Guildford extra slim!

Those of you who have children might have experienced the special feeling when you first meet your older child again just after the new baby has arrived - suddenly the older child is incredibly big! Huge! A giant!

It happened to me today. No, I didn't have a new baby, but I did meet a new filofax! Guildford extra slim came in the mail this afternoon.

First impression: But it's so tiny?! 

Second impression: It's really, really tiny!

Third: It's like an a4, except it's for a doll's house?!

Fourth: It's small even for a wallet...

See for yourself! Here it is, on top of Roxy, my A5 Finsbury:

And here with it's bigger relative, the Guildford slimline:

And here it is again, next to my mini Finsbury:

I bought it used, for just under 10 euros (where's the euro sign on my keyboard?). The rings are 11 mm and in good condition. Only 54g. The leather is the same as in the other Guildfords I own. Smooth and very soft.  No mesh pockets, I'm happy with that... No pen loop.

There's some sign of wear on the outside, but nothing that bothers me. 

I will use it for my action lists, which have so far travelled mostly in the mini Finsbury. The Finsbury has a calendar in it, but I very rarely use it so I think I'll manage with a monthly overview instead. I can put some of my most used cards in the pockets, like my id, bank and credit card, passcard for the office, public transport card. But that's about it. 

See, the action lists have already moved in! There's to much personal stuff in there so I won't show you more than this, sorry... ;-) But I have ten or so sections for actions in context, e.g., at home, at the office, talk to my DH, buy, pay, findout etc. and I use them all the time.

I think I will be very happy with this filofax! But I think it will take me atleast a day or too to look at the others without thinking they're too big and clumsy! 

Bond is ready to go to work

Since I received Bond in the mail the other day, I've organized the inside for a flexible start next week at work! What I did:

• I removed all of the dividers. I will make up my own later on anyway, and I will use removeable tabs when I realize what needs to be kept separate. A very organic, self organising approach...
• I trimmed the calendar, keeping only future dates. For now. I'll decide later on what format fits me best when I've used it for a while. 
• An "inbox" pocket. I made a clear pocket for my inbox notes, it will go in at the front. Opens at the top. I've already added some things in the inbox, the little green square notes.
• I've never used the to-do-lists or fold out project planning pages in any filofax, and I have some sort of resistance against using them, so out they went! 
• Note pad. I put in a lined note pad from Ordning&Reda (it's a perfect a5 after you rip out the sheet, I like that...) at the back of the binder, in the horizontal pocket.
• Loose note paper. I had a pile of filofax squared a5 and I figured I'd give them a try. I usually prefer ruled or blank paper, but I'll be daring here... I also had some simple ruled a5s from an office depot pad and I punched them and added them as well. 

Bond and I are ready for work tomorrow!

Birthday project

I thought I'd try and instill some healthy (?) organisational habits in my son, and what better way than giving him his first filofax? My boy turned 13 last week and I am sure he would much rather have found Assassin's Creed III gift wrapped than this beauty, but parenting is very often about giving children what they NEED rather than what they WANT, right? 

Problem no 1: which binder? I didn't want it to look too grown up, too exclusive or too expensive. Not too childish either, he is after all a teenager now. I settled on a Personal Bond, and he actually likes it very much. Yaaay!

Problem no 2: What about his school schedule? His schedule isn't the same every week (some classes are only every other week and some once a month) and his schedule is printed on an A4 and can be a bit tricky to decipher. No point in just adding a copy of that to his filofax. 

When I went to school I used to draw my schedule in a note book, one week on two pages for every week of the school year. So I added class specific text boxes in the undated monthly personal Word template (after moving the columns and merging a little) and added mail merge tags from the DatesSourceFilo_WOTP_CC. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the templates and source files at pHILOFAXY!!

Problem no 3: Week numbers. His school uses week numbers for everything, so natually his week view would need to include week numbers. After fiddling with the source files and templates adding week numbers to the template and excel file felt pretty straight forward, so I did! 

Then came the fun part. Making dividers! I bought a pile of magazines with nice photographs in them and glued them to paper and copied the shape of the dividers that came with the binder. I wrapped them in book wrapping plastic and punched them. That almost wrecked my nerves, the plastic got stuck in the puncher and  this racoon grinned at me for ever when I struggled to get this particular divider unstuck! 

Problem no 4: A teenager with a filofax? Will it work? I have no idea. But he's already using it, which is a good sign. See the jot pad notes in above? I flipped them over so you can't see what he's written (and I have his permission to post these pictures, btw :-)) but that's proof he's using it!! Time will tell if he'll continue using it and if he'll develop the same obsession interest as his mother. His younger brother has already asked me when he will get his own filofax, and wants one exactly like his brother's. So I have high hopes at least one of them will be a filofax user!