Discontinued Filofaxes

Last week I went to Edinburgh for a couple of days and went to Jenners Department store on Princes Street.  I met Craig, the manager of The Pen Shop, who kindly showed me their excellent selection of Filofaxes.  He also pointed out to me a whole bunch of Filofaxes that are deeply discounted because they have been discontinued!  I was shocked at some of the binders that are being phased out!

You can read more about it with my entire list of which Filofaxes are discontinued in my post about it over on Philofaxy.

My current system

Here is my 2011 system so far.  This system is in its infancy and, as we all know, is subject to change.  But so far I'm really liking it!

My main planner is my Moleskine weekly vertical, which you can read all about here.  With its monthly and weekly views, this planner wins the prize for forward-planning and structuring my week.

For overflow on very busy days, I bust into my Pocket size day per page Moleskine planner.  This is the third year in a row I've used a pocket size planner for this purpose (1st year I used an Exacompta Daily Pocket, last year I switched to a Moleskine daily pocket for the hard cover and elastic strap. This year the Exacompta Daily Pocket does come in a cover with elastic strap, but this version is not available here in the UK.). 

This system is vastly different from my failed Daily + Weekly experiment.  In that system I used my daily as a satellite to my weekly, and tried to use both at the same time as my main planner.  The way I use my Pocket daily Mole is simply as that day's To Do list with any appointments filled in. I don't use it for future planning at all.  That morning (or the night before to get it out of my mind) I write everything I have to do that day.  The small page size limits me to what I can actually accomplish that day, and the small book fits in my pocket to go with me everywhere on days when I'm feeling really scattered so I can capture those fleeting thoughts and tasks before I forget them.  Most days I don't use this planner at all, but when I do need it it's a very important capture device.  Really it's a way of keeping my daily To Do lists in a bound book instead of on a scrap of paper that gets thrown away later.

My Extra Small Daily Moleskine planner is for fun things only.  Specifically, it's for things I want to write in my journal later.  The Extra Small is so tiny I can take it with me everywhere to capture those cute things my kids said, or anything I want to remember to expand on in my journal later.

My journal this year is my Quo Vadis Habana notebook with white paper and blank pages.  I regret to inform you that this notebook has been discontinued, QV will replace these with the ivory-paper Habanas that are currently available in Europe.  But, there has been such an outcry from Habana lovers (myself included) that it's possible QV may reconsider and offer the white-paper Habanas as a special edition. I hope they do!  You can read more about that here on the Quo Vadis blog's post about it.

Could I streamline this system and use fewer planners?  I'm sure I could.  But, this is a fun way for me to use more planners!  And, compartmentalizing things this way works well for me.  Some people might prefer to use a notebook for some of these functions instead of a planner, but the dated pages allow me to find information faster and easier than an undated book.

As always, this method is subject to change!  ;)

Happy New Year!

And Happy New Planner to all of you starting a new day-per-page planner today!  It's so exciting to start writing in a new book!

And, how cool is today's date?!?  1/1/11!!!

This year holds a lot of mysteries for me. Yet again I find myself wondering where I will be at the end of this year.  Will I stay here?  Will I be back in the US? Will I be somewhere else entirely?

I look at my 2011 planner and think, what will I write on all those pages of yours?

But whatever happens, I am feeling optimistic about this year.:)

I hope you have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2011 and that your planner gets filled with good things!

Things I Love About My Moleskine Vertical Weekly Planner

This week I started using my Moleskine Vertical Weekly planner (large size, hard cover) with the slight tweak of using the top half of the daily columns as my days, and the bottom half as my notes and lists area.  This in effect creates a vertical week + notes format that is proving very useful for me.

Things I like about this planner (there's a lot!!):

1) I remember things visually, so I function best with a weekly days-as-columns format so I can see the layout of each day list-style and the entire week at once.  After only one week with my Filofax 2 Days Per Page format I lost track of what day of the week it was.  I need the structure and linearity of seeing the week across the page.  And the days as columns allows me to arrow over undone tasks to the next day instead of rewriting.

2) Having the lists below the days instead of off to the side keeps them in my line of vision.  Also, this seems like a small thing but makes a big difference to me: the lines for the lists are the same size as the lines for the day spaces, so my writing in both places is the same size.  In my Moleskine weekly notebook, I had to cram my writing smaller into my day spaces while my writing in the lined Notes page was larger, causing me to pay more attention to my lists and less to my days.  In my Trinote, I crammed my writing smaller into the list boxes, causing me to overlook those and pay more attention to my days.  Having my writing the same size in both locations means I'm less likely to overlook anything.

3) The Mole wins the prize for forward planning.  Seeing the entire week at once helps me plan the structure of my week, and turning the page to see subsequent weeks is very useful.  But what makes this planner even more useful is the two-month spread in the monthly planning section.  Seeing two months at a time makes planning the months and year so easy.

4) Convenient places to write Goals.  I have my monthly goals written into the Notes space below the month's calendar, so I can keep my goals in view while planning my month.  This helps take into account any major events when I'm considering what I can accomplish in a month.

I write my weekly goals into the left column of my Notes area below my daily columns on the weekly page (below Monday) to keep my week's goals in view all week long.

And, I've written my Annual Goals on the blank 2-page spread at the very front of my planner to always have my goals easily visible.

