Malden Personal Filofax in Ochre

This one's new (I don't buy new very often so this is my Un-Birthday present.) I don't get many Un-Birthdays a year! It smells like a shoe-department.

Yes, it's a Malden - a personal Malden in ochre - an earthy, browny colour.

It's bendy and very tactile and the smell is incredibly leathery.

Ooh, ooh, brand new. I shall just sit and stroke this beauty for a while as I decide on the best way to set it up.

Happy Planning!

Month, Week, Day pages for Filofax

These bargain Weekly To Do sheets have really set me off on trying to design the ideal working set-up for me. I primarily don't want to waste paper, I want to write down only things that are relevant to me and I want the whole process of using my Filofax to be easy and enjoyable.

Idea 1 - use half sheets of A4 paper as a fold out. I sketched (scribbled) out a rough design on some old printed paper - section for day notes at the top left, to do's bottom left and a section for tasks on the right. There's plenty of room to record other things so I know this size of paper would be OK.

Folded over the back could be used for a notes section.

Idea 2 - Put a daily tasks section on the bargain pages and use their notes section as an At A Glance view of the week with dates to the left. Here I've filled in an Ebay watch, a pick up pills day, a funeral and a birthday. Plenty of room. The tasks section has the letters of the days of the week so I can fill in which tasks I've completed. Again there's plenty of room still on this section so I used the bottom of the page for some lettering practice.

My week's going well so far with this set-up. I've put some To Do's (There really shouldn't be an apostrophe there, should there?) To Dos? To Does? (No, that's not right either!) These 'I'd like to get these done' tasks can be done on any day of the week so there's no particular urgency to any of them. Filling up nicely now!

Can you see the water intake column?

The back side of the page I used for notes - in this case a recipe and some language homework.

The page then reminded me of some examples of organiser pages I've seen on the Internet where things pull out all over the place so …

Idea 3 - on the back of my bargain page why not have a monthly planner on a side that's coming up to a new month. This can then open out and be seen with the weekly planner. Hey, hey, hey! In the spare space I put a Monthly To Do heading so 'goals for the month' can be listed.

Idea 4 - let's try out a version of my own. This time I chose squared paper pulled out of a notebook. I could now utilise all the space as it has no borders. For my 'decoration' I put some tape down one side and attempted to draw a pretty flower at the top.

Top left is the week number and some spaces for days. By the side of these spaces I could colour in my water intake (All good planners seem to want to monitor their water intake.) I could fit in a space for Tasks with a colour coding system and with a timing system by the side on the left. At the bottom there's plenty of room for other headings. I've fitted in expenses in the bottom right.

On the back I've got a weekly At a Glance, a Weekly Review and more spaces for monitoring, tracking or listing.  Oh, wait a minute, I'll just open it out.

Sorry the pic's a different colour, I've just taken it now.

Idea 5 - The streamlined version. After further study of Weekly Pages I tried a simple, no frills version. Here the days go all the way across the page - I've not sectioned anything off yet. At the bottom will be some more spaces for appointments, dates and To Do's. The labels can be changed or added to - whatever I wish each week.

On the back, of course, there's acres more space for more headings.

These fold out pages lend themselves to endless uses. For now, I'll use up my Bargain Weekly pages from Home Bargains and tailor them to suit my needs each week.

Happy Planning!

Weekly Page for planner

Welcome to my new planner addict followers.

I don't seem to be writing a lot on my daily pages which seems rather wasteful of paper. The alternative is a week on one page but I'm not about to spend fortunes on inserts. When I was in Home Bargains I found this pad of Weekly to do's and had an idea.

With a little bit of hole punching …

and folding I ended up with a Weekly Page for my planner.

I shall use one of these pages instead of my daily pages to see if I can fit everything on this extendable bit of paper. Even if I have to go back to writing on daily pages I'll still have a weekly view. For an outlay of 79p I think I've picked up a bargain.

Happy Planning!

