Well Planned Life

I was recently chatting with a reader and friend of my blog. We are pretty certain that there are quite a few of us who live in the US Northeast. I’m curious as to how many. Please comment if you do (and don’t mind sharing that bit of information)…

The other night, I was on the Filofax USA website marking 2011 diary refills that I will later purchase. As I do every so often, I wandered over to the Find a Retailer link to see if any retailers in my area carry Filofax products. In the past, I have not been so lucky. This week, however, I found a little surprise – a privately owned store in a town about 30 minutes from where I live is listed as carrying Filofax products. I don’t know how long this has been so, but I’d like to think it’s a new thing so that I don’t feel bad about having missed out on products so close to home all this time. I promptly proceeded to enter the store’s name into Google to see what was available. They had no Filofax listing on their website. Bummer. In the hopes that the Filofax USA website wouldn’t dare lie about such things, I emailed the retailer. And the reply: “Yes, we have a good line of Filofax…” Yippy! I was so excited I had to email a friend or two to share in my joy (incidentally, I got no sup...

I will soon be on vacation – I cannot wait. I’ve been so busy with things for the past 2 months and it’s been a very long time since I’ve been away for a true vacation for any length of time. Did I mention that I cannot wait? Of course I’ve been preparing. I don’t have a designated travel Filo – I don’t (yet) have a need for one. But I have been making lists. We rent a house at a lake for the week. Many things are already there for us, but some things we must remember to bring with us. My lists include items to pack, food to bring and/or buy, books to borrow from the library. In all honesty, I haven’t been keeping up with these lists like I have in the past, though there’s plenty of information on each (my book list is longer than anything). Maybe it’s because we’ve been going for several years now and I know what to bring. Or maybe because I’m more relaxed these days and am not as particular about what gets packed. Or maybe because I’m too focused on actually going – at this point...

As I have mentioned , I have been overwhelmed with places to be and things to do. And what better way to feel more in control of everything than to organize? What better thing to organize than my planner(s)? Since December, I have been using three planners – an on-the-go Guildford Slimline, a stay-at-home Personal Finchley, and a household Domino. The household binder is mainly for informational purposes, and so I don’t really count that as a planner the way I do the other two. I love the Slimline Guildford. But I have also been craving something a little bigger to hold more items. Plus, using two binders was getting to be a pain in the neck – I was constantly going from one binder to the other. It was more work than I really wanted. I am currently saving my money to buy a Personal Guildford. In the meantime, however, I’m going to use my Black Personal Domino as my main planner. And of course in order to use that, I had to overhaul my system . And not just my main planner, but ev...

Last week I made a comment on a Plannerisms post that I thought I would expand on. The post discussed planning your day and/or week and what time of day/week that gets done. Among the many comments made, some people said that they take their planners to work and leave them open on their desk all day long. Like them, I take my planner to work and keep it on my desk for easy access. But I do not leave it open. By doing this, I feel like I’m letting people look into my underwear drawer. Let me explain: I can be a rather shy person, especially when I don’t know someone very well. But once I feel comfortable enough, I open up and reveal many things about myself. More than once I have heard how I am very different from how people first perceive me (or maybe I’m actually different from how I initially portray myself – I’m not sure which it is). However, when someone does get to know me better, there can still be a wall of privacy, depending on the person and in what capacity I know them. And...

As those of you who have read my posts from beginning to (current) end know, I have had not one , not two , but three separate dilemmas when it comes to my planner system. My problem is always trying to decide how to use which planner, in what way, and for what purpose. I am horrible at making decisions, at least where the little things are concerned. It’s just too much to process and decide on, especially when I see pictures of others’ planners and how wonderful they all are. I think most of us who live in the planner realm are constantly striving for “the perfect planner,” or at least as perfect as we can get them while using what we are using. I can only speak for myself when I say that striving for this type of perfection is really a grapple for control over my self-inflicted crazy schedule or for perfection in general. I recently read an article on the Japanese art of wabi-sabi . In its most general form, the description of wabi-sabi is to see and accept the beauty of imperfect...

My birthday has come and gone – no new planner to speak of. I didn’t really expect one and I didn’t really ask for one, though I did see a lovely Kate Spade planner up for bid on eBay. I wanted to bid on it so badly but my husband talked (shamed) me out of it. Originally I was thinking that I might buy myself a new planner for my birthday – after all, it’s been six months since I bought one. But I’m putting myself on planner austerity for a while. It’s not something I need and we have some expenses coming up so I will have to forgo a new one (for now). Sigh . However, I did receive a gift card to The Container Store . They used to carry a small collection of Filofax binders and inserts but have stopped within the last few years. Sadly, I don’t have a store anywhere near where I live. I can use it online but I like to be able to see and touch my possible purchases. So I will have to wait until my next trip to New York City or when I visit family in New Jersey. A post on my organizationa...