Video: My New Planner!

Hi guys!

I've been trying for 2 days to film this video and upload it for you!

At first I used my phone camera, and when I tried to upload it to youtube, it said it would take 240 minutes to upload! So I cancelled the upload, and filmed it again, thinking this would fix the problem- nope! It said it would take around 220 minutes to upload, so I tried to put it through converters, save it in movie maker software to make the size smaller, etc etc... nothing worked. By the time I did all that, it was 4 hours later, and I could have uploaded the first video by then! So I just decided to upload the original to youtube, and 220 minutes later, youtube said it was finished! And when I went to check it... it had squished the video from 15 minutes in length to 4 minutes!!! So I had to delete the video :(
This morning I tried to fix the problem, but I couldn't, so I decided to film it AGAIN using my webcam. That went fine, and only took 23 minutes to upload, but the sound quality is rubbish because my microphone doesn't work very well, so I apologise for that!

I had wanted to publish this post with the video on Thursday, but now it's technically Saturday, so here, FINALLY, is the video of my new planner!!

Filofax vs. bound notebooks- what I'm going to do next! Part 1

NB: My system has changed since this post, so after you read this, please read this later post

Over the past few weeks I have been VERY annoyed with the quality of new Filofaxes. What with my Purple Malden debacle, and the problems with rings, especially in my brand new Holborn personal!! Quite frankly, I'm scared to use my Filofaxes at the moment, especially out and about when I carry them in my handbag! This is where the problems arise- my purple Malden has become really dented through things resting on it in my handbag (although this hasn't happened with any of my other Filofaxes, so I think the leather of the purple Malden is just too soft!), and I have noticed that the already bad rings of my brand new Holborn (it came to me like that) have got worse after an afternoon in my bag! I don't treat them badly- in fact, when I take my filo in my handbag, it sits inside my handbag organiser, in a special compartment, so it's not anywhere near any sharp things like keys etc! But they just get damaged when I take them out with me. I used to always carry my filo in my hand at uni, but when I'm carrying other bags or it's bad weather, I need to put it in a bag. But I'm scared to do so as they are getting damaged!!

Damage to my Purple Malden after one afternoon in my bag!

Yesterday, to try to get ideas to solve my planner fail, I went to Waterstones, who have some nice diaries at the moment. I saw the Moleskine 2013 daily large diary, and I have to say, when I held it in my hand, I really liked the feel of it, how chunky it was, how all the pages were uniform and 'together'. I didn't like it as an actual diary/planner- I have had a Moleskine pocket DPP before and didn't use it much- but I did like how chunky it was. It didn't feel bitty like a Filofax does. But most of all, I liked the thought that it was simple, and straight forward. This isn't just for Moleskine diaries/notebooks, you can say the same about any bound book.
When I got home, I noticed the rings of my Holborn were getting worse, which REALLY ANNOYED ME!!!, and something else struck me about the Moleskine I had looked at earlier- it wouldn't suffer as much damage as my Filofaxes (although I have read about some binding issues with the Moleskines); and also, I wouldn't really care as much if the cover etc got damaged, because I would replace them more frequently, and wouldn't want to keep it forever like my filos. And not to mention, bound planners cost a LOT less than filofaxes!!

So I'm going to start using a bound notebook for my day-to-day stuff. I am still going to use my Filofaxes, BUT they are going to stay at home, safe, where they can't get damaged!!
The way I am going to use the bound notebook is to hold important reference information and lists I will need while I am out and about (shopping lists etc), as a notebook, and a daily planner. BUT I will still use my filos in the same way I am currently using them- my A5 purple Malden for my hobbies/projects, my A5 ochre Malden for my research project (PhD) planner, with a cheaper A5 to take the insides of my A5 ochre Malden to uni (I don't take my ochre A5 to uni through fear of it getting scratched, so I use a cheaper one to take the insides to uni instead), and of course my personal-sized filos for organisation. I am going to use personal weekly diary inserts (probably WO2P from Europe, with appointment times and room for to-dos) as my normal weekly planner, but I won't be doing daily planning in my filo- instead, I will be doing daily planning in my bound notebook.
But now I am thinking, why use personal-sized filofaxes any more? The reason a lot of people use personal rather than A5 is because A5 filos are too big and bulky to carry around with them every day, but when they stay at home, they are great. Well, my filos are going to be staying at home- so maybe I could use an A5 as my organisation filofax! In that case, I don't need as many personal filofaxes as I have, because I won't be using them all the time. However, I will be using some of them, for hobbies, a journal/log-book, a notebook, and there are definitely some I WON'T be selling, because I love them too much! So I'm going to start thinking about selling some of my personals- keep watching my blog for a list of them!

If anyone wants a specific filofax that I have, email me with an offer at bernasconiray at hotmail dot com, and I'll get back to you!

Journal Filofax

I watched Bridget Jones' Diary last night, and it got me thinking about starting up a diary/journal again. The trouble is, I NEVER stick with them. If I start one, I may use it for a couple of weeks, and then I slowly stop... I'm rubbish!! By the time I'm ready for bed I'm too tired to spend time writing in my journal. And because my journal would stay at home, I wouldn't be able to write in it throughout the day as I think of interesting things to say; and I have a bad memory so it's difficult for me to even remember what events happened that day! So I really am not a good journal-writer. I really can't assign a whole, beautiful, expensive notebook or journal to a diary that probably won't even last more than 2 weeks.
Plus, I'm not the sort of person to indulge my feelings like that. I feel like it's a waste of ink and paper for me, as I DEFINITELY don't intend on reading it in the future. But... maybe it will be kind of cathartic for me. Living at home, where I feel like I can't express my opinions or my dad will shout at me (he has his opinions, and I'm not allowed mine if they contradict his, seriously!!), I think I need somewhere to get rid of those pent-up feelings. Somewhere to write with lots of capital letters and exclamation points! Maybe even somewhere to doodle my feelings away. Plus, I kind of like the idea of sitting in my cosy pjs and writing in my diary :)

(minus the alcohol)

I like the idea of the 2 line diary I read about somewhere, where you just summarise your day in 2 lines; but I think that some days I would like a bigger space to write.

So I thought... if I don't want to spend money on a journal or notebook, I should use the resources I already have. And what do I have a LOT of? Filofaxes!!
Just think about it: a journal filofax. I can write as much or as little for a specific day as I want, because the day can expand by putting more paper in. I can even print photos out and put them in there to illustrate a specific day! I can have some doodle pages, maybe write a poem about my day, a gratitude section for each day. Ok, you say, you can do this in any journal! But if my journal doesn't work out... I can just take those pages out and reuse the filo for something else! And I can solve the problem of not having the journal with me throughout the day- I can just use paper in my daily filofax to write my daytime journal entries, and take them out and put them in my journal filofax when I get home. That's the beauty of a filofax, you can take paper out and add it as you like. And if I can't remember what I was doing that day, I was planning to write a log-book for each day anyway; well I can integrate that within my filofax :) And the beauty of the plan: I can use my (at present) unused raspberry personal Finsbury for it! :D Unfortunately, this is in Liverpool and I still have 2 weeks left until I move back, but my journal can live in my Happiness Project filo until then :)