Today I got a brown envelope in the mail. It contained a wonderful Filo-RAK from Paula from Roses in December. She knows I love the dividers and decoration she makes for her Filofaxes but that I am not talented enough to make my own. So she made some for me! What a lovely lovely parcel it was. Paula I can’t thank you enough – you are a wonderful woman!

Look at all the lovely goodies in my parcel! Paula found out somehow that I love David Bowie, so she used pictures from a calendar to make me some gorgeous dividers. One of the pictures just happens to be my all-time favorite! Also – wonderful dividers, thick graph paper, pretty bulldog clips (which I have been lusing after for ages) and labels with pretty pictures and quotes. The red satin ribbon from one is now on the zipper pull of my Personal Red Lizard. And my first ever washi tape – wehee!

The red divider cum pocket matches my Lizard Filo perfectly.

My man, David Bowie. Perfectly color-coordinated to my Lizard!

This is my very favourite photograph of David Bowie – after his epic performance of Starman on Top Of The Pops in July 1972.

A gorgeous Eiffel Tower tag. Through the clear pocket you can see the satin ribbon in red hanging from my zipper pull.

Gorgeous dividers. I am so happy with them!

A5 Gillio with lovely dividers cum pockets. They are absolutely gorgeous. I love them!

Hi Filofaxians! I’m super excited to share our first participant post – this one is from Belen in California who is using her own Personal Red Domino to set up a binder on starting her own business. Let’s meet Belen (and her lovely Filo)!

Hello, People-Who-Love-Filofax-As-Much-As-I-Do!

I started working on a small business in March 2013 and launched in June. During my “startup” phase I used a Filofax to organize myself. At first I used a personal black Chameleon, and later a personal red Domino, which is the one I’ll be showing you.

I chose the personal size because it is big enough to write in comfortably, yet small enough to carry in my purse and have with me all the time. (I tried the pocket size first and found it much too small. Now that my business is up and running I do use an A5 binder for work, but it stays on my desk.) I chose the Domino because it is pretty and it has the rubber band so I can easily tuck in a receipt, an extra notebook, or a bunch of pens.

My blog posts will cover setup, inserts, calendars, sections (ideas, research and money), and plenty of my own tips and recommendations. I will include photos followed by notes and details about what I used. Where I name brands or stores it is only for your information, not a sales pitch. No one paid me to promote their products. My approach is very do-it-yourself. I prefer DIY because I get to make exactly what I want and I don’t have to spend a lot of money. I like simplicity in design because it helps me focus on the content, but I also love color, so I use bright tabs and stickies. You will, of course, want to choose a style that works for you and inspires you to get things done. Go for it!

Tools Equipment, and Supplies

The Basics:

● Computer
● Printer
● Labeler
● Scissors
● Hole punch
● Corner rounder
● Paper
● Sticky notes
● Page flags
● Task pad

Tabs and Accessories

Top tabs: When?

● Today
● 2013
● 2014

Side tabs: What?

● Ideas
● Research
● Money

Basic Accessories:

● Pen
● Today ruler
● Business card holder
● File pocket
● Page lifters, front and back

So much awesome in one one tidy, pretty package!

Next Post

My next post will be a close look at the calendars and diary inserts. If you want to get a head start on building your own Startup binder, here is a list of the free, printable inserts I used. All of these, and many more, are available on Philofaxy.com thanks to the skills and generosity of the Philofaxy community. I have listed them generically because each one has several versions, sizes, and file type options. Choose the one you like the best.

Inserts:

● Week on 2PP, vertical, with notes
● Year project planner, 2013 & 2014
● Timetable
● Meeting planner
● Project planner
● Addresses

Thanks for reading!

Isn’t that a lovely set up? I can’t wait to read about which calendars she uses to keep her business up and running!

Today I’m excited to introduce Cori, who is using her own A5 Finsbury as a Career Set Up binder!

Today I would like to introduce you to my set-up for my Career project and explain a bit more about how I will be using my A5 Finsbury for this project.

The Filofax:

My A5 Finsbury has been repurposed for this project as I love my A5 Finsbury so much I could not bear not to use it. So why is this one the perfect binder for this project? I thought of purchasing the Yellow Finsbury in Compact for this project, but I feared it would not be big enough, with an A5 I can pack it full with useful and relevant information and it won’t matter if it is overstuffed as it will be a desk fax rather than a daily (on the go) one.

As a desk fax one of the great things about this binder is that it lies perfectly flat. I can leave it open on my desk while researching or job hunting online or while typing up this blog post for example. No issues with trying to prop it down to read or write.

If you read my regular blog (http://www.planningwithprintedportal.wordpress.com) you may have noted that I usually use this Filofax for my writing fax – so what have I changed? I have changed and reorganised my sections in my Filofax (see below) and I have changed the pens and bits and bobs that I store in the Filofax.

