Filo Families

Ahh, collecting and collections. What criteria have I used? All the Filofaxes I have collected have fallen into categories - the first being 

Types 

Meet the Original family - all different colours and all A5, named - Hobbies, Projects, Recipes and Learning.

 The children too are all different colours and named - Page Design, Next year, Spare Pages and More Spare Pages.

 

The next family are Piazzas named - Christmas, Pink Spare, Archive and Dividers.

 

Here we have the Maldens named - Contatct Information, Daily, Brain Dump and Take Me Out. They are all the same colour.

 

My next category is 

Styles 

  

Only one small family here and they are the Pocket Zips named - In the Shopping Trolley and Down the Pub.

 

My final category is Black and some of the members are imposters. Only two are genuine Filofaxes - Big Daddy, who is only just on the picture on the right. He is also known as Home. Is neighbour working along is a Filofax Active named Travel. Middle boy is Lists and next to him is Pill Holder. On the far left meet Sling Me, so named because I added a shoulder strap. He also holds a phone and my spray. Top baby looks like a Mini but is actually Mobile Holder. He's very useful as he also holds my bus pass, timetables and notes.

 

 

So there they are all useful or handy or beautiful or any combination of the 3. I'm sure I could find more 'families' out there as I'm always looking for Filos that speak to me (buy me, buy me), but I'd better stop now, otherwise I'll run out of living space.

Happy Planning

FFF 12

I'm forever changing content, planners, pages and layouts but that's a positive rather than a negative thing. It shows that I'm tackling all areas of my life and planning for a future rather than standing still. When I stop planning and doing then I should worry.

Happy Planning

A simple Week on One Page - 3

Each week I am featuring one example of an alternative, simple WO1P, drawn out easily in a few minutes. I am no artist and no designer but I wanted something 'completely different' for every week of the year. These are just experimental pages and may work or may not. There are no dates here apart from the first page. The paper I am using is recycled from old sketch books and the patterns on the opposite page are taken from a colouring book from the Pound Shop. All the pages are in my black, personal Original and I wanted to keep everything simple and in black and white. The ideas are mine but some are very simple takes on pages I have viewed on the net. None are direct copies. Some pages have the reverse design on the back. I first mentioned my black Original in this post.

Week 3

This design is on black thin card, the metallic marker used is from Lidl who were selling craft, seasonal items last week. They also have some Christmassy washi type tape. I found that the grey metallic looked more white than the white metallic.

Happy Planning

The same or different?

Whoop, whoop the post has arrived.

And what have you bought this time?

Well - it's a purple pocket Malden zip.

Right  - and haven't you got one like that already?

Yes but this one is similar but definitely different.

Hmm!

This one's a different colour for a start ...

… and it's made of leather, whereas the other one is not. They are the same size and I shall use them both as purses.

The zip pulls are the same shape and both are compact and of simple design.

However the back pockets are a different shape ...

and the inside pockets are different too. Both have elasticated pen loops and ...

both have identical inside purses.

Both are very roomy with lots of card slots and a coin zip compartment.

So they are similar but different at the same time. I love the Pennybridge as it's handy and I use it when I need to pop a purse into my bag. I shall use the Pennybridge for summer and the Malden for winter. There! I need two purses which are similar and different.

Right - I've justified my purchase now and I'll just sit this Malden on my knee and give it a stroke. Whoop, whoop!

Happy Planning

PS And the smell is just divine.

A simple Week on One Page - 2

Each week I am featuring one example of an alternative, simple WO1P, drawn out easily in a few minutes. I am no artist and no designer but I wanted something 'completely different' for every week of the year. These are just experimental pages and may work or may not. There are no dates here apart from the first page. The paper I am using is recycled from old sketch books and the patterns on the opposite page are taken from a colouring book from the Pound Shop. All the pages are in my black, personal Original and I wanted to keep everything simple and in black and white. The ideas are mine but some are very simple takes on pages I have viewed on the net. None are direct copies. Some pages have the reverse design on the back. I first mentioned my black Original in this post.

Week 2

This is one of my first designs written on card I obtained from here. It's an obvious way of using a page and I wanted no space to be wasted with boxes or pattern. If all the lines get filled in then the space in the pattern page can be used for odd notes. If colour is required the pattern page is there for the colouring. Lidl have some metallic marker pens in this week in white and grey. I think I'll have a go at some black pages with white writing - they should match my theme.

Happy Planning

FFF 11

If I put something on my To Do List I have to do it or complete it. If I don't put it on my To Do List I feel I don't have to do it or complete it. I've started to 'not put' things I don't want to do on the list. This is bad.

Happy Planning

A simple Week on One Page - 1

Each week I shall feature one example of an alternative, simple WO1P, drawn out easily in a few minutes. I am no artist and no designer but I wanted something 'completely different' for every week of the year. These are just experimental pages and may work or may not. There are no dates here apart from the first page. The paper I am using is recycled from old sketch books and the patterns on the opposite page are taken from a colouring book. All the pages are in my black, personal Original and I wanted to keep everything simple and in black and white. The ideas are mine but some are very simple takes on pages I have viewed on the net. None are direct copies. Some pages have the reverse design on the back. I first mentioned my black Original in this post.

