So, being the total planner nerd I am, I would be lying if I said that I haven’t imagined doing a “What’s in My Planner” of my own for years. Kes-Sativa and I have dreamed about our own videos on YouTube and being among other PlannerPeople who blog about our love for organization and stationary. So, today is the day that I finally get to check this off of my bucket list! Ladies and gentlemen of all ages and organization levels, I introduce you to my Filofax!
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| Hello Mickey! |
I call him Mickey (you have a name for your planner right?) and he is an A5 Metropol in Black. I bought him as a Christmas present to myself last year for $27 and have been using him since he arrived in January of this year. I love him. My Filofax goes anywhere of importance such as blogging dates with Kes-Sativa and always to school. Some think the A5 is a tad big for an “on-the-go” planner but I typically carry large bags and the size has worked very well for me.
Lets open him up!
Inside the Front Cover
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| I can't help but smile when I open him up. :) |
Anyways, back to business. My dashboard used to be the front of a notebook that a dear friend of mine brought me from Disneyland. After almost breaking my hole punch and bruising my hand, it is now a lovely dashboard that greets me every time I open Mickey up.
The front cover comes with five card slots on each side as well as a large pocket that you can slide bigger pieces of paper into. Some may use this section as a wallet but I utilize this space for sticky notes, stickers, and small papers (which I’ve pre-punched) that I use for lists and such within my weekly pages.
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| One can never have too many post-its. Nor can somebody spend too much time at the Target Dollar Spot. |
My Calendars
The first page after my plastic dashboard is a piece of Mickey Mouse scrapbook paper. I recently ( as in this past week) added. I also made new dividers using Disney scrapbooking paper found at my local Joann’s Fabric. After that, there is the Filofax pages for personal information and registration number (so if somebody were to find my agenda, Filofax can send it back to me) and then we start my Month on Two Page spread.
As I have mentioned in my previous post on color coding, I love color and have an extensive color coding system within my agenda as I'm sure you can tell. The vibrant, almost marker-like, ink you see on my monthly calendar are Papermate Flair Pens in medium. They do bleed through a tad on the Filofax paper (especially the darker colors) however, I still use use them.
After my monthly view which I use for long-term planning and big events, there is my Week on Two Page spread which is where most of my day-to-day planning gets done. I dabbled in a bit of decorating as inspired by the many PlannerPeople of YouTube and Pinterest but going to school everyday and juggling with the events of senior year prevented me from doing anything too serious. However, I love the notes section in the beginning of the week to write an inspiring quote. I also like to fill the empty spaces with my random doodles. :)
On the weeks that had a lot going on or when I had a lot of things to do that didn’t have a specific date, I would write a weekly to-do list and attach it into my current week. The week pictured to the left was the week after I got home from a three week vacation and I had a LOT of catching up to do. It is also one of my more decorated weeks.
Divider One: School
So, one of the coolest perks of a binder planning system is the ability to hold everything you need within one book. Behind this adorable Mickey divider (I warned you that I had a problem), there lies many important papers related to my schooling. Papers such as contact information for my university next year, my intended schedule for the fall, and a running list of scholarships to apply for. In the fall, I also plan on holding my Roommate Agreement Plan, the university bus schedule, a grade tracker, as well as anything else I will need for my first year of college courses. Unfortunately, for privacy and safety reasons, I cannot show you anything behind this divider but… Trust me when I say that this is one of my more used sections.
Divider Two: Blogging (as of today)
This divider has held many different things behind it throughout the past few months. Most recently, it was a Health section where I tracked my meals and copied down the many exercise routines that I’ve found on Pinterest. However, due to the fact that I don’t meal plan outside of school and that my Health section was painfully neglected… I decided to make it my blogging section.
I hope that as our blog grows in popularity, this section will grow as well. As of now, behind this lovely divider, there is a running list of future post ideas, tips and tricks on writing better posts, “Filofax photo-a-day” challenges which may find their way onto this blog, and a bit of blank paper for when inspiration strikes. :)
Divider Three: Lists
As many PlannerPeople do, I love lists. So much that I have an entire section for the endless supply of checklists that I have. In this section, I have a master to-do list for things I need to complete eventually, a bucket list written in rainbow colors, a list of books to read (I want to read all of the Nicholas Sparks books and I may add John Green to that list too), a wish list that I use for when people ask me what I want for my birthday or Christmas, and a very short list of quotes which I need to add more to. There are also writing prompts for each day of the year which I am thinking about implementing into my planner after the new year and lastly, a running list of Disney movies (written on Disney paper no less) to keep track of all of the movies that I own on Bluray, DVD, and/or have a digital copy.
Divider Four: Finances
This is another section that has been left terribly untouched. I bought the expense tracker from the Filofax website and labeled each one by month. This was my first mistake, as there is no way that I could fill an entire page with purchases in one month. So, I am hoping to get back into using this section within the next couple of months, I am thinking about adding an envelope to hold receipts that I still need to enter but… we will see what I can come up with. Feel free to leave any suggestions or tips about how you track your finances. :)
Divider 5: Etc.
This is the divider that catches everything that doesn’t really have a place right now. It also holds a bit of my extra paper for other sections. First thing behind this glovely divider (haha because it’s Mickey’s gloves? No? ...okay) is the many address sheets that came with my Filofax. Now… I don’t understand how these are supposed to be functional which is probably why I haven’t used them. I may be taking them out or giving them away or something because they haven’t done me much good.
After the address sheets are assorted colors of Filofax paper that came with the planner. I also took all of the paper out of the notepad that came with the planner and inserted them here as well. The jot pad in the back wasn’t used as much as the loose leaf paper has been. I also have more Disney paper that is lined, gridded, as well as blank, and these came from the same notebook that is used as my dashboard now.
In this section, I also carry all of the information pages that Filofax supplies you with when you get an agenda. I have actually used these randomly in school among other places and either way, I tend to be one of those people who would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
The last thing in my Filo is a top loading envelope that came with the Metropol. Inside, I hold an assortment of stickers ranging from Disney to Lilly Pulitzer, as well as some calendar stickers from a previous agenda.
Inside the Back Cover
As we come to the end of Mickey, we are greeted with the back of the notebook. The notebook had an elastic band attached and it is useful when I put things in the planner without actually punching them in. Rarely, if ever, does anything fall out of my agenda even though I throw it in my backpack, purse, and take it from class to class.
Lastly is the mesh pocket on the back of the agenda. This originally held a jot pad however, I rarely used it other than to tear papers off of it and the edges of the notepad began to curl due to its location. Now, this holds the things that I need to refer to often or perhaps need to be filed away somewhere other than my planner.
Currently, there is further information about my classes which I have had to pull out enough times to not want to punch it into the planner, a list of general education classes for my school, a NASA sticker gifted to me by a friend, and a few of the weekly notes found in the Target Dollar Spot (one of my most loved places).
P.S: How do you organize your agenda?