5) Notes pages!  This year's Moleskine weekly planner has NINE blank pages for notes at the back of the book. I haven't decided what I'm going to use all the notes pages for yet, but they are very nice to have.  I'll use the 2-page spread directly after the end of the weekly section for forward planning 2012, since this year's Moleskine planners had to sacrifice the next year's calendars to make room for the (excellent and worth it) month view calendars.  One of my complaints about my Trinote was that there was only one blank page for notes, so I didn't feel like there was enough space for creativity, listing goals, longer-term projects etc.  In my Mole I have more freedom to do that.  I also like having blank spaces like end pages and inside covers where I have taped in postcards of my favorite places in Scotland so I can look at them often.

6) Removable address booklet, which I use frequently.  I have all my local contacts in it, business cards taped in, etc.  I transferred my address booklet from last year's Moleskine so I didn't have to re-write anything.  I saved my new address booklet so if we move this year I can use it to write in local contacts at my new location and swap out the booklets instead of having outdated information written permanently into my planner.

7) It's so portable!  Even with all these features the book is only 5 x 8 1/2 inches and less than 1/2 inch thick, and weighs nearly nothing. I can take this with me absolutely everywhere in my bag and not notice the weight, unlike the size and weight of my Filofax or Trinote.

8) It fits in my cool and functional Rickshaw Bagworks Moleskine Folio!

The folio has lots of pockets for pens, papers, sticky notes, maps and anything else I want to have with my planner.

And, it matches my Zero Messenger Bag which I take everywhere and holds all my stuff, so it's a matching set! (The light in this photo makes the purple look more blue than it really is.)

9) I have to say, I like the print font and the uncluttered look of the pages in the Moleskine.  There's nothing to interfere with my writing, and there's no set structure so I can use the weekly pages in different ways if I want/ need to.

Like I said, there's a lot that I like about this planner!  This is a real contender for Planner Of The Year 2011!  In fact, I think this is the one to beat. 

Need suggestions: how to use my Moleskine Extra Small Daily Planner?

My pink-covered Moleskine Extra Small daily planner is too adorable not to use!  I need to come up with a use for it.

It's tiny (2 1/2 by 4 inches) so I can take it absolutely everywhere with me.

Using it as my planner is not an option because I have to have a week view.  But, there are lots of things I can use the small daily format for.

In my post When Is A Planner Not A Planner? I have a list of ways to use a dated day per page planner, and I'm considering these options.

One thing I've considered is using it to record daily expenses, because it is so small I can take it everywhere and it would be handy to jot in.  But, it seems like a shame to use such a cute and fun book for such a serious and boring purpose!  (Although maybe making budgeting more fun would actually encourage me to do it!)

I've thought of using it as a type of gratitude or positivity journal (although not in such a hardcore fashion as Yvotchka's!).

Do you have any recommendations or ideas for ways to use this cute little planner?

New Planner for the New Year!

Today most weekly-format 2011 planners begin!

Today I'm starting my Moleskine Vertical weekly planner with my tweaked week + notes format!

I had the idea to use the vertical format like this back in March, so I've been waiting ever since then to try this experiment.  I can't wait to see how it goes!

I was going to start my 2011 WeekDate planner today but realized I should try it in the second half of January instead because until then none of my recurrent weekly events are going on, so to give the WeekDate a fair and realistic trial I need to use it when I have recurrent events.  I've been obsessing about WeekDate planners since July so I'm very interested to see how it will work for me!
 
Below are photos of my two main contenders for Planner Of The Year 2011, my Moleskine vertical weekly and WeekDate planners.

Both of these planners are portable, slim and light. They both have pretty covers (since my addition of the rabbit postcard on the Moleskine for 2011 Year Of The Rabbit).  Both of these planners are easy to carry with me everywhere and pleasant to use.

Here they are both open.  They both have a weekly layout with the days as columns.  These planners are both elegantly simple but in different ways.

The WeekDate's "Only Write It Once" system means nothing slips through the cracks, and everything is visible at all times.  This is fantastic for my out of sight, out of mind tendencies.

The Moleskine vertical weekly has the advantage of being a regular, bound book with a simple layout that I could customize in many ways.  I plan to use the top as my daily columns and the space below for my lists.

I'm on a quest to settle on a planner by the end of January and use it for the entire year!  Can I do it? Only time will tell.

Are you starting a new weekly planner today?  Did you stick with what you used in 2010 or are you using a different planner for 2011?  I'd love to hear what everyone is using, and if you don't mind please give some details about how you'll use it too.

Happy Planning everyone!  :)

Thank you, Trinote!

I've used my 2010 Trinote more than any other planner this year.  Tomorrow I begin my 2011 planner experiment.

Tri and I have been through a lot together in the 5 action-packed months I've been using it.  It helped me through my move, kept me organized through the fall and early winter, and generally kept me sane.

I've done a lot of planner experiments in the time I've been using it, and have always come running back to my Trinote after every planner failure.  So far nothing else has been able to function as well as my Tri.

I'll do a couple more planner experiments to see if I can find something that works as well for me in a slightly smaller book.  But waiting in the wings is my 2011 Trinote just in case I discover than nothing else can match its functionality and organization.

Thank you Tri!  You are the Planner Champion of 2010!