Week 1

Happy Planning

Filofaxers who lunch

Having a local pub within staggering distance is very tempting each week especially as this local features craft beers. Last time we ventured in we had a look at the beer festival guide which listed all the different beers available over a certain period.

List - aha! What do we do with lists, I wonder? This one ended up in my out and about Fauxdidodi Filofax. In order for it to fit I trimmed it top and bottom and hole punched the sides. 

I thought that slitting the holes would allow instant pullout-ability and then another idea sprang to mind.

I cut the pullout slots a lot wider in the middle of the leaflet so that the whole thing could stay in the rings and the pullout section could easily unfold.

On a roll I decided to plonk the lunch menu in too, same punching as before.

We can peruse the menu before we even leave the house now.

Three beers on the Festival list have been 'ticked off' already. Oh dear - it's such a long list but I think we'll enjoy the 'ticking off' on this one!

Happy planning

PS The diet planner will soon be back in action.

FFF 10

My Christmas planner is out and the Gift Section attacked so that present shopping can be spread out over the next few months.

I really shouldn't eat the large Toblerones I buy each week, should I?

Happy Planning

Planner Pages from Bargain Shops

1Koolemom commented in one of my posts and asked me the origin of my inserts in my mini ochre Malden which I was using as a Diet planner. The weight chart here I downloaded off the net and resized when printing in order to fit.

These inserts were shopping pad lists from TKMax, again just cut to size and hole punched.

The weekly notes page is a weekly notes pad from B and M Bargains cut down to size.

The grid paper is cut from a notebook which contained gridded paper.

As you can see I just used cheap printed papers from bargain shops and cut them to size. Hope this helps Koolemom.

Happy Planning

Filofax Kitchen Cupboard Project

I keep a list in the kitchen to note down things to buy as and when I run out. This then becomes my next shopping list. I wanted to go one step further in my list making in order to streamline and optimise the items that I keep in the cupboards and to keep me informed of next purchases ahead of time.

My first step was to produce a Master Grocery List of all the foodstuffs and non-foodstuffs in the kitchen cupboards. From that I wanted to only store the optimum number of each item. e.g. always have one full roll of tin foil for when the one in use runs out or always have 6 tins of tomatoes in the cupboard to last until the next shopping day (We like tinned tomatoes!). I downloaded a sample Master Grocery List and then set about an audit of the kitchen cupboards to see what was in use.

Roughly filling in the Master List gave me an idea of how much of a page I needed to use for each Category. My first task now will be to log what I have so far and work out how many of each item I need to store in the cupboard to last me until the next shopping trip.

Eventually I hope to be able to work out meal plans, freezer rotation and items for the shopping list. I should always know what's in my cupboards and what items need to be used up before their sell by date. Calling this a project gives me a use for these project pages that came with my Westfalia.

I don't know what my system will turn out to be yet but I hope it will eventually work itself out for me. Meanwhile so far ...

Filofax Food Project

Aim:- to streamline grocery shopping, food auditing and meal planning

Plan

* audit cupboards, fridge and freezer

* download Master Grocery List

* Fill in list

*Design own list

*Make pages

*Fill in customised pages

*Trial and review

*Use up superfluous items

*Optimise cupboard contents

*Trial and review

Design in change of routine

*Finalise design pages

*Laminate if needed

Happy Planning

Faux Filo

No, it's not my Personal, Black Original and it's not a Filofax.

No, it's not leather but it is a ring binder with space for 4 cards and a large back pocket.

Yes, it has 2 zips. So what's in the other side?

I'm not letting on yet. Here's what I have in the binder side.

And now to the other zipped side which contains a purse (wallet) with space for coins, more cards and notes.

Loads of room for losing items!

There's more! On the outside are two large pockets, one for a mobile ...

and one large one for - who knows? Keys perhaps. I'm keeping my spray in there at the moment as I need it when I'm out and about.

The make is Westfalia and I can't find any reference to it on the web apart from camper vans and the name of an historical region of Germany.

It matters not as this little binder purse is doing sterling duty as my out and about wallet.

Happy planning

Don't Do it

I put a To Do page in between my WO2P and on it I wrote To Dos that did not have to be done on a certain day. I even slitted the holes so that the list could be moved from week to week until the tasks were done. I've lasted 3 weeks like this but have now decided that splitting up my week with another page is not conducive to productive flow as I cannot see the whole week at one glance. It was very disconcerting as I had to keep turning the To Do page back and forth in order to see the rest of the week or the beginning of the week.

The offending page has been taken out and is now next to my monthly page. Some ideas work, some don't. One system works for a few weeks and then doesn't when circumstances change. The beauty of ringed binders is that pages can be moved at will.

Be prepared

Advanced Planning

I have chosen my Personal Pear Original for my 2017 everyday planner. It's bright, fresh and colourful to welcome a new year.

Already it has in my Monthly dividers ...

with the WO2P that came with it. Hating waste I am going to use these pages even though I'd prefer something different.

To satisfy this desire I'm still trying to come up with 'different' simple designs for a weekly page and storing these in my Personal Black Original. So now I have ...

Very Advanced Planning ...

which may or may not be used for 2018!

Continuing my 'hate waste' habit I've recycled another ear-ring as my dingle-dangle for the Pear.

I'll get back to 2016 now as the best part of the year is yet to come.