Filofaxes for swap!!

Hi guys!

I am undergoing a bit of a planner overhaul at the moment! Most exciting, I have a new planner, which I will tell you about very soon!
I realised that I haven't been using a lot of the Filofaxes I have in my collection. Therefore, I sold 5 of my lesser-used filos, gave 1 away, and still have 1 for sale! So now I want to overhaul the rest of my filos. I realised that I want to use my filos for my projects and hobbies, and A5-sized Filofaxes are perfect for this, rather than personal size- so therefore there are lots of personal-sized filos which are going to be neglected!

As a result, I have taken the decision to put up most of my personal filos for swap for A5 Filofaxes. I have to emphasise:

These Filofaxes are my beloved Filos!!

I love them a lot, and it is a hard thing for me to let them go!

Therefore, I will only accept A5 Filofaxes that I really want! Please don't be insulted if I don't want to swap one of my personal Filos for the one you are offering; I am very picky!!

The Filofaxes I will consider swapping are:

Personal Plum Osterley

Personal Purple Malden

Personal Wine Holborn

Personal Raspberry Chameleon

Personal Aqua Chameleon

Personal Red Amazona

These Filofaxes are not for sale, only for swap!

There are some Filofaxes I am not considering swapping; these include my favourite Ochre Malden personal.

I would like in exchange:

A5 leather Filofaxes. I'm pretty open about which models! (However, I already have an A5 Ochre Malden, A5 Purple Malden, A5 Raspberry Chameleon, and A5 Red Amazona, so I don't need those!)

No non-leather (e.g. Domino or Metropol) Filos, please!

Must be in good (or better) condition! MUST have good rings!

A large, brown (or 5th Anniversary) Midori Traveler's Notebook

To get in contact:

Please don't use the comments box here (or twitter or facebook) to propose a swap- it's too difficult to communicate like that! Instead, please email me at bernasconiray [at] hotmail [dot] com. 

Via email I can send you more photos, tell you about the condition of the filos, and we can chat properly!

Thanks guys!

Mini-update, and plannerness...

Hi guys!

I've been quiet the past couple of weeks- my life has been crazy busy. I'm volunteering at my local museum now, which is amazing; and also my brother is ill at the moment, after having a (scheduled) operation last Friday, but since then he had to go to A+E twice this week in mini-emergencies. It's been stressful and jam packed full of medical things (clinics, pharmacies, nurses) every day, but hopefully he's on the mend.

Anyway, I just wanted to write a quick note to say that at the moment my planner-use is in flux. I have a new planner which I haven't shown you yet. It's A5, it's leather... but it's not a Filofax! I have named her 'Dora'- you will understand when I tell you about her! I will show you her soon!
I'm still in the process of setting up my new planner and customising it, and I can't wait to do a video for you, hopefully ready for next Thursday's post (depending on how busy I am this week).

I'm also thinking about an improved way I can use my Plannerisms planner. At the start of this year I told you about how I was using it. It was working great, and taught me how to forward-plan, in particular for my projects, hobbies and goals. But recently I have been neglecting it, in particular forgetting to check it regularly. As a result (or maybe because I have been so busy with important life things this week), I have been neglecting my projects and goals! I realised I need to adjust how I use it, by using it to plan out my projects more precisely. I'll do a post on that as soon as I'm happy with it!


Good night!! 

Filofaxes for Sale!

Bonjour!

I've decided to sell some of my beautiful Filofaxes, ones which I haven't used recently, and need a good home!!
I'm unemployed at the moment, so I really need the money!

All prices exclude P+P. I'm open to buyers around the world, but postage will cost more!

If you would like to buy one, or would like more photos or details, please email me at bernasconiray at hotmail dot com! Thanks!


Personal Teal Finchley    SOLD

This Filofax is absolutely gorgeous! She is in excellent condition, and is very rare to buy now!

I am open to offers for this beauty, although I have a reserve in my head! 

Personal Chili Cuban Zipped

Only 2 words are needed for this filo: 30mm Rings!!! It's in good condition, but there are some dents (2 small on the front and 2 on the back) from the previous user.

I'm looking for £45 for this filo, plus p+p, or nearest offer.


Personal Navy Portland     SOLD

This is such a gorgeous Filofax, with amazing supple leather, and as it's vintage, it's very rare nowadays! This filo is in used condition- she was well-loved by the previous owner, with a dent on the back where she was lovingly held in someone's hand for years!

I am open to offers for this beautiful vintage filo!


Personal Red Butterfly   SOLD

Good condition, but with some damage to the clasp (before I bought it). Therefore it's going for a cheap price!

Just £10 plus p+p!

Pocket Brown Kendal     SOLD

Great condition! He lays perfectly flat, and has gorgeous soft leather! This little filo is getting rarer by the day on the web! 

I'm looking for £20 plus p+p, or nearest offer!


Pocket Pink Botanic    Going to a Philofaxer's little girl!

Excellent condition! A great little filo!

I'm looking for £10 plus p+p for her!

