A Christmas poem!

The lovely Susannah has made a competition on her wonderful blog, Belzira's Corner!

The task is to draw, write or craft and Christmassy/Wintery scene! So here is my entry!

NB: I haven't written a poem in 6 years, so please bear with me ;b

Santa Clause's Filofax

Santa Clause's Filofax is bulging at the seams,

Filled with lists of girls and boys, nice and kind or naughty and mean?

Millions of letters fill the rings: 

A bike for Tommy, a doll for Jean;

"Please, dearest Santa, won't you bring, 

the gift I've craved since Spring!"

Hundreds of Elves make the candy, Christmas decs and toys;

Thousands of tin soldiers and teddies for all good girls and boys!

Baubles on fur trees and strings of tinsel decorate the workshop,

While jingle bells and Christmas carols make such a lovey noise!

Til the checklists have been finished, the Elves cannot stop;

Then finally, with a hot cocoa, off to bed they hop!

I hope you liked my little poem :)

Filofax Dividers... A Poll!!

Hi everyone!

If there's one thing in my Filofax that I've changed more than my diary inserts, it's my dividers! I am going to do a post on them soon, but first I'd like you guys to answer my little poll!

The poll is composed of 2 parts.

1) What sort of dividers do you use in your Filofax?

2) How many dividers/tabs/sections do you use? (This includes subsections, which are perhaps subdivided using sticky tab)

Please answer both sections of the poll :)

I'd like you to answer with what is your most common or favourite answer. E.g. if you use 6 tabs most of the time, but sometimes have a couple extra, answer 6. If you mostly use your homemade dividers, but sometimes switch back to Filofax's standard ones, answer 'Homemade dividers'!

It would be great if you could also comment on this post listing which sections you have in your Filo :)



I'm really interested in what types of dividers people use, what your sections are, and how many you use! I will write a blog post soon with the poll results, and also show you my array of dividers :)


Thanks!!

Wonderous Washi Tape!

Hi!


This is just a quick post to show you the AMAZING washi tape I got for Christmas!!

Last Christmas (2011) my mum got me a 2 pack of spotty tape from the Muji shop in London :)

This was just around the time I was finding out about this wonderous product, and so although I was very happy to have some, I didn't really know how to use it, and wasn't infatuated by it yet!
But seeing everybody's amazing Filofax and stationery blogs, showing how they use their washi tape, it gave me ideas of how to use mine!

Over the side of a flyleaf

E.g. I use it to reinforce the sides of Filofax sheets/flyleafs that I take off the rings frequently, especially ones where I have slit the holes so I can take them out without having to open the rings!

I didn't realise, but this 2 pack contains two different colours- I used to think both of these were the same colour, so I took one to uni and left the other at home, and only realised the other one was a different range of colours (pink/purple rather than orange) when I came home this October!! Woohoo, more washi tape!! :D


Now being infatuated by wonderful washi tape, I asked for some for Christmas, and my mum let me choose and order them myself from ebay. These are the ones I bought!

I keep them in a box from Paperchase, which I also got for Christmas!


So far I haven't used them a lot, except for one thing I have made, which I will show you soon ;b

365/30 Filo Lists- January 2013

Hello!

I forgot to post this the other day, but I hope it's not too late for you guys to start your January lists! (And maybe you can catch-up on the previous days!)

1) New Year's Resolutions 2013

2) Goals for this month

3) Goals for 2013

4) Favourite moments of 2012

5) My achievements of 2012

6) 2013 planning tools

7) Books to read in 2013

8) 10 things to try in 2013 I've never done/had/experienced before

9) Favourite things on a cosy night in

10) Best things about being a child

11) Best things about being an adult

12) If I could only eat 5 food items for the rest of my life…

13) Favourite TV programmes

14) Simple things that make me happy

15) Magic/Super powers I would love to have

16) Places I'd love to go on holiday/vacation

17) Favourite animals

18) 5 things I love about myself

19) Favourite music/band/singers

20) Fun places to spend a day out

21) 10 favourite items of clothing in my wardrobe

22) Things/people/programmes that make me laugh

23) My favourite little indulgences

24) I prefer… (pick 1 of each): Books or music? TV or movies? Hot or cold? Internet or paper? Day or night? Sweet or savoury?