First of the Month

The new divider for my Personal citrus green Piazza is a mishmash of card, colouring and sticky flowers. I didn't want to do an Easter theme but perhaps there are Easter/Spring colours in there.

I'm trialling a new tracking page (with paper torn out of a Lidl cheapie) which will show how often I visit certain shops or eateries. When I go in these places I spend money so it makes sense not to go in them so often.

I'm still using up 'old' paper for my daily pages and this month they are white and lined. Last month's were pink and plain. I find a vertical layout is best for me - no need to search in different boxes and I haven't got many timed appointments. 

March, recycled from last year's calendar, in the Fuscia Original A5 is very spring like.

Ooh, there's a parcel arriving today!

Happy Planning

Weekly Menu Planner

My Weekly Menu Planner is now on the back of my Notes Page Marker. My planning is very simple and can be changed at any time. It keeps me from wasting any food and saves time and money in the process. I only mark in our main meal of the day as breakfasts are either toast, muesli, a bacon buttie or a full English and lunches revolve around eggs, salad or soup.

I've just labelled the days and at the start of the week, or any time in between I put in the meat part of our diet. For this example the meat is chicken which, of course lends itself to many recipes. This particular week starts with roast chicken, with more of the chicken used with chips for the Tuesday meal. Any left-over bits I will use in a pie, served with veggies and potatoes. For Friday it will be fish as I am in town and will pass the fishmonger's. Saturday's meal will be liver and onions for DH and a bacon and potato bake for me, which are freezer meals prepared last week. Sunday we will have a pasta dish containing any left over or frozen veggies.

This plan leaves many options open as to how I want to cook. Also I can change my mind completely as I've written in a Pilot Frixion pen which will rub out entries easily. e.g.- if the chicken doesn't stretch to all those meals or if we go out to eat, I'll just rub out and adjust accordingly.

By having freshly prepared plus frozen meals from bulk cooking I am able to streamline our meals and not stress about what we can have for tea.

Happy Planning!

A-Z in a Filofax

I've added to my A-Z sections in my personal Brown Hamilton.

Under B

Baby

Bedroom Cleaning

Birthday Cards - to make and to be made

Blood Pressure

D

Dining Room Cleaning

E

Emergency Numbers

H

Hairdresser Appointments

K

Kitchen Cleaning

M

Master Grocery List

Meter Readings

Music Jobs

W

Weight

Happy Valentine's Day and Happy Planning

Different sections in my Filofax

My main organiser has different sections which help me get things done and keep me organised.

Monthly Dividers - These are card dividers with sticky out tabs which divide up the pages into months. In my organiser they are decorated according to the season.

Year at a Glance - This is a fold out sheet or a 2 page spread showing all the days in the year. It can be used for tracking purposes, highlighting important dates or just as a reference.

Month at a Glance - More detail for the days of the month can be added here. My month at a glance is just a list of the days and dates. On there I can see doctor appointments, volunteer days, trips out, which bins to put out, when to order my pills and visits or visitor dates.

Monthly To-Do List - Here I can list anything I should do or want to do in the month. For example in February I want to continue to save a certain amount each week, make a March divider, weed the garden and use up the veg in the freezer.

Daily Pages - On the daily page I note down any tasks I wish to accomplish during the day, any additional tasks I did accomplish, what we intend to eat for meals, how much I've spent and any appointments.

Weekly Review - At the end of each week I summarise various things I want to track such as how much money I've spent at different places, how much I've managed to de-clutter, what projects I've started, how I slept and any health matters.

Monthly Review - At the end of each monthly section of daily pages I summarise the weekly summaries. These summaries are not set in stone and I may want to track other things in different months such as which veg I plant etc.

Today Marker - This is an easily removable card or ruler that acts like a book mark, indicating today's page.

Tabs - These just stick out from the pages indicating different sections of the organiser.

My Filofax is set up to work for me and it is always a work in progress as I keep reviewing, focussing and refining tasks.

Happy Planning.