School Series ~ Organize Me! Filofax Edition

I have tried soo many different organisation techniques and diaries and I've finally succumb to Filofax. This brand seems to be known worldwide, you only have to Google Filofax and hundreds and hundreds of videos and blog posts come up!

So let me introduce you to Bella!

She is a Classic Italian Leather in personal size. The personal size is your typically diary size that you can find in any Whsmith's, Ryman's, Tesco's, anywhere really! I got mine as a birthday present for my 20th Birthday from my Auntie and she purchased it for Whsmith's for around £35 but it is originally £80. I couldn't find the link on Whsmith's for the one I got but I did find the new season colours from Filofax here but you can find them often on sale at Whsmith here. 

When you first open it there are card slots where you can store cards or post-it's and then a big pocket at the back, which I actually just use to hold to post-it note markers. On the plastic flyleaf I actually keep two different post-it notes, the top one I keep for lists for anything I want to buy/try out and the heart post it I use to note down people's address or phone numbers or generally everything else that's not a list!

As you can see on this picture you can see the beginnings of a picture, this is actually the credit card holder that comes with the Filofax. I am in the process of filling it with pictures to make the opening on my diary cheerful, especially as I move out in a couple of months and I may get home sick!

Next is my month at a glance, in here I put any appointments (medical, interview or otherwise), paydays and assignment checks for college. As you can see these are all colour coded, 

college=Orange, 

appointments=Pink, 

work=Blue. 

I also circle the days I'm off college on term-time holiday (or school holidays), then I can flick to the month and see okay I've got this many days holiday this month, this helps when it comes to picking up extra shifts in my part-time job! I also circle the days I have exams.

Now for my day-to-day planning I just use the week on two pages diary that came with the Filofax. The layout works for me personally, it feels just like my previous diary though I like this one better as the previous had check boxes but only had 5/6 per day making not always useful. My old planner was covered in post-its with to-do lists on cause I ran out of space, however I can fit everything I need to write in the little boxes of this diary.

As you can see I use the colour coding system throughout my diary, I originally used highlighter in my old one but I have switched over to colour pens that I brought from Tesco, any coloured pen will do! I then shorten the word down to allow more space, e.g. Health Studies becomes HS, Biology becomes Bio, Study Skills becomes SS then I write the actual task in black pen and scribble it out in this fuschia coloured pen from Z-Grip so I know what items I have completed that day but I can still see what the actual thing was!

Behind the Filofax ruler you can see the little task list I put in each week (these are not Filofax to-do list), I printed these off the internet here and I just put them in the middle of the two pages and keep a note of any little things I need to do and then just carry the list on to the next list till the full page is filled and then I replace it (I've put in an example one, as my own one had some personal info on it)

In the note section I just keep extra task sheets paper-clipped together with the cutest heart paperclips that I got from Accessorize in September but they don't sell them anymore! Behind that I keep graph paper that I cut to size to use as to-do lists, I did that before I downloaded the task sheets, they now stay in as back-up to-do lists. I then have the actual Filofax to-do lists paper-clipped (again!) but I use these for any group projects for college, so I can keep track on who has done what and when and then I just have the Filofax lavender note paper at the very back as a J-I-C (Just In Case)

The first page in my project tab is my goal list for 2013, these are all the things I want to achieve by the 31st December 2013. Then it's the fun section, you all love! The Blog section. I have a page for blog post ideas/if you guys want to request any specific blog posts, they go here and behind that I keep 'Daily Action Plan's' which are really for when I write blog posts, I fill one of those out. It has a schedule section, projects for the day, support tasks, unplanned tasks (I don't use this section), and notes. These come in really handy as I can plan ahead of time which I love and I can make sure I've done everything!

Next is my health and fitness section, one of my goals for 2013. I am going to try planning my meals ahead of time, I'm hoping it will encourage me to try out some new recipes! Behind that I just have my workout routine (I may do another post on this!), in this paper-clipped section I also have a weekly tracker for my measurements as I am not going my weight I'm going by inches. Behind that is just the information section which holds my registration number and usual information that comes with diaries!

I am attempting to keep track of all my spending, in a hope I can build up my savings more over the course of this year. I've keep in the financial log pages in the section after health and fitness and I've also put notepaper behind for numbers etc for banks and direct debits. I also put my savings log in, I've put an example in of one (personal reasons/safety why I'm not putting my actual savings log page and showing you the page with all the numbers on, hope you understand!)

The last section I haven't filled out as of yet and that is the address section, I also have the web address pages here to keep track on any cool blogs I have read (I'm always forgetting them, then spend ages tryna find them again!). I've left the address pages in because I need to keep track of my numbers as I just keep them on my sim and several times I've had to have my phone rebooted resulting in me having to go round asking EVERYONE for their number again.

And that is my Filofax guys!

Elle

xoxo