It took less than four months.
The usual content warning. Stationery nerdery incoming...
I had bought Daytimer refills and Filofax refills. Lots and lots of refills. To move from digital planning to analogue planning, I was going to need a lot of sections, I reasoned.
I’m a busy chap, don’t you know?
I had a one page per day set of refills, but then found a two page per day layout, which reminded me of my old Daytimers of the nineties and noughties.
This is the right solution for a busy chap. Particularly a busy chap who wants to make a ritual of planning a day and week. There’s a degree of overhead to every planning system, and if you’re not careful, it can all become a bit performative. As a cog in the corporate machine, there is value in this. My boss wanted to see a full page. He wanted me to have taken useful notes. I had expenses to claim and calls to make. My planner was both a record of my weeks past and an outline of my weeks to come.
I’m the boss now.
And frankly, I’m not that busy either. It’s rare that I have more than a couple of appointments in a day, and I don’t need a note of expenses. It’s all a bit OTT. I wrote before that the danger of any analogue task/diary system is when it becomes peripheral. With no notifications, the system relies on being looked at every day. If it isn’t, the system ceases to function.
I thirst for a simpler life. So a simpler refill, then?
There are plenty of choices out there - both by Filofax and third parties. Of course, there are multiple alternative formats available. A diary? I mean, I really enjoyed using a Smythson.
My most recent love affair has been with Paper Republic. The Traveler’s system gives some modularity, in that you can have a few books in the cover - but isn’t dominated by six or seven metal rings like a Filofax. I wondered what their planning regime looked like?
The answer? Two directions. One, the Dojo System, which as far as I can work out has some layout pre-printing and a boatload of stickers. Don’t get me wrong, such a thing has massive appeal to “geeky-me”. Sit me down with a fine-liner, a ruler and some stickers to create the perfect layouts? Oh Yes! Sign me up. Beats the hell out of working.
The second option is a weekly planner. The week on the left side and notes on the right. “For the man who doesn’t do too much, but wants to do it then go to the gym.”
I bought some refills and a new cover (natch), in “XL”.
The planner refill comes in the thread bound, lie-flat book-style. One book, one year. This teams well with another book-style refill or, like me with a slim, stapled notebook and a “card and cash holder”, which I use for scraps or receipts and as the anchor point for my pen loop. All the paper is fountain pen ink friendly - although it is quite toothy for finer nibs. I did try two book-style refills and the card/cash thingy, but it’s a little too fat for the cover. Workable for sure, but the cover is not making it all the way around the stack.
The idea is that the new book will be my mobile HQ. It will live in my man bag. My Filofax was desk-bound. In the new setup, if an appointment is proposed, it will be agreed and go straight into the planner, rather than require a provisional answer, noting and transcribing. The second refill will serve for random notes. A capture tool, if you will.
My man bag currently carries its own Paper Republic setup. A pocket-sized one. What of that?
Dunno. It has been replaced by the larger format, but perhaps still has a role, when I’m out in nature and don’t want a man bag, hiking for example.
Right. Got to dash - I need to transcribe a lot of entries from one planner to another.
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