Well... I have actually had these Filofaxes for about a month now and they are already hard at work so it feels like I've had them for months let alone weeks. So what do I have now? Well... I have managed to add a personal Imperial Purple Finchely, a Black A5 Identity and an A5 Imperial Purple Finchely to my hoard.
I'll save the Identity for another day and just look at the gorgeousness of the Finchley for now :)
OOOOOH!!
Ahhhhh!
Ok, that's enough of that. One thing has to be said about this Filofax though, the colour is just delicious. I have always loved the colour purple, but, being a pernickety designer, I'm quite particular about my colours. There are certain shades of purple I don't like; I don't like bluey purples, or pale purples, or neon purples etc. etc. I could go on (no, really, I could fill just one post up with all the tones & tints I do and don't like)...But the important thing is that I really really do like this shade of purple, it is very deep and rich without being too dark and is definitely on the red side of the spectrum. Which is good.
The leather itself is quite soft and a little bit cushioned to the touch. For some reason I was expecting it to be quite hard and unforgiving like my little pocket Classic so I was pleasently surprised to find it so strokable. I like the subtle leather grain used on this binder compared to the heavily grained and patterned leathers I often see on the Filofax website. A fellow Filofax enthsiast (I will post a link here if i can find it) had mentioned that the leather on this Filofax scratches easily. Luckily this hasn't happened to me yet but one thing I have noticed is that this Filofax shows up dirt like nobody's business! Especially makeup! I have a habit of rubbing my face when I'm stressed. Rubbing face = makeup ends up on fingers = makeup all over Filofax. I never have this problem with the Baroque or Classic Filos!! I seem to wipe down this Filofax every few days only for it to gather more of my makeup bag again
So what does this Filofax do in my life? What stresses does it carry for me? Well, this is my work Filofax...I'll leave that there I think. Let's just have a look at what's inside it.
A diary within a diary?! Yes! Why not! I actually keep my timesheeting notes inside this little diary. I do this to keep client project details completely seperate from the work diary as it lets me focus on exactly what I have done for each client on a day-by-day basis without anything else getting in the way. I then come back and look over it once the project is done and detail everything in a proper timesheet. This diary is just a little cheapy from WH Smith (well, as cheap as you get from WH Smith...) but it looks quite nice in the Finchley.
Even though this is a hard-working Filofax I didn't want it to be boring so I hunted around for a classy image to use as a front page. I came across my Calander from last year (I never throw calanders away, I always cut them up and use the artwork for something) which featured prints by the designer Erté. I cut out a personal-sized insert from the front cover to use in my Filofax.
This particular print was cut from the calendar's cover so it is decorated with some glitter, very bling! I love Erté's work but I wish I knew what this print is actually called, I just know it as 'The Alphabet Lady'.
Also in the front is a few business cards and some designs I like.
I'm afraid I can't show you much inside as work is top secret!
The diary is a standard week on two pages in cotton cream. I much prefer the cotton cream layout to the standard white. The design is more modern and the 'this week' section is very handy! The cream also looks very
posh next to the rich purple.
I labelled the months myself, much easier to flip between dates during meetings.
I'm still working on the tab structure so have just stuck page tabs over some at the mo. It's a pretty straight-forward setup; 'Notes' are just for general note-taking, 'Projects' is where I store notes knowledge on upcoming projects before a full brief is released and 'SMT' is company and design info. The 'Actions' section is particulary useful; during meetings I will write down the actions I need to take once the meeting is over. The pages in this section are all 'To-Do' pages and each type of meeting has it's own page so it's easy to look over and tick things off as I do them. Finally, the address section is used for new contact info as I don't have a work phone.
At the back are the business cards I transferered from my personal planner, the Baroque, along with the post-its and page markers. I don't keep anything in the zipped mesh section at the mo.
I had a bit of a size crisis a few weeks into using this Filo. I ran out of room in the diary section very quickly. You see, I use my diary section as a massive To-Do section, with bullet points in each day. It works very well for me; it lets me see what I need to do that day and I can then go back and use it as reference if I need to know when I did something. The only problem with this is that the method is a huge drain on space. SO I thought about it. And thought some more... I have always wanted an A5 organizer but never had the need to get one. But now I did have a need!! I didn't even have to decide what to get. I loved the Purple Finchely so much that when I spotted an A5 one on Amazon for a baragin £70 I bagged it quick. (Yes - for once Amazon was cheaper than eBay - and this Filofax was brand new!)
It arrived a few days later with all new inserts and a nice columned week on two pages diary. Great! Loads of room! Or so I thought. I started using it and within 2 days I gave up. The column layout was useless to me; I don't make appointments, I make to do lists. I tried to use the system by sticking meetings in at the correct times, squeezing them between my 'to-do' bullet points. The resulting mess was counter-productive so I switched back to the personal. Ok fine, I thought, I'll just order the weeks on 2 pages cotton cream diary in A5 next year and make the switch then. But as I now know, the cotton cream diaries don't exist in A5 size!! Why not Filofax?! Grr!
So what will I do with the A5? I like it too much to sell but it's other potential use of a Projects & Goals Planner has been fulfilled by the less delicate Identity (I will post on this soon!) I did think I could use it alongside the personal at work but I'm a little put off as the two Finchelys are different colours! See!
The A5 is darker and is different enough in tone for me to me to prefer the colour of the personal Finchley to the colour of the A5 Finchley. Has any body else had non-matching Filos? I suppose it might be because the personal came straight from Filofax i.e. brand new stock whereas the A5 might have been in stock on Amazon for a while meaning it was a different dye lot. I don't know, either way I don't like them sitting next to each other. Never mind, I'm sure I will come up with something for it to do! I'm good at finding things to do :)
