Fine-tuning the Filofax
The best thing about using a Filofax is that it can develop and change with you. You become as one; complementing each other. Literally, in some cases. I have been known to write love letters to myself in mine on occasion.
I've been using three filofaxes recently and you may remember I waved a sad goodbye to the fourth earlier this year. He (yes, male, he was brown) is now living a much happier life over in Manchester. I've since been using my Yellow Hearts (Personal) to organise my Open University study, my Personal Chameleon in Spring Green as my writing journal and my Black A5 Metropol as my everyday work/home diary.
But it's not working out *sad face* and I have been trying to think how to resolve this.
The Yellow Hearts Filofax is doing its job. That stays.
The A5 is great as it is a zipped filofax. It has stacks of ring room and pocket space and my sectional order really works for me. But I am spending more time office bound and it has become a little bit too bulky to carry around. It starting to act as a second handbag as every single scrap of paper is shoved in and zipped out of sight in a "I'll deal with that later" type of way. I also have a desk diary and a BOAT (Book Of All Things... sshh... humour me) at work.
I am using my writing journal more and more at the moment and trying to amalgamate the necessary information into each diary is taking too much time. It is counter-productive. However, I love the feel of the Chameleon and it is the perfect size to carry around. It feels comfortable in my hand and fits perfectly into my bag.
I also think that some of my issue is the diary insert I chose at the beginning of the year. I ordered the same one for all my diaries from Filofax UK - the week-per-page-with-notes. I use the diary section on my filofax almost constantly, especially when combining work and home so when I saw that the diary refills were on the left hand side of the rings (and the notes on the right) I found it really difficult to write my appointments and schedules on the dates. My hand kept bumping into the rings.
I also tried to feed this information back to Filofax UK on three separate occasions but they have ignored me. That's the first time I've been disappointed with their customer service. I didn't want freebies or refunds - just to let them know how I, a regular customer, felt about one of their new products.
There has to be a solution though, doesn't there? I saw that Miss Peabody was pointing people in the direction of some discounted Dodo Pad products on eBay - £1.50 for a 2011 diary refill. I have never tried a Dodo Pad refill before but have seen people like Laurie mention them on numerous occasions. Seriously, have a look at them. They are well planned out, have funny little anecdotes, cartoons and snippets of information and they are laid out with the notes section on the left of the rings and the diary on the right.
I have incorporated all my information into the Chameleon and will be using just the one Filofax for the time being to see how I feel about it. The green and cream (almost) theme is still in place and I have slightly adapted the sections:
I've been using three filofaxes recently and you may remember I waved a sad goodbye to the fourth earlier this year. He (yes, male, he was brown) is now living a much happier life over in Manchester. I've since been using my Yellow Hearts (Personal) to organise my Open University study, my Personal Chameleon in Spring Green as my writing journal and my Black A5 Metropol as my everyday work/home diary.
But it's not working out *sad face* and I have been trying to think how to resolve this.
The Yellow Hearts Filofax is doing its job. That stays.The A5 is great as it is a zipped filofax. It has stacks of ring room and pocket space and my sectional order really works for me. But I am spending more time office bound and it has become a little bit too bulky to carry around. It starting to act as a second handbag as every single scrap of paper is shoved in and zipped out of sight in a "I'll deal with that later" type of way. I also have a desk diary and a BOAT (Book Of All Things... sshh... humour me) at work.
I am using my writing journal more and more at the moment and trying to amalgamate the necessary information into each diary is taking too much time. It is counter-productive. However, I love the feel of the Chameleon and it is the perfect size to carry around. It feels comfortable in my hand and fits perfectly into my bag.
I also think that some of my issue is the diary insert I chose at the beginning of the year. I ordered the same one for all my diaries from Filofax UK - the week-per-page-with-notes. I use the diary section on my filofax almost constantly, especially when combining work and home so when I saw that the diary refills were on the left hand side of the rings (and the notes on the right) I found it really difficult to write my appointments and schedules on the dates. My hand kept bumping into the rings.
I also tried to feed this information back to Filofax UK on three separate occasions but they have ignored me. That's the first time I've been disappointed with their customer service. I didn't want freebies or refunds - just to let them know how I, a regular customer, felt about one of their new products.
There has to be a solution though, doesn't there? I saw that Miss Peabody was pointing people in the direction of some discounted Dodo Pad products on eBay - £1.50 for a 2011 diary refill. I have never tried a Dodo Pad refill before but have seen people like Laurie mention them on numerous occasions. Seriously, have a look at them. They are well planned out, have funny little anecdotes, cartoons and snippets of information and they are laid out with the notes section on the left of the rings and the diary on the right.
I have incorporated all my information into the Chameleon and will be using just the one Filofax for the time being to see how I feel about it. The green and cream (almost) theme is still in place and I have slightly adapted the sections:
- Diary
- Address Book
- Personal Information
- Blog Notes
- Writing Prompts
- Paper Blanks
It feels like Cinderella's slipper. I want to slap my thigh, cry "IT FITS!" and burst into song.