I have been constantly complaining about my unsettled set-up. My past post was about how overwhelmed I am feeling by my enthusiasm; I have so many ideas and potential uses for my Filofaxes but can’t seem to finish or use at least one to its full potential.

Ok, backing up a bit.  There is one, ONE of them that has been performing better than the rest. So here I am today to talk about it. That one is my lovely Pocket Finsbury Antique Rose:

Pretty handsome, huh? 🙂

Interestlying enough this one was not like my other ones that were avidly researched and adored thru online pictures and reviews for weeks. No, that one was an impulse purchase.

He popped into my life right after I scored a bargain on Ebay!

Did you notice the “right after”? Expedite shipping? I wish!
After a few days of my Ebay purchase I painfully realized that I was about to start 2012 without that juicy Filofax bargain. My two small but crucial points to get to that conclusion were:

1- I got the bargain from Ebay (where else?)…… but Ebay from UK! (I’m in US)
2- I got it two weeks before Christmas.

Could have I had picked a worse time to wait around for a Filofax? oh! Torture!

Anyways, continuing with my justification explanation of that handsome impulse purchase.

My Domino was supposed to be the main organizer but I needed something on-the-go. And that HAD to have a money slot across, remember? Me and my silly reasoning on getting a Filofax with a cash slot.
(I admitted learned pretty quickly that I don’t use cash at all, never have any with me and my debit card is the man to go for the tough job!)

So it was a non-planned affair. I “needed” to start the year with a wallet/ calendar that I could stuff all the humongous amount of dollar bills I carry around everyday. I then decided to go to one of the few stores that sell Filofaxes where I live and get me one right there on the spot. Fearlessly just like that! And here we are unexpectedly working well together all those months.

After two months of Filofax drulling-ordering-reselling-and-keeping-some, my handsome Fins has been hanging in there with me through all the process; watching carefully and helping me keep the Filo team together by choosing the ones we had affinity with and letting go of the ones we didn’t bond well. So, Fins has been a great companion and quietly settled down and developed its own way of living. Nothing could be more fair than to present the set-up that we both feel comfortable using.
It is far from complete, I warn you! (And there are a lot of pics on this post, I should warn you about that too!)

Doesn’t he look cute in that corner all pensive?

It is a real “on-the-go” planner. Very easy to carry around.

The BEST part of it is a very unexpected one. See him inside my purse? So, my debit card is right there on the top slot. I NEVER have to take the whole binder out to get the card. It just slides in-and-out with no fuss.

How convenient is that?

Ok, now the set-up which is pretty straight forward:

Can’t get any simpler than that, really!

ID, Debit Card and Starbucks card. All the important stuff up front! 🙂

To-dos

Under the “To-Do” tab I also have a shopping list separated by the stores I visit more frequently. Those are usually not urgent tasks so if I happen to be around those stores I check to see if that is something still pending.

Yeah, barely see the tabs. Somehow I manage to guess the right page.

Than comes appointments & reminders

Appointments and Reminders in a two week per view

Then, the daily stuff.
Left side I try to break down activities for the day. On the right side on top, general to-dos, at the bottom left, school to-dos and bottom right emails and such. In the middle I keep my food log and respective points.

Daily stuff.

BTW if you noticed I had trimmed down a month worth of Flavia Day-Timer personal size inserts to fit Fins. Very annoying task, but I didn’t want to NOT use them. If you see in the second picture at the beginning, the transparent pocket has the bottom part of the Flavia inserts that I trimmed down. Those are cute scrap papers.

Did you notice all that under the “to-do” tab? Well, not really, I just use the ruler to find the day I am in. I didn’t see a need to have a “calendar” tab with the rulers.

After that comes the “notes” tab which i just realized now that I don’t have a picture of the pages. Nothing surprising thou, just colored paper and random thoughts written down.

Next section is “WW” which stands for WeightWatchers.
I used to track my food intake using jot pads sheets but didn’t work that well. The wholes are very big and the pages kept moving around a lot. It looked and felt very messy.

Previous log food system

Then, still under “WW” tab there is the month view. I track the total daily points, weekly weight in (no, it won’t go public yet!) and exercise for the week. I use color-coded circles to identify what exercise I did for day; Cardio, Yoga or PT.

Than comes the tab “Class”. So, am I  that great of student, huh? One single tab with a few pocket size sheets is all I need for my classes! hehe certainly not. I use the Circa Levenger system for all my classes which I am hoping to write a post about it at some point. That single tab there is exactly for those moments when I don’t have my circa notebooks with me and remember something pertinent to school. There you go. Questions and random thoughts about class subjects:

The last part of it are the card slots and the back pocket. Can you see my coins in there? That’s all the cash I usually carry. Just to make it more “walletish”.

Oh, and there you go! The so-crucial bills slot. Full of receipts from my debit card swipes!

In the upcoming weeks I will be pulling apart the set-up to try to find my path in some other way……
Fins is going to relax some and a different Filofax will come in place……