Mini Caramel Finchley     SOLD

And last but not least, is my 2nd ever Filofax! She's so cute and lovely! Excellent condition! Hard to find now, very rare!

I'm looking for £30 plus p+p, or nearest offer!

Planner Paradox: Filofaxes- A bit of a moan on youtube!

Hi guys! 10 days since I last posted, woops!!


Today I made a youtube video. It's a bit ranty/moany (are those words? They look wrong!!), in which I'm waffling to the camera about my planner paradox!

Basically, I realised that my 'hobby' (*read: obsession) of Filofaxes and all things planner-related is taking up way too much of my time, instead of my planner doing what it should be doing, helping me to organise my time, and do things that I need to do! I can spend most of my day online, watching youtube videos, reading blog posts etc, thinking about the perfect planner, The Perfect System, instead of realising that I already have a system that is perfect for me, and using my Filofax to help me get on with my day and do the things I need to do!

Talking to people about this on facebook, it seems like a couple of other people do this too!
As Steve (Philofaxy King) said, send in the men with white coats! *joking*; but I think my video does seem a bit like a cry for help!
Maybe we should start a Filofax Counselling group? FA (Filofaxers Anonymous) anyone? My place, 30th February*, tea and biscuits at the ready? ;b


Anyway, here it is for your delectation:

*P.S. Check your Filofax...

Online Petition: Filofax ring mechanisms

Hi guys!

If you have been reading Philofaxy's Free For All Friday or the Philofaxy Facebook group, you may have seen my (rather moany) complaint about Filofax's ring mechanisms:

I am sick of Filofax ring problems. I have a few with misalignments and mild paper snagging, in particular my personal Holborn in Wine, A5 Malden in purple, personal Amazona red, and latest my personal Osterley in plum. The rings on my Osterley weren't bad, until one day I opened and closed them to put some paper in, and I noticed 0.5mm gaps in some of the rings! It wasn't like this the night before!

Every time I see my misaligned rings, or hear other people talking about them, it completely knocks my confidence about my Filofaxes, and kills my trust in Filofax as a brand and the quality of their products. I take good care of my binders, but I am scared to use them. I think the problem with my plum Osterley happened because I dropped it (a couple of feet and on carpet), and the next time I opened the rings, they started gapping. I am also worried that if I buy one online (after they have supposedly gone through Filofax's 'Quality Control'(!), they are going to get damaged in the post, which is what has happened to at least 2 of mine, and countless belonging to other people.

All in all, I am scared to use and rely on my Filofaxes, at least away from my desk or coffee table. I know they are 'luxury' goods, but I don't think I should have to be scared to carry it around with me for fear of doing something which accidentally causes the rings to misalign further! I have returned faulty filos to Filofax UK in the past, but have just received faulty ones in return! (Or, at least, they were damaged in the post!)
We pay a LOT of money for these items, and should get QUALITY in return!! Is that too much to ask, Filofax?
I am seriously considering just using a bound planner instead- in fact, I would happily buy one today, if the concept of a Filofax wasn't brilliant! If I could make my own customisable planner using treasury tags or something, I would! Actually, I have an A5 Staples ring binder- I might start using that, with Philofaxy diary and files printed and punched!!



Filofax seem to be oblivious to these problems, even with all of the Filofaxes that have been returned to them because of faulty ring mechanisms in recent years!

So I decided to make a petition to inform them of these problems and protest against them. Please sign my petition (it takes 1 minute!), all of your support matters! If you have faulty Filofaxes, please could you list them in the 'Comments' part of the petition form.
Soon I will send it to Filofax, and I will let you know their response!

Here is the link to the petition!


Thanks everyone!!

Learning multiple foreign languages- help please!!

Hi guys! I would really value your opinions on my topic here!!


I am currently trying to learn German from scratch by myself (from books and a vocab CD), and am also revising Middle Egyptian and need to start revising French soon, too.
I am finding that it gets a bit overwhelming and confusing learning (or revising) more than one language simultaneously. Especially when there are different rules in the grammar between the languages, I am worried that I will get confused over which rules apply to which language! So I am wondering whether those of you who have learnt multiple (2+ foreign languages) recommend learning just 1 at a time, or is there another method you can recommend?

Some background:
Until Year 10, my schools didn't teach languages well. They didn't teach us language properly, whether it was French or English language classes (rather than English Literature classes), and although I was above my age-range in my reading level and loved creative writing, I couldn't tell you what an adjective or a verb was! In French (and then in Spanish in Year 9), all we learnt was (mostly useless) set phrases "Je joue au foot", "J'aime mon chat" etc.

Then, just before Year 10, my family and I moved to France. Although I went to an International School, where the main language was English (even the Spanish, French, Italian etc students had to speak English to attend this school), in French classes we weren't allowed to speak English at all. My poor French teacher had to deal with lots of different-level (beginner to almost fluent) French-as-a-foreign-language students, so the classes weren't custom-made for me, but I loved learning it, in particular the grammar. I wasn't brilliant at French, but the grammatical skills I learnt in French class at school in Years 10-11, and in Years 12 and 13 (French A-Level) in school back in the UK set the foundations for me to be able to learn other languages.