For the pens I have chosen I blue and pink colour theme. The pens that have earned the right to be placed in the two pen loops are the Pilot Frixion Point in Blue and the Pilot V Pen in Pink which is a fountain pen (the colour of which matches the binder nicely).

In the front cover I am keeping my business cards and in the full length front pocket I keep my Pocket Career Development Notebook. At the moment I have nothing in the zipped pocket.

The Sections

The Filofax will be broken down into the following sections:

1. Planner

No project planner would be complete without a planner however I don’t need a weekly planner for this project so that left me with the choice of a yearly planner or a monthly one. At the moment I am using my Q4 Weekly Planner (download available here (http://planningwithprintedportal.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/q4-weekly-planner-free-download/) together with the standard year planner from Filofax.

2. Goals / Plan

I used my Career Development Notebook to record and track my goals. However, I keep straightforward list and my 5 year plan in my Filofax.

3. Career Journal (including Celebrations and Achievements)

This is a free style writing section for all my career-relating ramblings, thoughts and inspiration. I intend to try and do a weekly entry. I have decided to use fun and creative notepaper to try and brighten this section up. (Photographed above).

4. Work History

This section is pretty self- explanatory. I aim to build this up into a full work history, this section is currently a work in progress and homemade inserts will be available soon.  

5. CPD/Skills Development

This section relates to my training, continued professional development and my soft skills development. The first part of this section will be a professional training record and the second part will be for skills that I have chosen to develop such as soft skills.

6. Job Hunting

The last section will be for job hunting records and notes on the job market. Just because you love your job does not mean you should be ignoring the market. Again this section is a work in progress and homemade inserts will be available later in the project.

Thanks for reading.

Today I’m excited to introduce Heather, who will be using a Pocket Chino in Fawn to share her journey to the Catholic Church with The Spiritual Project.

My project will be a Spiritual Project documenting my RCIA journey at Holy Trinity, my home parish.  I will be using a Filofax Pocket Chino given to me by the creator of this project.

RCIA is the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.  It is a process where those who wish to join the Catholic faith community are welcomed and introduced to the beliefs and practices of the Church.  At the end of the process, at Easter Vigil, each Candidate receives the Sacraments.  For those who were never baptised, they will receive all 3 Sacraments; Baptism, Confirmation, and First Eucharist   For those already baptised Catholic or baptised in another Christian tradition, they will receive Confirmation and First Eucharist.

I was born into a very Catholic family.  I was baptised Catholic when I was 5 weeks old.  After that, I do believe my mother left the Catholic Church.  I remember going to church as a kid with my mom, but after some research I discovered it was not a Catholic church.  My mom died when I was 8 years old, so I don’t know any of this for sure.  Just research based upon the small town we lived in.  After my mom died, I went to live with my grandma.  I remember going to church then, usually just Christmas and Easter.  So I never completed the Sacraments when I was a kid.

Then life happened.  I grew up and moved out the day I graduated high school.  I did not really believe in anything during that time.  I didn’t attend any type of church.  After getting married and having kids, I started to feel a pull back to the Catholic Church.  I didn’t act on it right away.  Finally in 2011 I contacted the local parish, Holy Trinity, to find out about RCIA so I could complete the Sacraments.  I dropped out of RCIA my first time through.  I am now doing RCIA for the second time.  I feel confident this time and am very excited for Easter Vigil to be here so I can be fully initiated into the Catholic Church.

On top of all of that, my youngest daughter Gabrielle will also be receiving all three Sacraments at Easter Vigil.  She starts RCIA for Youth on September 15th.  I feel blessed that we will be going through this journey together.

With all that said…..well, written…..I will be using the Filofax Pocket Chino to document my and my daughter’s journey into the Catholic Church.  I will be keeping track of RCIA classes for myself and Gabrielle, as well as keeping track of other events at Holy Trinity.

Here are some photos of my Filofax Pocket Chino…

The beautiful Filofax Chino in Fawn.  She is so soft!

Opening page.  I love the big pocket on the left.  Will be great for holding stickers and such.  And my name tag for RCIA since I always forget to take it off and leave it at class.  OOPS!

Alphabetical Tabs.  I will be personalizing these before I start using the Filo.

Numbered tabs. Not sure how I will use these yet.

These are the pockets in the back. And the wonderful pen loop with a pen.
I will post more once I get the Filo set up.

Heather

As excited as I am to read about all of the projects, I’m especially excited to read about some of the unusual ways in which some of you will be using your binders. I can just imagine all of the inspiration readers will receive – maybe some of those unused binders I know many of us have will find a new purpose! A prime example is Tina, who will be using an Aqua Mode for The Book Project – I’ll let her tell you all about it!

