Part 1 - Filofax Setup - How I use my Flex with my Filofax and a Dashboard

To celebrate the beginning of a new year I have decided to move into a different filofax for a fresh start ... 

Sometimes a change is nice and refreshing. Plus, I've been dying to break in my new Personal Aston for a while now. It's the yummy chocolate-coloured one – Read about how I discovered it here.

The first thing I did was de-clutter. It is amazing the amount of junk you can accumulate within the pages of your everyday Filofax. 

I decided to remove every sheet I haven't looked at in months, which meant removing half the tabs too – I was brutal, and I only kept what was absolutely necessary.

Tips on how to minimalise and declutter your planner

• Take absolutely everything out first – this will give you a nice blank canvas
• Then go through with a fine-toothed comb – only returning essential inserts and things that bring you joy.

These two steps will help to make the task of decluttering your planner feel more thorough. Plus, it will leave you with a clearer idea of everything that your planner contains, the order of things and you'll end up feeling that little bit more connected to it – which will hopefully help you to use your planner more effectively!

Looking at my new set-up, you wouldn't know that I spent hours de-cluttering - it still looks pleasingly packed! We all love a nice fat Filofax, don't we?

                   

How I pair my Filofax with a Flex

I like to use my original Filofaxes and my Flex Filofaxes together (read more about that here!)  

So, I am currently using my personal Aston Filofax with my magenta slim Flex slipped into the inside pocket, so that the Flex flaps open when I open up my Aston.  

Why? Well, firstly because the colours look so yummy together – the magenta matches my pink pencil, and colour coordination and accessories make me happy. Also, adding the Flex to my Filofax gives me more options.

For example, I find it very convenient to slip in a Flex jot-pad and use the pockets in the Flex to store random bits and pieces. 

As you can see below, I have personalised my jot-pad with a newspaper cutting that says "Why Women Can't Resist a List" -  It sums me up perfectly.

I tend to use the jot-pad for 'rip-out, screw-up and chuck-away lists' - Such as want lists, shopping lists, to-do lists...  Which reminds me, I need to buy more jot-pads, they run out so quickly.  

They are very useful though, especially when kept at the front of my Filofax. I find I use my jot pad a lot more when it is at the front, rather than when it is at the back. I don't know why Filofax always designs jot pads to go at the back of their planners.

If you want to make use of all the pockets in the Flex, including all those card slots on the left-hand side, rather than slip the left-hand side of the Flex cover into the inside pocket of your Filofax, you can just keep the Flex stored at the back on the right-hand side of your Filofax, behind all your usual inserts.  I don't find that it slips out because the pen-loop sort of keeps it in place when the planner is open.

Use your flex as a portable sticker station

At the moment I buy specific stickers for my personal Filofax which is my everyday organiser, and specific stickers for my A5 which is my business organiser, but it would be ideal if I had a portable sticker station that I could transfer to whichever Filofax I am taking out with me – I think the Flex slimline is the perfect solution!

Because of all the pockets, there are plenty of places to slip stickers into. If you're feeling particularly creative you could even design some sort of envelope book system in which to store stickers in the Flex.

Then just transfer your Flex over to whichever Filofax you're using, and you'll have all of your stickers with you.

More creative uses for using the Flex with your Filofax

• Store extra things – like stamps, sticky notes and receipts
• Hold extra notepads to keep notes separate – a journal, poems, transferable calendar
• Extra pen loops – with the added bonus of them being elastic for fatter pens!
• Shopping lists – it's easier to hold the Flex than a bigger Filofax in the supermarket

The idea of using a Flex to accessorise your Filofax might seem a bit weird, but as you can see from my photos, the Filofax closes perfectly well with the Flex inside, so why not?  

My new planner dashboard

Moving on from the Flex ...

I've posted previously about how to create your own planner dashboard using card-slot inserts - but here I use a slightly different system.

I have a 'front sheet', which is a pretty patterned insert sandwiched between two pieces of acetate and clipped together using metal page markers.

I slide in a sticky note pad which is kept in pace using the metal bookmarks.  I can then use this to jot reminders or notes and move them into the areas of my organiser that they relate to.

Behind the 'front sheet' I can also slip loose notes into the book marks, or stick sticky notes on the acetate sheet opposite ...

It may not be how you would incorporate a dashboard, but it's working for me right now. I think that's the most important thing – personalising your planner so that it works for you.

Most of the satisfaction is in getting creative and discovering how your planner can function in a bespoke way. We all have different needs and different ways of doing things, and a personal planner is a great way to express yourself.

So I highly recommend reading blogs like mine for inspiration, collect ideas and then adapt and apply them to your own planner system.

Read Part 2...

In Part 2 of my new Filofax setup I will be talking about my Notebook Section.

See you over there!

Loved it and want more?

Review: slim magenta Flex by Filofax

Have you heard of Moleskine Postal Notebooks?

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