2014 System Revamp: Past/Future Inserts Binder

Using a compact binder as your daily planner obviously means that you cannot carry an entire year’s worth of daily pages.  And since I can’t get away with using anything less than daily pages, I have to compromise.  Just like my Household Binder holds everything I don’t need with me on a daily basis, my Past/Future Inserts Binder holds all of the inserts I don’t need with me at any given time. 

I have a rolling calendar system in my daily binder.  I can get a full year’s worth of monthly pages in there, as well as 2 – 3 months worth of daily pages (in addition to everything else I carry—if I didn’t carry anything more, I could get 6 months worth of daily pages in there).

I use my personal Ochre Malden to hold all of my extra inserts.

I don’t put anything other than inserts in here, as you can see upon opening the binder.

The first insert is cardboard, which (if I remember correctly) I bought at Muji.  They originally had top tabs on them, but since I didn’t use them for that purpose, I chopped off the tab part and use them just to protect my inserts.  (There’s one at the back as well.)

I do use side tabs, however, to separate my inserts.

The first tab is to mark my Day Planner pages (they are no longer listed on the Filofax US site).

I haven’t used these in a while, but I don’t want to get rid of them because every once in a while I have a need for them.  I attempted to use some of them already, as you can see by the date at the top.  Even though I decided not to use them, I won’t throw them out just for the date.  It’s easy enough to cross that out and put in a new one, should I need to.

After that section, is the tab for monthly inserts.

This is obviously not the best time to illustrate this binder since we just started the year.  However, if this was August and I had already bought my 2015 inserts, I would have the first half of 2014 in here in addition to the second half of 2015.  July 2014 – June 2015 would be in my daily planner.  Once I removed all of the 2013 inserts from my Past/Future binder, they were put into my archival binder.  That’s why my inserts binder is a bit bare at the moment.

Next, I have the daily inserts section.

Again, not the best time to illustrate this, as all of my 2013 daily inserts are in the archival binder.  But I use the brown Today ruler to mark where I am in my rotating calendar system.  Right now I have all of the daily sheets for January, February, and March in my daily planner.  When February starts, I’ll remove all except for the last week of January into my inserts binder and add the first week of April to my daily binder.  The brown Today marker in the inserts binder will separate where January leaves off and where the rest of April begins.  This makes it easy to get right to the inserts I need when it comes time to rotate inserts again (which happens about every 2 weeks or so).

In the back pocket of the Malden, I keep my DayTimer Hot Sheets.  (So I guess I do keep more than just inserts in here.)

I use these in my daily planner for reminders of things I want to get done sooner rather than later but that do not have specific due dates.

I couldn’t use a compact binder on a daily basis without the help of this inserts binder.  And it’s a great way to use the lovely Ochre Malden.