Post-its Flags and Zots

I am anxiously awaiting the New Year so that I can put my new inserts in and reorganize the binder a bit. However, this morning I made a small change in my Malden.

I absolutely love the Filofax Post-it accessory. It’s the first thing you will find when opening my binder. I use the transparent flags for marking things, whether in the binder itself or in a book or magazine that I’m reading. Whenever I need to mark something, I have these nifty little flags to help me out. I use the big notes for general note-taking and information – I can place the note on my daily sheet and transfer the information to wherever it needs to go when I have the chance.

However, the transparent flags are not good for writing information on them. They’re a bit shiny, which makes it a little difficult for ink to be placed on it. It can be done, but not to my satisfaction. Luckily, since I’m such a Post-it lover, I have different flags that I can use. These easily allow for writing on them.

I removed the transparent flags on the Filofax accessory and replaced them with the writable flags. The sticky part on the back of the flags isn’t really enough to keep them attached to the accessory itself. So I used Zots to attach them better. (I believe these can be bought wherever scrapbooking materials are sold, though you can get them via the web as well.) They are small glue dots that allow for easy adhesion of one item to another. They are not so sticky, however, that they easily come off when you’re done using them. Hopefully this will work well for this purpose; only time will tell.

Currently, I use colored pens in my planner to differentiate what category an item belongs to. I have a set of these pens at home and at work and have a set in my pencil bag for easy on-the-go use, but it’s sometimes as hassle to drag out the right color when I need to quickly jot something down. I thought about using colored highlighters instead. This would allow me to enter anything in using my regular pen and highlighting with the appropriate color later on. But highlighters tend to bleed through the Filofax paper, which is not good. So my decision is to keep using the colored pens, but the Post-it flags will allow me to enter those quick appointments in the planner without having to dig out the right colored pen. I can easily take the correct colored flag, write the appointment on it, putting it in the appropriate place in my planner, and add the appointment in pen when I get a chance. This is my plan for 2011, so we will see how it goes.

I have also added a stack of smaller notes for quick notes that are too big for the flags but too small for the big notes. These are placed behind the big notes on the Filofax accessory. I’ve been using these for a while and that works very well.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this flag/pen system will make things a little easier for me. How do you differentiate from one activity category from another?