My Journey from Filofax to Digital…back to Filofax

Why would a self-described gadget girl be using a Filofax? Why would anyone be using a Filofax in 2013? Isn’t that akin to using a typewriter instead of a computer? Or backing up to a floppy disk? Do they even make Filofaxes anymore?

Back in the 80s, I was introduced to the Franklin Day Planner through one of their time management workshops. Organization and color-coding have permeated my life, so this was right up my alley. (My future ex-husband knew there were 2 places not to go--bookstores and stationery stores. I could spend hours looking at the pens and notebooks and folders and paper...) Since I never do anything halfway, I jumped in with both feet. At some point, I tried out some of the other systems that came along, Day Runner, Day-Timer and Filofax. Right on up until the invention of the Palm Pilot, I used some variation of the paper planner. The ABC, 123 thing that Franklin used as the basis of their system, it didn’t really work for me. So I came up with my own system, with pretty colored pens as the basis.

Now we are in the 90s. I had been an amateur tech geek for about 10 years so when the Palm Pilot came out, once again, in with both feet. I loved many things about the Palm, except no color. Color is very important to me. So when the PDAs with color screens came out, I was in heaven. And that is where I stayed, through many PDAs and then smartphones...

                                                       

But throughout this time, something was not quite right. I always had to make my life fit into the design of these devices/apps. Just since the iPhone came on the scene, I have tried out hundreds of apps, with a good percentage of those being To Do Lists or Notes or Calendars. Some easy to use but without a lot of flexibility, others with some flexibility but way too complicated. And there was no one app that could do it all. So I found myself with different lists and notes in different apps. What a pain! Then there were the times when I couldn’t access my info (for a variety of reasons). That didn’t make me happy. AND all along, with all this technology, I still found myself jotting down paper lists and notes. What’s a girl to do?!

OK 2013. There’s gotta be a better way. One day, while wasting time on YouTube, I searched Day Timer, not expecting much. Was I surprised to find a whole community of Planner people!  And you know how that goes…one video leads to another. At some point, I found the Philofaxy blog…a friendly, helpful like-minded group. As I continued watching hours (and hours) of video, I saw this new (to me) way to use a planner…Filoscrapping. Many of the YouTubers and Bloggers had combined scrapbooking and Filofaxing. To a pen-obsessed, paper-lovin’ color-coder, it’s a thing of beauty…

Coming up: My Filofax collection-How many planners does one person need?!

                     Personal or Compact? Or maybe A5???