Now I don’t know about you – as you are a Filofax owner I can probably guess, but I like a little bit of order in my life.  I like to know what I’m doing, what I’ve done, where I’m going, what I’m taking but I think most importantly I like to remember what it is I’ve been, done and gone to.  It’s the same with my books, I have always been a busy reader with a bedside table made out of a pile of books, I like to dip in and out but also have a book that I class as the one that I am reading. I am currently reading …… yes well what is it that I am reading, because since moving to Kindle (I know you can’t get everything on it – as some of my pics will show) I find that I am reading in a coverless world, I know the author, I know the content but do I know what the book is called? No.

Looking at my bookshelves (this is a small subset!) I can see the familiar spines and titles shouting out to me like old friends – “hey remember when we spent two weeks in South of France and you couldn’t put me down?”, “I still remember when we found each other in that secondhand bookshop in Tuscany”, “I still hold the flower pressing from our day trip to Edinburgh”.  But looking at my Kindle I get nothing, no invite, no flash of memory, no secret tryst, just a whole lot of nothing.  Now don’t get me wrong I love my Kindle it means I don’t have to carry the book I am finishing, the book I will then start and an old favourite in case I don’t like the book that I will start when I’ve finished the one that I am reading – you get the picture. So in an attempt to retain some visual reminder of what I have been reading I am going to use my Filofax to record my reading, I am not going to attempt to log all the books I already read – hey I’d need some sort of monster truck version of a Filofax for that!, but I am going to log what I read from here on in.

I’ll be using an Aqua mode for this project – super isn’t it? I love how the squares even look like library shelves, as you can see I have some very classy black binders donated by Janet which provide a stark contrast to the fuschia pink interior, the silicone strap is very generous so that means that there will be plenty of room to fill it up with all my book info!

So my set-up will use two sets to A-Z dividers.  The first set will log the Name of the Book and then the Author and the second set will log the Name of the Author and then the name of the book.  Hold on I hear you say is that not just the same thing?  Well take a look at your own bookshelf when you are hunting for a book are you looking for the author or the book title or both?  Yep thought so me too, I am looking using both because even though my books are in almost alphabetical order by author it’s sometimes the name of the book that I hone in on.

The second part of my set up will mirror my Kindle, for those of you not in the know you can add your own Collections to your Kindle and file your books, which sort of makes them easier to find! Here’s a page of my Kindle – it means something to me! So I have 6 blank dividers that I will use for this.

The headings for theses Dividers will be:-
    Arctic/Antarctic – I love anything to do with these parts of the world
    French and Dead – French Authors seem to be my thing, most of them that I like are dead!
    Poetry
    War – I am fascinated by the periods leading up to the two world wars and the times directly after.  There seemed to be a change throughout the world in literature, these books are not about the atrocity of war from personal experience more just the times in which they were written
    Work – I have my own small business and read much more than I should about how to get it right!
    21st Century – bit of a cop out here but I would like to see what I have read this century!

I think I am going to need more dividers!!! (Filofax shopping – yay!)
Once I have finished a book I will log it in the A to Z’s and then add a write up and a drawing into the appropriate divider area.

Finally I will be including a year planner on which I will note the book I am reading.

So there you have it, next time I will be showing you how I have customised each divider, how I have logged and noted the books I have read and asking you for help with my project.  Here is my front cover for the project hope you like it, see you next time.

Tina.

It is a real pity (but perhaps natural) that large companies, companies which have been successful for some time, and governments which have been in power for a long time, become complacent. So used to being leaders that they no longer pay attention to their customers, the changing market or other companies.  The peril of long incumbency is also that these bodies are usually behemoths, so they cannot adapt quickly even when they realise there is a problem.

I often think of Marks and Spencer as epitomising this syndrome. They were so used to being the place everyone in Britain went that they did not notice or care about the changing high street or the upstart companies coming up behind them. Once they noticed this, they were like an enormous oil tanker which needs huge amounts of both time and space to stop and even more time and space to turn.  No matter how many experts or new top executives they brought in, they could not get their customers back. These customers were going to TopShop, H and M, Oasis, Primark – you name it. When they stayed staid, the lost young customers. When they went trendy they lost their traditional customers. They have experimented with price points too, without much luck. People who want expensive undies are probably still going to go to La Perla rather than Marks and Sparks.

Other examples of this were Tony Blair’s government, which spent so much time trying to attract middle-class voters that they alienated their long-term working class base by ignoring them and taking their loyalty for granted. Or Sweden’s Social Democrats who were so used to being in power that they ignored both their voters and up and coming parties who were profiling themselves as the ‘new’ workers’ party. Seven years later, they still have not regained lost ground, despite having several new party leaders.

