All Stars Tour: Day Planner Development - guest post by Helen

Many thanks to Amanda for giving me a slot on her super blog. I normally blog about books, so it is nice to write about something different!  Like many people I am obsessed by organization and my Filofax.  Also, like many people, I have struggled with the inserts which are on the market, not just from Filofax themselves but from others too. Nothing seems to quite work for me.

As we are coming up to the end of the year, it is that time when we all start to think about what we will use as a diary insert for 2014. This year I have been using a week to view, with not a great deal of success. I had a look back at what I have in my diary, and frankly it is a mess. I decided I need to work out what I was using the diary for, what information I was trying to record, and then in an ideal world how would I record it. From there I might be able to choose a more suitable diary insert for next year.

A review of my entries revealed something quite fundamental. I don’t use my diary inserts for recording appointments.  I am sure I am not the only one in this boat. Outside of work I have few appointments, maybe two or three per week. I don’t put my work appointments in my Filo as they change so often, it is too hard to keep up, and it is all in Outlook at the office anyway. I don’t need to reference that information when I am not at work.Instead, I was using the diary to list tasks that had to be done on a certain day, list things that needed to be done for my own wellbeing, blog ideas, and random notes. It was all very crowded and I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

I started to think about a day per page diary, but I have tried the Filofax ones before, and failed, mainly because the lines are very narrow, and it looks cluttered. I am a bear of very little brain, and I like everything in its place if I am going to stand a chance of keeping on top of everything. It didn’t take long for me to come to the conclusion that I needed to design my own day planner.

Out came some blank pages and a ruler and I started to sketch out what a layout might look like. One of the key items for me to include was a section for my wellbeing. I have learned recently that there are some specific things I need to do, daily if I can, to keep me in good physical and mental shape, and if I write them down, I can see when I am starting to slip. These are part of the Primal lifestyle I lead, and I wanted to put these items at the centre of my daily planner.  I also have on average about ten tasks per day, so needed a big section for this. I then split the rest of the space up to cover other items such as notes, appointments and blogging.

Having drawn up a couple of dummy pages, I trialed them for a week, to see how it worked. It wasn’t a bad first attempt. I tweaked the sizes of the sections to make the notes section a little bigger and reduced the appointments section.  

This is the layout I finally came up with.

I use them in conjunction with my week on two pages, which gives me an overview of the week. In 2014 I may try and reduce this to a week per page, or even a monthly calendar. Each Sunday I sit down and review what is coming up and then put them in my day planner. This is what I have open on my desk all day. I have noticed now that I am much more aware of when I am slipping on my Primalgoals and am much more focused on what needs to be done that day.

Making your own inserts is a great way to really get the most from your pages and here is a summary of how to go about it:

1. Review your current pages to see what is most important to you. How do you record different types of info?

2. Place whatever is most important to you in an area of the page where your eye naturally falls. For me this is the left hand side in the middle. Whenever you look at your page this is what you will see first

3. Think about what sections you need and their relative sizes. I only needed a very small appointment section, you may need the whole of one side of the page

4. Draw a few up layouts by hand and try themout to see if you run out of space in a particular section, or if you don’t use a section at all.

5. Fine tune over time – your needs may change, and changing your inserts to match is the sensible thing to do.

I hope this is useful, and I would love to see what personalized layouts you use!

Thank you so much to Helen for writing this post, she has inspired me to have a go at designing my own inserts before the end of the year!

My little trick with a paper clamp and a notepad slot

I don't like to over stuff my Filofax but I do have a lot of paperwork that I need to keep track of.  I could punch the pages and add them onto the rings but it is usually things that I don't need to keep in there for very long.  It could be bills that I need to pay or letters from school etc that once dealt with shouldn't be taking up valuable space.  

Notepad slot at the back of my Apex

What I do with this paperwork is to clip it all together with a paper clamp like this one.

Clamped letters etc

And hook the back of the clamp into the notepad slot.

Clipped and hooked

Doing this keeps all the paperwork secure in the back of my Filofax.

Everything held in place

I write the date in my diary that the bill needs to be paid or that the school event is and that the paperwork is clipped in the back of the Filofax.  Once it is completed I can remove it from the clamp.

My Filofax with the clamp in the back

Because everything is clipped together if I want to take my Filofax out with me I can easily remove the paperwork without having to search for it and opening up the rings.  This makes my binder a lot lighter!

Light and skinny again

Does anyone else do this?

Pocket size Filofax - a nice surprise

After using my pocket size Chameleon as a purse for a couple of weeks I have made a discovery.   The top opening pocket that came with the binder is actually big enough to hold my mobile phone.

In the pocket

 I had put my phone in the back of the Filofax a couple of times and just closed the clasp to hold it in place but I remembered a post by Tracy (Crazy Suburban Mom) where she had found special cases from Japan that were punched to fit into a binder.  I searched eBay and coming up empty I tried to see if it would fit into a standard clear pocket. 
I have a Nokia Lumia 610 which measures 119.2 x 62.2 x 11.9mm or 4.69 x 2.44 x 0.47in and it fits easily in the top opening pocket even with the thick plastic case I have on the phone to protect it.  The Lumia is 4.6mm or 0.18in shorter than an iPhone 5 but with the extra height of the binder above the clear pocket I think an iPhone would fit ok too. 

The phone is nearly as wide as my inserts

Having my phone in the Chameleon does take up space on the rings but as I'm not using it as my main planner it is fine for me.  I only have a month on two pages diary in there, some note paper and a couple more pockets so its not very full at the minute.  I like having my phone in the Filofax as it keeps everything important together in my bag (purse, phone, pen, diary), it's very handy.  Now if I could only find some way of keeping my keys with it all!


*Disclaimer - I have not tried to see if an iPhone 5 would fit into the top opening pocket (because I don't have one), it is just my opinion that it would probably fit.