Filofax memories (2)

This was my second entry in the Folifax Memories competition:

The day I first saw (and immediately bought) my Filofax punch was a very important day. I’d been using a Filofax for a year or two by then, mainly as an appointments diary but also to keep notes and track what books I wanted to buy and/or read, ticking them off as I went along. I loved the way I could keep all my stuff in one place.

Well, I say all my stuff, but that wasn’t quite true. I still had odd pieces of paper and fliers I had picked up or that people had given me that held important information, but it was information I didn’t want to actually transcribe by hand onto note pages. A certain amount of this stuff could be tucked into the Filofax cover pockets or my transparent window, but it was likely to get lost there. I started putting slips of paper in between the diary pages according to when I would need the information, but of course they fell out.

So when I saw the punch I had needed one without knowing it for quite some time. The day I bought it I spent some time taking my organisation to the next level. My football team fixture list, the gig lists of local music venues, even the local pizza shop menu, all found a more secure home in my system. I even punched holes into tickets for events and put these in between diary pages for the appropriate dates. (After some odd looks at various establishments when I produced my holey tickets, I started punching small brown envelopes instead, and keeping the tickets within them intact.)  Making my own dividers came later, and this was really empowering, giving me that last little bit of flexibility in how I organised myself.

My punch has survived more house move culls than almost anything else I own. It is a little old and battered now, but I wouldn’t give it up for the world.

Filofax memories (1)

Filofax in the UK recently held a competition. Through a number of leading blogs, people were invited to share their Filofax memories for the chance to win a new Filofax. I entered two memories in the competition. Here is the first:

I was twenty, in my first job and eager to please and to learn. They sent me on a time management course, which I suppose is one kind of feedback.

On the course we were all handed brown leather Filofax binders, stuffed full of note paper, to-do sheets and page-per-day diary inserts and I remember wondering how I’d ever get into a job so important I’d need a whole page to record my appointments. I was at an age where, to quote They Might Be Giants, “If it wasn’t for disappointment, I wouldn’t have any appointments!”

But, as I say, I was keen to learn and I soaked in a lot of time management goodness over the two days. I found that no longer having to jot things on little bits of paper to lose at my leisure was rather liberating. I could be efficient and productive and organised. I could have it all in one place. I did not have to be a slave to organisation; it would be a slave to me.  All of this was possible because of the Filofax binder and the system it contained. As much as the keys to my first car, this binder was a token of becoming a proper adult.  

Over the months that followed, I realised that I had found a lifelong friend. This little brown binder would eventually be retired many years later, its rings slightly misaligned, its fastening press-stud capless and non-functioning, its priceless contents transferred to a new, sleek, black number that despite its great looks and smooth feel would never really feel like a friend the way old Browny did.

That first job launched me into a fulfilling career, and by the time I reached a job important enough to warrant the page-per-day inserts, someone else was keeping my diary for me.

Getting started again

I always used to use a Filofax. For years it ran my life. But then, like many people, I gradually migrated to electronic organisation and put my book away. But the thing is, my technology was increasingly constraining me, not enabling me at all. The steps involved in entering a new contact's details into Outlook or into my iPhone outnumbered many times over the steps involved in just writing them down. Entering an appointment into my calendar took forever compared to jotting it on a simple diary page. And sorting out the various syncing duplicates and errors was a regular headache. All this 'convenience' was getting in the way.

Going back to the book was a real relief. Filofax hadn't changed in my absence; there was no new version to get used to, no patches to download or flaky betas to contend with. It was familiar and worked straight away, the way I wanted it to. I'm not going to give that up again.