Another example of this could perhaps be Filofax which responded to the increasingly digitalised planning world by ignoring its loyal core of die-hand planner users and going high fashion, with hugely overpriced designer collaborations.  They have abandoned quality inserts in favour of churning out fashionable binders. As hard as they now seem to be trying to reverse plunging sales and listening to their customers, is it too late? They have ongoing ring quality problems but given the scale in which they are produced, is it too late to change manufacturer? Gillio is a small pricey brand but many Filofax users willing to pay for quality and individual service have transferrred some if not all their affections to Gillio, willing to pay more for a good product. They are not likely to make a dent in Filofax profits but Filofax should keep an eye on them.

One example of a company which seems to have been in this position and successfully rebranded itself is Fujifilm. When the digital age took the whole market out from under them, they branched into the unlikely field of skincare – using photo development technology to make revolutionary skincare. Their Astalift range is now the number one bestselling beauty product in Japan. They managed to respond to change quickly and successfully.

Another interesting company is H&M. They started out copying fashion trends but then employed all in-house designers who actually create fashion. They have branched out into home furnishings (H&M home), higher priced fashion (COS), denim (Cheap Monday, Weekday and Monki), and & other stories, which does not really fit any particular category. They started the whole trend of designer collaborations with a collection by Karl Lagerfeldt. Its huge success led to further collaborations with Matthew Williamson, Stella McCartney, Versace, Jimmy Choo and Victor and Rolf among others. They even did very off the wall collaborations with Maison Martin Margiela and  Comme des Garçons.  They move so quickly that it is hard to imagine them falling into the M and S syndrome, but who knows?

I am really interested to see if Apple will keep their dominance in the phone market, given that Samsung seems to have come out of nowhere to challenge the crown.

As per request here come some answers about Qimmis organiser refills.

• The paper is thick, white and glossy
• No bleeding or show-through with Frixion, rollerball or my Pilot V-Pen thickish fountain pen
• Ink dries quickly and Frixion pens and highlighters erase easily. I am left-handed so this is important for me or my hand smudges whatever I write.
• The graphics on the Cupcakes version are unintrusive and appear in different places on different pages
• The lines are narrow and the time only appears in the left column which is less than optimal for me but I do like the increased space that the lack of times in every column provides. Q

Would I recommend? Yes definitely!

Pocket and A5 versions. The front page is repeated at the end of the refill

A5 Siena Filofax on left, A5 Mia Cara Gillio on right. Toes, all mine!

Gillio and Filofax are two different brands. They are not threats to each other. Filofax is a huge mass-producing brand known worldwide and has a long history. The brand name is used as a generic now – people refer to their Filofaxes even when they are not actually Filofaxes. Gillio is a niche brand, a cult brand, known only to a few. It is a family-run company with long production times and small runs.

But there are things that each one can learn from each other:

What Filofax could learn from Gillio

• gappy and misaligned rings DO matter
• gold rings are beloved by many
• replaceable rings make a huge difference
• people ARE prepared to pay high prices for quality binders

What Gillio could learn from Filofax

• Discount codes are brilliant and despite losing out on the value of the discount, business and profit will go up anyway due to  increased turnover
• Decent postage prices make a huge difference
• Brilliant inserts and accessories (as Gillio’s are) sell well if postage is cheap.
• Several colour options are always good

Another one of my students uses a ring-bound organiser. This is a German brand but the name escapes me now. She also has a gorgeous pink one which she will start using once this one is worn out. As you can see, this one is very well used.

Whenever I ask students (or strangers) whether I can take photographs of their binders, they tend to think I am asking because they are so woefully old-fashioned as to use a paper planner. When I explain that I am a Filofax fan and that there is an enormous community of us out there, they tend to look rather baffled.

Back

Front (rather blurry, sorry!)

Open

Susanna, me and Amanda in front of the Charleston Display at NK in Stockholm. Amanda is holding her Temperley, Susanna her new A5 Red Charleston and me my new A5 Brown Charleston. Photo taken by Claes from NK.

Well, it finally happened. After attempting to meet at least three times before (our efforts being derailed by illness, babysitting and last-minute schedule changes), the three of us were all able to be in the same place at the same time today! ‘We’ are Susanna, who I know from the Philofaxy group and my blog, my daughter Amanda (who has my passion for all things Filofax), and myself.

We met at the coffee shop situated metres away from the Filofax section of NK (Sweden’s version of Harrods). You can see from the photographs that the coffee shop is very comfy and rustic, with sofas and armchairs to sink into, and you can sit as long as you want.

Susanna had brought with her:

Personal Ostrich in Buttercup - what a beautiful binder. The quill is beautiful (I come from ‘Ostrich country’ in South Africa so I know my quills!), the leather is puffy and soft yet firm and sturdy. The pocket constellation is beautiful with little pockets everywhere. It also has leather ring protectors and replaceable rings. Susanna has it set up beautifully to work in tandem with her…

….A5 Slimline Boston in Black - thinner and lighter than your average A5 and in the most beautiful soft nappa leather. Susanna has used this binder extensively and it is tossed around in her bag but it has not a mark on it. It looks brand new and flawless. Wow, I was totally sold. Not a mark on it and what gorgeous leather. Plus it is so nice and light. An idea solution for those who want an A5 without the weight.