In my undergraduate university degree, we had to learn Middle Egyptian (Hieroglyphs), which obviously you can't exactly have a GCSE or A-Level in as a foundation! We had excellent teachers, world experts, who have literally written the book on it! It was so much fun to learn, and being a very different language to either English or French (obviously), that added an extra layer of challenge to it! At the start of my MA, I also learnt Old Egyptian (which has slightly different grammatical rules to Middle Egyptian). In my university degrees, I really learnt HOW to learn a language.


I am trying to teach myself German, because along with French, it is one of the primary languages of Egyptology. I am learning it from books (I have an amazing German grammar book), and also have a cheap CD from Aldi with German vocab, which I will mainly use to help me learn how to pronounce German words. I'm also revising Middle Egyptian and should start revising French too soon!
I'm not struggling to learn or revise these languages, and I don't need something like Rosetta Stone (wayyyy too expensive!!). I just want to know whether I should only learn one at once- which I am reluctant to do, because I think if I postpone learning one, I will never get back into it- or if there is another way to separate them in my mind, so I don't get confused with them!!

So what do you think?

Thanks!!

Lists, lists, and more lists!!

Does anyone else find that their life (i.e. Filofax) condenses down to a long series of lists?
This is what I am finding more and more as I look through my Filofax.

I have to say, my Filo is the most developed and mature it has been for a while. This is mostly in my 2nd section, 'Organisation', because since I restarted using my Filofaxes around Christmas (after all my planner fail) I have tried hard to get my life sorted inside my Filofax, and the way I naturally do that is to write many lists!. I also stopped splitting things between my filos, for example I had lists in both my personal which I use on a daily basis, and my A5 Purple Malden which I hadn't opened for months!!!, so I decided to put them into my life-in-one-place personal. I also made an effort to get other things down on paper that were floating about in my head, that needed to be written down, in order for me to maintain my sanity!!

I LOVE lists- I think very linearly, so they really help me to get my thoughts on paper. And most importantly, they really work for me!

Here's a list of the lists!! that I have in my filo:

• A list of the sort of things I should include in my Organisation section 

• My 2013 resolutions 

Not finished yet

• A rough list of my 2013 goals (still in progress of deciding what they should be)
• A diagram of how I should break my yearly goals down into weekly tasks (not really a list!)

• A list of my morning routine actions
• My night routine actions
• A list of monthly recurring tasks to help me in planning my monthly actions
• Things to consider putting into my weekly planning in my Plannerisms planner
• A list of things to do when doing my daily 10 minutes of quick tidying in my room
• My master to-do list
• January to February goal of sorting my room out- list of things to do
• A quick list of my projects
• A list of next actions for sorting out my itunes
• A list of things that are currently in process/in progress
• A list of things that I must keep in mind or remember
• A list of things that are currently on my mind (so I can brain dump and not worry about them!)
• Waiting For list
• The ubiquitous shopping list!
• Wish list (things I want but shouldn't buy yet!)
• A list of blog post ideas/posts to do
• Vlogs to do
• My bucket list

Definitely a work-in-progress! I'm leaving room for other things

• Books I want to read
• Recommendations of books from other people
• Favourite books/series/authors
• A list of my favourite TV programmes
• TV programmes to check out
• A list of fun things to do when I am bored
• A list of wages from my old job, to check against my bank balance
• A list of things to do when I go to London!

And then in my Reference section I even have a list of things to consider taking with me when I leave the house, and other stuff like that!

So my life really does condense down to lists!

But I also realise that lists, lists and more lists wouldn't work for me for daily planning. I am the sort of person who stops seeing/reading things when they look boring or the same every day. So if I were just to rely on all of my lists to get me to do what I need to do (such as just looking at my master to-do list for things I should do today), I would ignore them all, and instead do what I want!

I am also the sort of person who needs some sort of time reference for my day. I can easily lose hours of my day by being engrossed in something, not realising where my day has gone, and therefore not getting the stuff done in the time I should have done it in! As I have a linear brain, I find the best tool for me to organise my time is a diary insert with appointment slots. This means that I can visualise my time, when to do the things I need to do, and when  I have free time in between those things in which I can do the things I want to do!

I use DPP inserts because although I have a set of 2013 WO2P with appointment slots, there isn't enough space on them, they only go up to 4pm, and they don't have appointment slots for the weekend. The reason I don't use regular WO2P is that I know it would just turn into a day space filled with lists, and no time reference, so it would just turn to mush in my brain!

I do make lists (to-dos) on my DPP, in the right-hand column, but the most important thing for me, to actually make me get things done, is to schedule a time to do them in the appointment slots, or at least in the general time frame (early afternoon, late evening etc).

I sometimes don't stick to these appointment time slots, but at least if I have them written down and visible, it shows me that I don't have all the time in the world to do what I want, and I have to get things done by a certain time today!