Jan to May 2016 Set up

So we have passed the half way mark of the year and I thought to share with you what happened regarding my planning system. For July I am doing the one book july challenge in an A6 mulberry, but for the last 6 months, my main planner size has been the personal size (with the A6 as a support). So here was my set up, featuring the Gillio Amica in midnight blue 🙂

I love the Amica style for its pocket layout. I find that I don’t need so many credit card slots, so three in the front is enough for me. I really love the secretarial pockets and there are two of them in the front and one in the back. I just keep some papers, stickers, business cards, and other such things in these pockets. Behind my front dashboards I have a sticky notes that I use to jot things down quickly. Usually things I shouldn’t forget to pick up at the grocery store.

Next you find the bigger sticky notes, and then the beginning of the planning section. I like to use top tabs as well as side tabs. Behind this first divider I have my “Actions list” from the GTD system. The top tabs are indicating the different lists.

Behind the second divider I have some small stickers and a colour coding chart (which I’m not really using anymore) for my monthly section.

I’m using these undated monthly inserts from…Daytimer? I believe. Someone included these with a planner that I bought from them. I like the fact that they are tabbed, and that they have place in the front and back to future plan, and make notes. I also like the fact that they are undated, because then I can stop and start with them at anytime really.

I started the year with the inserts from Gillio (archived already in the Original FF), and I was determined to not switch to another format or other inserts. But I found that although I like the feel of the paper, I didn’t like the layout of the Gillio inserts. I prefer the weekends to have as much space as the weekdays, and I’m also learning to accept that I don’t do well with lines. :p. So I decided to try a week on one page with notes, and I had such a layout in a TN insert. I tried using a TN and that lasted for about 5 seconds! :p lol. I’m a ring girl at heart :D. But I may try again one day…

In the next section I have a list of projects which I would like to work on. And after that is my notes (some paper to write on), and reference section with A-Z tabs. My dividers and page markers were made with paper from Flow Magazine. I really love how they turned out.

Behind the A-Z tabs is a clear filofax top opening pocket where I put receipts that I want to keep, such as postal receipts with tracking numbers. And lastly, on the rings, I have a self made page lifter. In the back secretarial pocket I have a note pad from one of my Kikki K planners. I like that I can slip it in there. I found, from using the Filofax Original, that I really like having note pad in my planner to roughly jot down stuff.

So there you have it! My planner set up from the first half of 2016. I’m still experimenting with my weekly page layouts. I have some tomoe river paper which I would like to use to print inserts out, but I want to be sure about which layout I would stick with. So the search continues. Once I’ve tried a few more, I may do a review on each layout and my experience with them. I’m also thinking of changing the tab positions. I think it may make more sense for my action list tabs to go down the side so I can see them more clearly, and my “main section” tabs to be top tabs instead. We’ll see how it goes after July.

‘Till next time,