Personal Amica Gillio in Green with brushed silver rings – this is the most beautiful colour and so smooth and sturdy. The colour is very hard to photograph (a little like the Aqua Malden) but it is a deep forest green. I don’t have a green Filofax and they don’t come up very often (I am not enamoured of the Original style, though I like the colour of the racing green, and the Tejus in green is gorgeous but hard to find). Susanna kindly allowed me to buy this binder from her at an extremely good price. Yay!

Personal Cross in Camel - Susanna bought this one for me as a gift to cheer me up because I was made redundant last month. I have always wanted a Camel Cross made before they were renamed the Classic because the leather did not peel. And this binder is lovely – it has the perfect symmetrical stitching and firm puffiness that the classic is known for and the Camel is such a gorgeous color. It already means so much to me because of the thought and caring behind it. It will be used to document my move from the place I have worked for 13 years into starting my own company, and maybe moving back into journalism or computers, or even into a totally new field.  I am sure it will bring me luck or good vibes. It will definitely make me feel good. Thank you Susanna!

Susanna also had Coleto pens with her and they are lovely. I had never seen one or used one before. I fell in love!

Amanda did not bring her Filofax with her. She has been using an A5 Bronze Domino snake for her studies for about three years now. For her birthday she asked for a Compact Filofax Temperley Violet. I rushed in to NK yesterday and they only had one left but it had been put aside for someone. Because the person had not come to collect it, and because the sales staff know me, the wonderful sales associate let me buy it. So today I gave Amanda her Temperley and we found out that it was AMANDA who had asked to have the Filofax put aside in the first place. So it was really meant to be hers! Susanna showed us how she uses a personal and an A5 and so Amanda can use her two together as well if she likes.

I took my:

Pocket and A5 Gillio Mia Caras and my Red Lizard Personal (which has my wonderful Bowie dividers made by Paula from Roses in December) for which I paid about 20% of the full price. It is so soft and the leather is as tough as nails. Susanna has its green sibling which she bought at a 70% discount. These are gorgeous Filofaxes but crushingly expensive if you pay full price. NK still have an Ostrich Buttercup in pocket size, an Ostrich Black in personal size and (they think) an Alligator Brown in personal size – all 70% off.

After we chatted and had ‘Show and Tell – The Filofax Edition’, we ate a delicious lunch and then went on a long tour of the NK Filofax department. We drooled at the prospect of the orange Osterleys which are on the way to NK, browsed the inserts and then pondered the Charlestons. There were not many Charlestons left and they apparently do not exist anywhere else, so I enabled Susanna to get a red A5 and then she enabled me with the brown A5. Thanks to loyalty points, a gift card and a sale of another Filofax earlier today I got a deep enough discount to be able to get that and also get a nice selection of inserts for Amanda.

After that we went to Åhléns (another department store) where I fell hard for the exotic Flex covers. I have always wanted to try one, particularly now that they have come out in leather (and such pretty colors). We had a look at the lovely blue Calipso (oh that gorgeous colour and the soft leather is divine) and browsed the inserts. Amanda got a lovely gold and black Filofax pen to go with her new Temperley, and some Filofax credit card holders as she is going to be using her Temperley as a wallet. We also browsed the Muji shelves and got some lovely To Do post-its. They didn’t have any stamps but maybe sometime soon they will come in.

After that we went to Svanströms where we looked at the Filofax Flex sale. They didn’t have much left unfortunately but it shows that people are buying them which is good, as it means there will be continued demand for them from Filofax and they may not discontinue them soon. My fear has been that Filofax would stop making them and that all the people who love the system would be stuck and not able to find refills. We browsed the pretty stationery and salivated over their nice selection of Paperblanks.

After that we parted ways with promises to meet again soon. And everyone who would like to join is welcome! We will make sure to let people know beforehand. We all speak Swedish and English so don’t worry if you only speak one or the other – we speak fluent Filofax as well!

Amanda after opening her Temperley.

Amanda opening her package

Susanna with my Pocket and A5 Gillio Mia Caras

The stunning Gillio Personal-sized Amica in dark green

Susanna’s stunning Personal Ostrich in Buttercup. It has replaceable rings. Wish more Filofaxes had those! The Ostrich leather on this binder is perfection.

Susanna with her wonderful calendar in her Black A5 Boston. Not only is it a gorgeous calendar but the way she uses it to organise her studies is AMAZING. Note the Philofaxy card!

More wonderful notekeeping in the lovely Boston

Interior of the green Gillio Amica, showing the brushed silver rings

My precious new Personal Camel Cross. Will try for a better photo tomorrow.

