

3) Get some sellotape, washi tape, masking tape or thin duct tape. Sellotape is quite thin, but is clear so is good if don't want the pen loop to look obvious, this is a good material to use. You might have to use quite a few layers to strengthen it. Washi tape is a pretty and colourful alternative, although because it is basically masking tape, you should use a layer of sellotape over the top and bottom to strengthen it.

4) Cut a short piece of tape, about the circumference of your pen barrel plus a few millimetres. Then cut a bigger piece, about 5 cm. It doesn't have to be exact.

5) Lay the small piece of tape around the barrel of your pen, non-sticky side against your pen. Then, while it is still against the barrel, lay the bigger piece of tape over the smaller piece of tape, sticky side down so that they stick together. Then stick the sticky ends of the longer piece together, so that the loop of the tape fits neatly around the barrel of the pen, and the rest of the tape sticks out. Slide the pen in and out of the loop to make sure it fits.

6) Next, take out of the rings the today ruler/fly leaf or whatever you are using and lay the loop between the 1st and 2nd holes and hanging over the edge of the ruler/fly leaf. It is positioned here so that the pen is easy to access from the top of the ring mechanism, and so that the pen fits inside the rings.

7) If the pen loop is wider than the gap between the rings, trim it to fit neatly in between the rings. This is so the pages turn properly, or else the tape will get caught on the rings and the rest of the pages won't move smoothly.

8) Take more tape and secure it to the fly leaf/ruler. Use enough tape to secure it so that the weight of the pen won't accidentally pull it off.

9) Put the fly leaf/ruler in your filofax.

10) Push the loop inside the rings, and close up the rest of the pages on top of it. It should hang neatly within the rings.

11) Slip your pen into the pen loop. Make sure the clasp (if your pen has one) goes outside the loop. This is so that the pen doesn't slip through the pen loop accidentally. Practice taking the pen out of the loop and slipping it back in. Then make sure all the pages in your filo move smoothly with the pen in the rings.

And there you have it!!

The students' disease: End-of-term-itis

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to do a quick post to ask you something. I wonder if you get end-of-term-itis? It's like a condition where your brain just can't concentrate on school/uni/job work, because you are about to go on holiday or it's the end of term- all you want is for time to speed up, and your work to finish itself so you can have your break. Well, for me, I won't be having a holiday or anything, but still, it's going to be a struggle to keep my brain focussed. I have 2 big assignments due in this week- 1 essay and a big project, and so over the next few days I'm going to be working really hard on these to get them finished. Then, once these 2 are finished, I have another one due in for the next week. But whenever I hand my essays in, I suddenly lose all the adrenaline that kept me going over the last few days, and the lack of sleep (all-nighters!) and lack of food catch up on me. It's all I can do not to fall asleep as soon as I get home! But because I have very little time to finish the last assignment, I will have to start the whole essay-writing madness again on Friday morning! This is bad because I will be really tired from this week's work, and I procrastinate at the best of times, but I will really struggle to work because I know this is my last essay, and freedom is near. I know that is stupid, because I should keep telling myself "just a few more days' hard work and that's it", but I don't feel 'The Fear' during times like this. The Fear is that sudden realisation that you don't have enough time to finish doing what you need to do unless you work harder, and it pushes you to get on with it. I know it doesn't really hit me for the last essay of term, and this means end-of-term-itis infects me!

Well, anyway, I won't be having a summer holiday this year, but I will reward myself with a few days off at the end of my final essay.

Do you get end-of-term-itis? How do you combat it?