2012 Filofax Set-up

I have been looking forward to this day since around Sept or Oct '11 when my months-old Cuban Filofax began to lose its luster. I scoured thousands Filofax Flickr photos, and tried to emulate the random messiness of schedules, sticky notes, stickers, the more-than-occasional stray page, the explosion of color. It was all so appealing to the eye, so...interesting. I ended up with a schizophrenic amalgamation of other people's ideas.

In reality, I like my Filofax tidy. I like symmetry, order, and monochrome. What I did not like was Filofax's 'array' (I use that word lightly) of tab dividers. Making my own, I discovered that I am not an artist, and that too many colors and patterns turned my eye away from rather than to my Filofax, causing me to neglect its upkeep for days on end.

I was happy to discover these...

Dividers from Succes in navy blue, the most classic color in the spectrum, and incidentally, the same color as my car, and the cardigan I bought yesterday from H & M. I love these. They are a flexible, light-weight plastic(y) material (Succes calls it synthetic). I bought one packet of 5 dividers with symbols (365 for the Calendar section; a check-mark for the To-Do section; a pen for Notes; an "i" for Information; an envelope for Addresses). Because they did not have blank tabs in navy, I bought a packet of 3-letter address tabs to re-purpose for my own use. I flipped them over and re-labeled them with my Dymo label maker. My other sections are ASL (American Sign Language; I'm an interpreter); The Bible, to take notes when I'm at church or during my personal reading time; Finance, to keep track of spending; Lexicon-my word list. When I'm reading and come across a word with which I am not familiar, I look it up, write down it's meaning and try to incorporate it into my vocabulary; Projects, just projects; To buy - my shopping lists. I have different pages for different stores: Target, Marshall's, T J Maxx, Sephora, the mall, etc; To Read. lists of books I have read and want to read. It is prefaced with a quote by Henry Miller: "We should read to give our souls a chance to luxuriate;" To Wear. I made my own template to plan my outfits for each day of the week.
In the back is a top-opening envelope for receipts, and a card holder; in the mesh zippered pocket I keep paperclips (I only use the circle ones called Clipiolas) and stamps and such.
Other points of interest in my Filo:
*For the Calendar, I use the fold-out year planner and the wo2p diary. 

I pimped out my frosted "Today" page marker with a press on flower (if you read the prior post entitled 'On Filofax', you'll see that I also pimped out the fly leaf in my weight tracker planner). I like how this one looks like a climbing vine.

*In the Info section, I have a fold-out world map, which I refer to often.

*In the Bible section, I have placed a card that I received from my church which has our 2012 Year theme (Church to Live) and a sub-theme for each month. I laminated and hole-punched the card, and placed it in the front of this section.

*This is the template that I created to plan my clothes for the week. I print it on Filofax pre-punched paper.

*I use a navy blue Jet-stream Uni 0.7 pen that doesn't quite fit into the pen-loop, so I just hook it on.

*My Filofax is a Personal Cuban in Chestnut. It goes everywhere with me (except when I carry a smaller bag, but that's another blog),and holds its own against my iphone and Galaxy tablet.

*I only use Filofax Cotton Cream paper, as seen in the haul photo below.

There she is, folks. Ready for the new year...