Some serious Filofaxing going on here! People were fascinated as they walked past. From left to right – A5 Mia Cara, Pocket Mia Cara on top of Camel Cross and Red Lizard, then Buttercup Ostrich on top of Black Boston

My wonderful daughter, so pleased with her Temperley. She has inherited her love of Filofaxes and handbags from me!

Compact Violet Temperley

The texture on a Charleston Pocket Filofax in purple. Each binder has a different texture. I cannot believe the quality of the hides they have used. You don’t often see that these days.

Charlestons – as scarce as Nessie. So we figured we had to as when they are gone, will they ever reappear again? My handbag is a Brahmin Dagny in Pecan Melbourne.

Photo by Susanna – I love this one!

Another shot of the green Gillio!

Filofax Heaven

An A5 Charleston Folio. The leather is, once again, sublime. And for the quality of the binder, the prices are not high.

Susanna is extremely pedagogical. It was so lovely to see her layout. I wished I had had someone like her to speak to my students when I taught at university – to show them how to organise their papers and their studies. Susanna you are epic!

Filo Love!

The Pile

The Pile

This one is a bit blurry but I love it!

Not much makes my eyes sparkle like that! Left the background in this one so you can see how rustic and homey it is

Thoughts of kidnapping the Filofaxes and running away as fast as my legs will carry me?

Photo by Susanna

Personal Rose Classic. I love this one because I love the Classic style and the camel colour. Regarding the Rose version, it never made it into full production because it was too complicated to produce. I fell in love with this binder in 2010 when it was given to the original owner, Erin, by Filofax. I am so lucky to own it.

Mini Teal Baroque - I can remember seeing this model for the first time in NK in Stockholm. My heart sped up when I saw the embossing on the inside cover. At the time I didn’t buy it but then heard that they had been discontinued and managed to get a mini Teal on sale at 70% off. It is smaller than I usually use but has worked extremely well for travel. It has travelled all over the world with me and apart from a tiny ballpoint pen mark on the front cover, is pristine.

Many people say they would prefer the embossing on this model to be on the outside, but I like it on the inside. It is like wearing nice underwear – no one knows but you and that makes it all the more special. I do so wish they would reissue this binder – and in more colours (like purple with gold embossing!) as it is so in demand. I have had countless offers for my mini one and have held out until I find a personal in Teal. But they are very thin on the ground.

Gillio Pocket and A5 Mia Caras in Epoca Gold - they are so well-designed and the leather is divine. They age beautifully. They have replaceable rings so you can choose gold, brushed silver or silver.

Mulberry Oak Agenda - I love Mulberry Oak Darwin leather. They do not make it anymore and have replaced it with the smoother and more delicate Natural Vegetable Tanned Leather. I have a Mulberry Oak Darwin Bayswater, Roxanne, wallet and travel bag. So this completed my collection!  It is well-designed and has been intensively used for years. It just gets better and better with age. The only thing I am less than infatuated with is the fact that they have cut down their selection of inserts and that the rings are not compatible with other inserts.

Red Lizard Personal - this is probably the biggest bargain I have ever had. I bought it at 80% off plus loyalty points which meant it cost a teeny tiny fraction of the original price. It is soft, flexible, hardwearing as iron, beautifully made (with ring protectors) and a lovely colour. The only minus is that the pen loop is missing but that is the reason for part of the discount and I can live with it as I never use pen loops anyway.

A5 Orange Finsbury - this was an accidental favourite. I bought it while I was waiting for my A5 Siena to arrive. It was the last one and they had discontinued this colour. But wow! I love it – it is tough and sturdy and a wonderful bright colour which is as good in summer as it is in autumn. It never fails to put a smile on my face and has worn amazingly well. After being intensively used for almost a year it has not one mark on it.

And on the way to me, two more that will be my favourites:

Personal Ostrich Buttercup – below is a photograph of Susanna’s one which I fell in love with. She says she cannot move out of it and I can quite understand why. At the meet I couldn’t stop squeezing it and cuddling it! I hope mine has the lovely puffy and bumpy yet soft and smooth feeling! The layout is also very practical with multiple pockets and sleeves. And here is mine

Limited Edition 75th anniversary Grace Scurr boxed Filofax. I won this on eBay. They are very hard to find so I am rather pleased. My first thought was that I was going to use it but now I am not so sure. It seems sacrilegious to use something so beautiful and rare.

Someone posted a link to this article on a Facebook page I visit. The organiser above is the one they featured in the article. It costs £483.

Two things interested me about this – firstly, the article above uses the term ‘Filofax’ as a generic term for a ring bound organiser.  I had included it on this list when I wrote it a couple of months ago, but cannot recall that I have ever seen it in print before – just in spoken language.