25) Favourite meals to cook

26) What I wore today

27) Favourite books

28) Top 5 websites to waste time

29) Chores I secretly enjoy doing

30) Favourite way to spend a day off

31) Review of the month

Happy January!

Planning my 2013: Part 2- Filofax

Hello!

This is Part 2 of my 'Planning my 2013' posts, about how I am using the planners/organisation tools to plan my life for this new year! If you haven't read Part 1, please do so now! :)


Part 1 is where I discussed how I am using my Plannerisms planner to plan my recurring tasks (monthly), and, most importantly, forward planning my weeks. The next stage of my planning is where my Filofax comes in!

I got a lovely Plum Osterley personal Filofax for Christmas! Yes, I know I said in a previous blog post that I would try to stick to my Orange Osterley... but I have a good excuse! My mum was desperately trying to find a big present for me for Christmas, and I couldn't think of anything, except for the Plum Osterley that I had been in love with for about a year and a half! I had found a good deal on amazon, and a few times I had come close to buying it myself! So I asked for the lovely Osterley, and received it for Christmas!! I had been worried about the rings being terrible, and although they aren't perfect, they're not too bad, and they function ok, so it's all good :) I'm sure I will do a review on my Osterley soon :)

I have put together my diary system for my 2013 Filofax set-up very carefully. I have been going through Planner Fail for a long time, so I need a system that will work perfectly! It took me a lot of thinking and much back-and-forth decision making, but I have finally decided on, bought, and started using, my diary :)

Firstly, I have the 2013 Filofax vertical-format year planner. I don't know what I will use this for, but I hope that I will find a use for it soon!
Then I have my diary proper, which is composed of several parts.


I am using 2012's Day Timer Flavia month dividers. I am reusing the ones I got last year with my Day Timer diaries, and I don't mind that they're out of date, because I never used the month grid that was printed on them anyway. They are so pretty, and very useful! I have the dividers from January-July in my filo, and I will put the rest in later in the year.

Then I have my 2013 Franklin Covey Monticello MO2P. Unfortunately, the DPP didn't work out for me, but the MO2P are great. The paper quality (well, actually it's more like cardstock!) is excellent, and the boxes are much larger than Filofax's grids, and are lined, which helps keep it all neater. The month pages that came with the FC diary go right up to June 2014, and I have them all in here. January-July 2013 go immediately after the month dividers.

Then I have my DPP sheets. I decided on Filofax DPP, rather than the Franklin Covey DPP, for several reasons, which I will do another post on, but the main reason is because I like how plain the Filofax pages are, and how I can customise them to my own needs. I only have the current week of DPP in my Filofax at any one time.



Immediately behind the current week of my DPP, I have this week's DodoPad 2013 personal-sized insert. The DPP inserts sit spliced between this week's DodoPad pages- the notes page on the left, and the diary page on the right. I also have the rest of the current month's DodoPad inserts, but no more than that, to save on space.

So this is how I am using my Filofax for 2013 :)


I use it in conjunction with my Plannerisms Planner, which you can read about it Part 1!

After I have finished forward-planning for the coming week on Sunday nights, I should have a lovely weekly page in my Plpl!

Updated (read: finished!) since my last post!

I copy the important things from my Plpl current week over to my DodoPad Filo insert. I don't take my Plannerisms Planner out with me, so this is here in case I want to check something about my week when I am out and about. I try to make it fun, with lots of colours and doodles!

Then, the most important part- My Day Per Page inserts!

Every night, I sit down and plan for the next day. I use the daily column in the WO2P of my Plannerisms Planner to give me a picture of my day.
Firstly, I write down my daily focuses, which helps give me an idea of what I should concentrate on during the day.
Then I use the basic scheduler from my Plpl to give me a picture of when I should do things during the day. I write them into the appointment slots of my DPP insert. Of course, I write in time-dependent things first, like work shifts, and then I fit in other things from my scheduler, like tasks that will take a long time, or to-dos that have to be done by a certain time during the day. I use arrows to show the length of time things should take.
On the right column of the page, I write my to-dos, notes, info, anything I will need for that day. At the bottom of the column, I draw 8 boxes where I put crosses to record how much water I have drunk that day (I think my record is 6 glasses, I never drink enough!!)
I make sure I write in everything from my Plpl daily column into my DPP. I actually really like that my 2 planning tools are in separate books, because I love that I can have the two sitting side-by-side, rather than having it all in my Dilodax and having to flip back and forth in copying from WO2P to DPP!

