When I was working, I used a Personal sized Filofax (real leather, always real leather – it ages better) for all my notes. Despite being addicted to my mobile I have been victim to the ‘dead phone’ in the worst possible moments, meaning I’ve lost all my notes, numbers and appointments – in other words, I do like to have things written down if possible.
As a SAHM now the last thing I want to do is lug a big Filofax around, as easy to use that size is, so I recently decided to buy a Mini, which is VERY mini (neat handwriting needed!) but super super nifty to slip into the baby bag. Here is how I pretty everything up to make it a bit more personal!
My choice this time was the Finsbury Grained Leather Mini Organiser. Like I said earlier, I prefer the leathers to plastic ones, and I as I usually go for bright colours I went for a neutral grey this time.
The first thing I do is go through and take out pages I don’t need – the Mini is extremely compact, so there’s no need for keeping unnecessary things in there like international numbers and I don’t use many a-z pages so I just left 2 in. I ordered some lined sheets as I am most likely to use these in different colours and a pull out 2014 calendar to make any appointments easier to see.
One thing I do is make my own dividers but this time I bought this extremely cute and well made set from Etsy (seller listed below):
There are 5 dividers and you can pick your own categories. I had to think about which were the most useful for me (my personal filofax has around 15 dividers!). In the end I chose:
- Diary (self explanatory)
- Goals (I always set little targets)
- Household (Food, menu planners, shopping etc)
- Projects ( Stuff I’ve got going on, work related, or family related or just hobbies)
- Finances (I’m a terrible keeper of spending but I am trying!).
I also got the optional cover!
Another thing I do is put a few of my favourite photos in the organiser. I chose a few and printed these out to the Filofax mini size on 6×4 photo paper, then trimmed them down and hole punched them (you can buy a special multi hole, hole punch from the stationers).
With it being so small (the mini) there’s only so much you can do with it but it does force you to only include the most important things in there!
Here’s how it looks put together:
It certainly brings a smile to my face every time I look in it and its much easier to carry around. The Filofax pen I bought fits this size diary too without being too long.
I bought the Filofax from WH Smiths (currently half price!) and the dividers are from Cute Organising on Etsy (really nice seller).
Do you use a Filofax? If so do you personalise it?