Secondly, the price that seemed absolutely exorbitant for a ring organiser about three years ago is now a price people are quite willing to pay for a Gillio binder. The most expensive Gillio, an A5 Mia Cara, sells for £477 excluding shipping. Some people have up to ten Gillio binders (costing from £240 to about £500 each) So the pain threshold has definitely moved upwards  for quality items. This organiser looks like it is personal sized which is still very pricey but not beyond the realms of impossibility. I don’t think people would pay almost £500 for a Filofax as they are now – to be honest I think the ring problems and binders like the Guinea and The Affair knocked their credibility a bit. But if Gillio brought out a personal that cost almost £500 I am positive that someone would buy it.

Below some pictures of the Macassar from Berluti - there is also a Kangaroo leather Jagua pocket sized planner.

A selection of Berluti products.

Here is the inside of one of their zipped binders:

Ebay is the biggest marketplace in the world – full of just about everything and anything. You can buy goodies big and small from all corners of the world at great prices. Here are some tips:

1. If there is something that you really want, set up a saved search for it. This way you will be emailed every time Ebay finds something that matches your search criteria. This is good if you are looking for discontinued and hard to find items or if you are a collector. You can set your search up to be broad or specific.

2. Look at the seller’s feedback. If they have many sales and 100% feedback you are more likely to have a good shopping experience with them than with someone with less than perfect feedback or only a sale or two.

3. Check where they ship to. Not all sellers will ship to where you are so double-check before bidding that they ship to your location. You can set your Ebay up so that it notifies you if an item is not available to your country.

4. Know your item. Fakes abound on Ebay so know what the real deal looks like and check what else the seller is selling. If they sell multiples of the same item there is a greater chance that they are fake unless it is overstock or old merchandise from a closing down sale. Items like designer handbags or jewellery are not likely to be available in bulk at cheap prices unless they are fake.

5. Watch out for shill bidding. Sometimes sellers have fake Ebay identities which are used to push prices up by making fake bids. You can generally see this if you look at bidding histories.

6. Check for spelling mistakes – if a brand name is misspelled it could be a fake item OR the seller could have made a genuine spelling mistake which means you could end up with a bargain as no one else will find the auction on a search. Some of my best Ebay bargains have come from sellers who have misspelled names.

7. Check for auctions ending at odd times. This means that you could have fewer bids on the item.

8. Use an auction sniper to automatically snipe your auctions for you. If you find it difficult to bid on items ending at strange times or if you get carried away in bidding wars at the last moment, an auction sniper is just what you need. You set your maximum bid beforehand and your sniper will swoop in at the last moment to place a bid for you, just above the amount which was previously bid. I have never lost an auction using a sniper. I don’t have any preferences – I just register free for whatever one is top of a Google search. Bidnapper tends to be good as is Auction Sniper. If you pay you get a shorter lead time but I find the free ones work just as well.

9. Remember to leave feedback afterwards. And ask any questions before you bid.

10. Use the Ebay guides available to you to help you buying what you like. I generally buy designer handbags, Filofaxes, antique books and pens, and silver charms on ebay and there are guides to recognising fakes and hallmarks.

11. Don’t start bidding too early. This just pushes the price up and alerts others to the fact that you are interested in the item. The only bids that count are the final ones.

12. The items which attract the most bids and the highest prices are those with professional photographs and descriptions. But sometimes the items being sold on an auction with bad photos and brief descriptions are just as good. You just need to know your item and trust your gut.

13. Do your research. You are more likely to get a genuine item if you buy Mulberry from England than from China for example. But some sellers are registered in USA and ship their products from China so read feedback. Lush Fashions is a company like this- registered in the US but their products are made and shipped from China. Good product but hell on wheels if you need to return something.

14. Check measurements beforehand and remember that sizes and measurements differ from country to country. Some people who are used to imperial measurements just guess at the metric equivalent. Do a quick online conversion to double check.

15. Don’t suffer from Unreal Money Syndrome – that’s my own term, created to describe what happens to me when I am shopping in another currency. It always seems so cheap, like paying with Monopoly money – until you convert it!

16. Set up saved searches for your favourite seller – you will then receive an email every time they put items online.

17. Regarding taxes and customs – if you buy anything within the EU, taxes are paid when you buy so your parcel will not cost any more when it crosses borders. From the US is another matter. One way around this is for the seller to undervalue your parcel or mark it as a gift. Some sellers do this automatically, others refuse to as it is not legal. I have seldom had to pay taxes, probably because the prices I pay are never that high and the items are vintage.

18. Note also that some countries have special rules for liquids or aerosols which cannot be sent airmail. And there are restrictions about fresh foodstuffs and ivory (even antique ivory) in place in almost every country.

19. Open a Paypal account. It makes paying safe and fast and you have backup in case a sale goes wrong. Never pay by Western Union or other methods which do not offer help if you are scammed. Ebay does favour the buyer rather than the seller in the case of disputes but it can be a long-winded frustrating process to get a refund or an exchange

20. Check shipping costs before you bid on something. Often sellers have a low price for their wares but inflated shipping prices to bump up the total price. If the price including shipping is good, then buy. If not, then decide how much you want the item.