I colour-code everything, because it makes it easier for me, but also because it looks pretty!



So that's my Planning for 2013 :)

Planning my 2013: Part 1- Plannerisms Planner

Hello!

I didn't realise how long it was since I last blogged!! Sorry guys, I will try to blog twice a week from now on ;-)

Today is New Year's Day, 01/01/13!! Happy New Year!
So it is the perfect time to tell you all about my planning and organisation for 2013! I am going to show you my planning tools and how I am going to use them :)
This is Part 1, because it is going to be really long if I write it all into 1 post! Part 2 will be about how I am going to use my Filofax for my 2013 planning!

To cut a long story short, I was in planner fail for MANY months!! I feel like I am almost out of it, but as always with coming out from the dark side of planner fail, it is taking a while to build up my organisation system again, because when I stop using my planners, as I inevitably do when I hit the murky world of PF, I don't write down any of my to-dos or anything, so the next few weeks are always difficult, especially now; not only do I have to start planning again, catch up with my life, and plan for the future, but as it's the start of the new year, I have to plan all my goals and resolutions for 2013 too!! So I am getting there, but it is all still a work-in-progress!


My Plannerisms planner:

I LOVE this planner! It is made by the lovely Laurie from Plannerisms and Philofaxy, who is amazing, as you will know from reading her blog!
Laurie has written loads of blog posts and made videos about the planner, so I won't repeat here what she said there, but I will show you how I am using it!
I chose the pink one, because although I love the purple one and have been going through a purple phase for a while, pink is my favourite colour, and if I get bored of purple, pink will still always be perfect for me :)
I use it in conjunction with my Filofax. They each have distinct purposes, but are partners-in-planning :)

I am using my Plannerisms planner (a.k.a. Plpl) for forward planning. I used to be terrible at this. At university, I only ever planned 1 day in advance. OK, it was very detailed planning, on Filofax DPP pages, and it got me through university, but it's a bit crazy that I didn't have a mental picture of anything more than 24 hours in advance! So now I have decided that I need to plan at least 1 week in advance! In fact, I would like to have some sort of picture of at least a couple of months in advance, even if it's just for goals. After all, a chess grand master sees at least 10 moves ahead, doesn't he? This is where my lovely Plpl comes in!

Forward planning on a bigger perspective: Goals!-
Laurie has focused a lot on goal planning in her planner, and on her blog- check out her latest posts about how to use the Plpl for goal planning! So she has included yearly goal planning pages, quarterly goal pages, then after each monthly grid, monthly goal planning pages. Goal planning is new for me, but it is something that I am trying to work out at the start of this year, to go with my resolutions. So I am going to figure out some yearly goals for 2013, then break them down quarterly and then monthly, which will give me a picture of what I should be trying to do in each month. So now I can see a month or 2 ahead a bit more clearly!

This month so far I have decided to focus on 2 things: sorting out my (extremely messy and cluttered) bedroom, and planning/organisation. These are goals, but they break down like projects. I will tick the check boxes once I have done them. I will probably copy out these lists into my Filofax too!
So writing my goals (and the steps to achieve them) gives me a picture of what to do in January to make progress. I think I will kind of use this as a 'theme' for January, with many of the activities planned on my weekly pages working towards my goals! I haven't decided whether to use the monthly grid to plan these goal activities, but I might do that :)


Recurring tasks scheduler-
I am using the lovely and big monthly grids of my Plpl to schedule my recurring tasks. I tend to forget when I last did certain household chores that don't need doing everyday, like changing my bed, so I'm not very good at planning when they need to be done next. So I am using this monthly grid to plan when these recurring tasks need to be done.

In the left-hand column, I have listed the recurring items that I need to schedule. These are things like Filofax previews/reviews; tidying/cleaning my room, cleaning my bathroom, and changing my bed; blog posts; and also when my cat's claws need clipping next. In my Filofax I have a similar list, with a note of how frequently these tasks need to be done, e.g. every 6 weeks, once per month, every 2 weeks etc. Some things happen on the same day every week, like weekly Filofax previews and reviews, which is every Sunday night.
So at the end of every month I am going to plan my recurring tasks for the next month. I will look at the list in my Filofax, look at the previous month to see when those items were last done, and work out a general time when they need to be done this month (e.g. around the start of the 3rd week). Then I try to work out precisely when they should be done:
I circle the day's number in either purple or brown to signify if it's a day off or if I'm working, and then if I am working that day, I write my working hours next to it. This means that I know how much free time I have in that day, so I know how much or little to schedule. Then I schedule the recurring tasks onto specific days! I haven't finished this month because I have been so busy planning everything else, but I will get it done soon.


