Friday 20 April 2012

Moving Back to the A5


Hi all, I am now feeling much more comfortable with my Filofax after suffering a bit of planner fail and the attempted move into my beautiful new A5 Aqua Chameleon.

Please accept my apologies for a very picture heavy post...

My personal Malden was doing a good job for a while (before I wanted to see more than just my daily tasks) and even enabled me to carry my passport and Ausländer Auschweitz everywhere with me (which was handy as it meant I knew where they were at all times - no more hellish search for them when I had to go on a work trip).

I will miss my beautiful Malden

Filofax stickers and donated Moleskine ones peeping out from behind the passport

Week on 2 Pages with To Do list inter-leaved

Annual Planner for Work & Holiday dates

Capture pages
However, it was decided that although I loved the convenience of using the personal size I needed something more, and so it was time to bring in the big guns - A5 style.

To help me in my move to the A5, and as I wanted to continue to have everything in one filo I designed what should have been the perfect 2PPD template for me, with sections for everything that I needed. I would now be able to see each area of my life all on one spread. Undoubtedly this would be the ideal layout for me... if I didn't look at all those sections and just feel overwhelmed by the number of boxes to fill in.

So, back to the drawing board... what are my needs?

Diary - for work and personal appointments/reminders. I know all my work appointments are in Lotus Notes, but I do my planning at home/on the train and prefer to do it on paper, so I need this.

Month to View & Annual Planners - everyone needs to be able to see the longer term, right?

To Do pages - much of my work is task-based and without these my work life would go back to being a complete disaster zone.

Stickers - probably never to be used, but I like to know they are there. One day I will start to use them - I should put that on my list of things to do :o)

101 in 1001 - my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days so that I can review and plan.

Work Hours Log - so I can see if I am achieving my goals to sort out my work/life balance.

Exercise & Food Log - so I can monitor what I eat and how much exercise I do in an attempt to make myself accountable. I intend to include calories burned during exercise too, but need to get a different heart rate monitor to do this as my current one doesn't have this facility on it. Maybe that would make me more determined to get off my butt each day and do it, or work harder when I do...

Motivational Quotes

Project Planning

Addresses

Household Planning (cleaning)

As you may have seen previously I have quite a few inserts already (which has been added to by the recent influx of new filos here and here. So, no more procrastinating about my ideal template, it was time to make use of what I already have...

Starting out with the Red Domino, as I had failed in the Chameleon I couldn't face risking her fragile sensibilities by leaving her open to another failure... and the Domino - 2 huge pen loops, and you never have to feel guilty for trying to force a big pen in there :o)

Business cards, stickers, passport and plenty of extra space. The loose sheets at the front are from the Gretchen Ruben Happiness  Project desktop diary as I have a few days off work and don't want to miss any quotes/tips 

Part of my 101 things in 1001 Days list

Logging my work hours to prove that I am achieving my work/life balance goals from my 101 list

Food & Exercise Log (please don't look too closely - you will see how lazy I have been), courtesy of Lord Dodo. The left hand page has plenty of free space, so this is where I intend to log my motivational quotes, or just ones that make me smile.

Month on 2 pages


Week On 2 Pages with To Do's inter-leaved. I love this format for the WO2P as there is a dividing gap that runs down the centre of the day so I can split between work & personal reminders

Activity planners from Sweden, in theory to use for project planning - we'll see if I manage that one...

Annual Planner stolen straight from the personal. Behind this section I have my addresses. One sheet per letter, but no dividers to split them at the moment, I'm not sure I will as I use them so rarely.

My Indodispensible Data

Card holders and a notepad to use as my capture area
Still a bit of work to do to get my routines in order (including adding a cleaning bit, but I think I may actually use the timetable insert that came with on of the Dominos), but I think I'm getting there. I've been using it every day, so that's an improvement :o)

Ooh - I guess I can cross off the 'write a post re my work Filo' off my 101 list now. It would have been done much sooner with my original A5 setup (which was work only), if I hadn't left it and my laptop on the train... obviously all you Filofax fans out there know where my biggest concerns lay at the time :o)

Although now I have seen Imy's post regarding her pocket filo I am thinking about other options again already...

LJx

4 comments:

  1. I did the same thing, moved back into an A5 even though carrying the smaller one around was so much easier. Its just that the size, although more portable, didnt work.
    Tracy

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  2. I am having trouble right now with sizes. I have all of my stuff in an A5 domino as well, but I am looking for a more portable one to keep in my handbag, so I am going to try out the chameleon slimline...I hope it works. Love the picture heavy post btw...

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  3. I've also recently moved from personal to A5 & am using my filofax so much more! I don't tend to carry my filo around with me, but could see the advantage of getting a pocket or personal slimline in the future :)

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  4. I have to say - it seems to be working, although I've had a few days off work and have forgotten to fill in anything in my food log over the weekend (and there was lots of food...)and I have stuff that I was going to try to get done on my time off which is going to be put off, but not because of planner fail. Just sheer laziness on my part - why waste a perfectly good day off sorting paperwork when I can do that some other time (when I have no time available and will get stressed about the whole thing)? I can see the sorting of the paperwork being postponed for quite a while - ha ha ha!!!

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