A5 Classic left, Personal Classic right

I do indeed have a love/hate relatioship to the A5. A5 is perfect for me because:

• Big enough to write full-size
• I can fold A4 paper in half, punch it, fold it and put it in my A5
• It holds a lot
• I can put articles in the clear sheets

BUT

• it is big
• it is heavy

There is no getting around the fact that after carrying it around for 12 hours, it feels like a brick and I hate it.

Does anyone else have this dilemma?

Photo by Susanna

It’s been quite sad to notice the decline of the paper planner in recent years. Over the past few years as ‘back to work/back to school’ organiser campaigns have started, the Filofax selection has shrunk dramatically. Mulberry has discontinued its larger planners and stopped making most of its inserts. Instead there are more and more IPad and Iphone holders. The Filofax insert selection which was already not very broad, has shrivelled further. There is almost nothing for A5. Hard to believe that there were once around 1,000 different inserts for Filofaxes.

I was an early devotee of the PDA – I started out with a Casio, then two Psions followed by at least four Palm Pilots. The last digital assistants I had were two Palm Life Drives. Suddenly phone and PDAs were combined and you had a good phone with a bad planner or a good planner with a bad phone (like the Palm Treo, which succeeded the Life Drive). And I suffered several system failures where both my PDA and my computer backup were wiped out. So I switched back to paper.

I have always kept a journal and I find that writing on paper is relaxing, soothing, immediate and permanent. I love the action of writing on paper, with no tapping or waiting for apps to load. No searching for WiFi or waiting for an internet connection before I can see my calendar. No finger trouble if I hit the wrong button. Writing things down gives me security and peace. Mostly I have used A5 Filofaxes but I also use  Gillio, Mulberry, Aspinal and Smythson. Along the line I have also used Moleskine, Paperblanks, and what seems like a gazillion other planners but I always come back to ringbinder systems because they are so customisable. Mainly Filofax because their inserts used to be so good. Unfortunately that is not always the case anymore.

Somewhere along the line, Filofax seems to have lost its core market. It has stopped developing effective and efficient paper time management systems in favour of forays into high fashion (collaberation with Temperley) and exotic hides (crocodile binders at about £1500). Personally if I were going to pay a whack for designer organisers I would go Smythson or Aspinal who have stunning skin and lovely paper. Not sure if Filofax know where they are going. Like Marks and Spencer they seem to have deserted their core market without attracting any particular demographic to replace them. Sadly, the quality of their workmanship has not increased with their pricey new binders – dodgy ring mechanisms seem to blight the Temperleys as much as they do the Metropols.

The news is not all bad though. I have noticed more and more people hovering around the Filofax displays. Earlier this year several stationery outlets told me they had seriously underestimated the demand for paper planners, which sold out completely. My daughter has mentioned that increasing numbers of students at her university use Filofaxes for their studies. Facebook groups devoted to paper planners are springing up like mushrooms. Filofax itself seems to be listening more and more to its users. The Original, although I am not a fan of the design, is a good solid binder at a decent price and is made in England.

And a trip to Smythsons is always heartening. There is a world out there for handwritten thank you cards, personal stationery and fantastic paper. There seems to be snob value in writing thank you notes by hand on eyewateringly expensive paper. Hopefully that trend will trickle downwards and start a move towards paper and pens again. A little off topic I have noted in my job as a teacher that people these days are often unable and unused to writing by hand. What a pity.

And for Filofax fans, communities like Philofaxy and Plannerisms show that there is a core of ardent planner enthusiasts. Philofaxy and My Life All In One Place have downloadable printable refills for Filofaxes, filling a huge gap in the market. And the community is thriving. Blogs and Facebook groups about the humble ring binder abound. The number of search results on a search for ‘Filofax’ on Instagram or YouTube would surprise most people. More and more people seem to be drawn to communities like these as the wider world and brands like Filofax seem to have forgotten them. And instead of waiting and hoping for Filofax to listen, they are taking things into their own hands and doing it themselves. In turn, Filofax itself seems to have realised the clout these groups have and are listening and developing things more in line with their users than they used to.

Other communities like the Fountain Pen Network forum and the Vintage Filofax Facebook group (where you can follow the very active collectibility of vintage filofaxes) show that these things are still very much alive – just perhaps under the ‘big business’ radar. Filofax fans travel across countries to meet and talk planners. They create inserts and trade and buy or sell binders.

As we head to the end of one year and the beginning of another I find myself wondering what the future holds for the paper planner? Who knows, but for the first time in a long time I feel that it could be something exciting!

Second attempt – this time I managed to fit in my Flex, keyrings, travel wallets and pen!