Weekly forward planner-
One of the best things about the Plannerisms planner is the weekly layout.

I love the weekly structure because you can divide up the columns however you like. They aren't divided up for you, the planner doesn't tell you what you should write in certain sections, it is completely up to you.
This is how I have arranged this week's pages:

I haven't finished planning this week yet, it's still in progress. I have to hurry up and do it, because it's not forward planning if I don't get it done ahead of time!

In the space at the bottom of the page, I write down what I want to focus on that week, taken from my goals for that month.

This is how I divide up the daily columns:
I use the left-hand column to write labels for the sections/blocks I have divided the columns into.
The main part of the columns is basic scheduler, which is 3 blocks of 3 lines each, 1 block each for morning (waking up time to 12pm), afternoon (12pm to 6pm) and evening (6pm to bed time). This is where I do basic time-block planning for the day. First I write my work shifts, and then I write other things for the rest of the day. I don't do precise scheduling unless things have a proper time to be done, like a meeting- otherwise, I just schedule things for a general period of the day, like morning or afternoon. Basically, that task should be finished by the time the next period begins. Any more precise time planning will go into the DPP inserts in my Filofax, which have half-hourly appointment slots.
Under that I have listed TV programmes to watch on that day, and a little bit of note space.
Then I have the most important section: my 'Focuses'. This is where I write the 3 things that I should focus on most in the day, taken from my focuses for the week. I added this section late, so it's at the bottom of the columns, but really it should be more prominent, so for next week I put it at the top of the columns. I decide my focuses for the day based on either my weekly focuses section, or the recurring tasks from the day's square in my monthly grid. Then I use the focuses section of those weekly columns to plan more specifically what I'm going to do on each day of that week, which goes into the basic scheduler.
At the bottom I have some space for notes, and then a space where I record how many drinks of water I have in a day. I am really bad at drinking, I get really dehydrated, but I find that if I record it that I drink more. However, this isn't really a place to record things (my Plpl is a forward planner, not a recorder), so I don't think I will put this in here for the future weeks.


So that's how I use my Plannerisms Planner!


Part 2 will be up soon, about how I am using my Filofax!

Late-night realisation!

It's 1:05 here in the night/morning, and I have realised something! Yes, my brain does work this late at night (when it is supposed to be fast asleep, whoops!!)

When me and my brother were little, my mum used to comment on an invisible being called Mr or Mrs I-Want. Mainly, she talked about it when once of us (mostly my brother, the most materialistic person I know!) started saying "Mum, I want this", "Mum, I want that". Not "May I have...", "I would like...", but demanding "I want...". My brother is not a polite person. Actually, come to think of it, I probably never got told off for Mrs I-Want coming to the surface of my Id (Freud!), because I find it VERY difficult to ask people for things like objects and money, even on my birthday and Christmas. Seriously, ask me what I want  for Christmas from you, and I will squirm in my seat and not look you in the eye, and mutter that, quite possibly, it would be nice to have X. Oh, those awkward phone calls asking my mother for money at uni when I was close to the hellish end of my overdraft.

But that doesn't stop Mrs I-Want from materialising inside my head. Currently, I WANT a plum personal Osterley. No, let me change that- every fibre of my Id is saying I neeeeed a plum personal Osterley!!! Fortunately, Ego and Superego are helping to reign Id in, and I haven't bought one, or (awkwardly) asked for one for Christmas... YET!

Anyway, this brings me to the point of this blog post!

Last week I won Filofax's twitter Win Wednesday competition! The prize was an Osterley!... in Orange!!!

Orange, like the orangest of oranges!!!

It's gorgeous!!! It's certainly not a colour I would have picked myself- I'm not an orange person- but it's absolutely gorgeous!!!
It has some fantastic features (which I will tell you about another time), but this competition prize has just shown me how amazing the Osterley is... and has made me want the plum Osterley even more!!!

But the practical side of my brain is stopping me from buying the plum Osterley! I don't have the money, I don't need another Filofax... blah blah blah! Mrs I-Want is saying to me "But you could have the plum for Autumn/Winter and the orange for Spring/Summer!! Look at the beautiful colour of the plum, and the pretty pink stitching!! Wouldn't this amazing filofax be EVEN better in a colour you actually LIKE!!"

But... Imy said something to me the other day, while I was professing my love for her plum Osterley and saying I really wanted one of my own- she said "But don't you already have an Osterley?"

Yes. I do.

And why isn't that good enough?? OK, it's not a colour I would have chosen, and it's not very Christmassy or Wintery, but it's a binder tonnes of people would love to own, and I got it for FREE!! Why am I wanting another one? Why isn't this sufficient? Is it just the colour? Or is it Mrs I-Want?



But, strangely, the more I use it, the more I am falling in love with this binder! I am forgetting that it is bright orange, and starting to fall in love with its... personality?? (if Filofaxes can have a personality!!) I think that it is such a strange colour that in 5 years time it will be so unusual that it will be a classic filofax that people crave and wish they had bought when they were released. Like those bright red strange leathered Winchesters, of which you can find rare and drool-worthy photos on the internet!
Would I love a plum Osterley as much? Maybe if I had got one before this one, or if the competition prize had been the plum, then totally! But I feel that if I get a plum, it might not seem as... special as this one! It would be my perfect filofax... for a few weeks, until I got bored of it! Oh, fickle brain!!

So I have been thinking about my thought processes and logic behind all this. How can I love a filofax that I didn't really like more than a filofax that I (or Mrs I-Want) really really wanted? I have been watching a lot of Big Bang Theory, so don't mind me while I try to put this into a semi-scientific formula!

When I want something I really really want 100%, I can't stop thinking about it (like an iphone, which I wanted for years), and substitutes or alternatives won't suffice (like that cheapo Nokia I bought instead), I HAVE to have the thing I have been wanting for ages, or nothing at all. And it's all good when I get it.

But, when I get (as an impulse purchase, as a present or competition prize etc) something that I haven't been thinking about too much and I haven't been obsessing about (like my orange Osterley), and it works perfectly, I strangely find myself loving it all the more.

After a while, I don't love the thing I have been obsessing about so much when it works perfectly, because I always expected it to work perfectly, so when it does, it isn't a surprise or special to me. 

But, when something that I didn't expect to be perfect for me does work perfectly, I love it even more, possibly even more than the thing I actually really really wanted!

Case-in-point: my A5 red Domino filofax. This was one of the early filofaxes I bought. I bought this particular one because it was my first A5, which I needed for uni, but it was cheap and I didn't want to spend tonnes on a leather A5 (even though I really wanted the A5 Kendal), because this size might not work for me. Actually, Rufus (my A5 red Domino's name!) worked great for me! 

So everything's good, right?

No. For some reason, after a while with one of these not-obsessed-about binders, I find myself disliking them. There's nothing wrong with them, they just aren't... right. Cue part 2 of my realisation:

I suddenly realise that it isn't what I always wanted (e.g. a really nice leather A5, instead of a cheap Domino), it isn't my ideal thing I have dreamed about, and even if it's perfect for me, I start resenting it, and wish I had the perfect thing that I (retrospectively) realise I should have got instead/in the first place!

I start not liking Rufus. No Rufus, it's not you, it's me!!! It's not anything thing he's done, or anything about him- he works great- the perfect size, light weight, great rings, etc etc- it's about what he isn't. He just ISN'T that gorgeous leather filofax I have been looking at online. He isn't... perfect... even when he is working perfectly for me!

So how do I stop this? How do I prevent myself from becoming this way with my gorgeous orange Osterley? It isn't want I truly wanted, the plum one (through no fault of its own!)... I could still start resenting it! How do I secure my love for Orangesterley (gosh, it needs a better name than this!!)?

Well, here's a (long) mantra I have made for myself!

If something is working perfectly for me,

THEN IT IS WORKING PERFECTLY FOR ME!!!

I shouldn't have to change it just because it's not the ideal I imagined!

So, I can't let myself get to the point where I start resenting my filofax!! I must stop it before it starts!!

Actually, this is all a good life lesson. Nothing's perfect. But I can't suddenly abandon things just because they aren't what I wanted them to be. I can't dump a potentially great future husband because he leaves the toilet seat up or something (although, eww!!). Suck it up, live with it, and see the positives!! And don't let my thought process become negative!!