Travel Stickers in my Travel Filo

I recently blogged about my travel Filofax set-up. But I felt the dividers were looking a bit bare. So when I spotted these Cavallini & Co travel stickers for sale in Waterstones, it seemed like the perfect solution!

They come in a lovely little tin and there's 24 sheets of stickers altogether. I won't bore you by showing you ALL of them! But here's a little selection.

I think you'll agree, they do a good job of brightening up the dividers in a topical manner!

Holiday time!

As you'll have gathered from the last few posts, I am now on holiday back to my beautiful homeland of Scotland.  While I'm away I'll have limited internet access, so I won't be able to reply to any comments. My posts will still keep coming, though, due to the magic of Blogger scheduling!

See you when I get back!

My Ideal Week

Philofaxy recently ran a guest post from Helen about her Aston Personal Set up. It was a great post which was interesting for many reasons but the thing that really caught my eye was her insert for her "ideal week".

I always feel like I'm being pulled in a million different directions. I have lots to do between being a masters student, a full-time mum, running the home, being asked to organise family parties, being the person who has to buy all the birthday and christmas presents and cards (and write and post them all!) and a million other day-to-day things that keep me busy. I feel like I should have enough time in the week to do everything, and have a bit of "me" time as well as quality time with my husband, but it never seems to work out that way. Which is why the idea of using an "ideal week" to timetable what I feel I should be doing and when I should be doing it really appealed.

Helen had included a link to the website which details the idea in full, so I investigated further. The post on Michael Hyatt's website made for very interesting reading, the key being to live your life "on purpose" rather than "by accident". Although I schedule my study time on a weekly basis, everything else is pretty much left to chance, trying to squeeze it in between one thing and another.  This is one productivity tool I can really see working for me, and if I keep it in my Filofax where it's easily seen every day, so much the better!

Now I just need to find the time to be able to sit down and work out what my "ideal week" looks like!!

My Holiday Filo Set-up

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about my new Compact Finsbury that I was going to set-up for our holiday to Scotland and promised to update you all ... so here it is! My newly set-up (and still WIP) holiday filo!

As you can see the training has worked pretty well, and although it doesn't quite lay flat it's a lot better than it was.  I have set it up using the Filofax blank subject tabs which are great as they're so easy to change when you need to.

I have 9 sections! Travel info, Packing, Sightseeing, Timetables, Restaurants, Houses, Schedule, Other and Maps.

"Travel info" holds all the details on our flights and car parking - reference numbers, flight times, etc. It's an easy "go to" section for all the important information. I think "Packing" is probably self-explanatory too!!

For "Sightseeing" I have printed off some sheets containing all the details for places we might want to visit including address and phone number information, opening times and how far it is from where we're staying. The last thing I want to be doing on holiday is doing all this kind of research when we could be out and about!

"Timetables" holds train timetables in case we want to go out somewhere for the day without the car. National Rail have a great "print your own timetable" section which generates a PDF of your chosen route. This then makes it very easy to print direct on to Filofax paper.

"Restaurants" is similar to the "Sightseeing" section, with information of places nearby to eat and how far away they are. Again, handy to have when we're out and about and have a hungry toddler!

Part of the reason for our trip North is to have a look and see if we want to return to Scotland. So the "Houses" section has been set up with details of local estate agents and things we need to bear in mind when we're looking around. It's a big decision to make so we need to ensure that we've covered everything on this trip to enable us to make a decision.

The "Schedule" section contains 3 sheets of a standard WO2P Filofax diary so I can record who we're meeting and when. Our trips North are so infrequent that invariably we have lots of friends and family we want to try and meet up with, so keeping track is important!

"Other" is a kind of catch-all for everything else that I need to capture. While we're up in Scotland it's my birthday, my son's birthday and my parents' Golden Wedding anniversary, so we have some parties and bits and pieces that need organising.

Finally there's the "Map" section with a few key maps printed out. These have just been printed from Google maps then punched and folded to fit in the Filofax.  Although they stick out a bit, it's not too bad and I've put them at the back of the binder so they're out of the way.

 

As you can see, even with all this information the binder is still looking beautiful and isn't in the least over-stuffed!  It really is the perfect sized binder to set-up for this kind of thing. Look out for a post-holiday review on how the binder managed "in the field"!

 

Travelling with a Toddler

Although I now live in Kent and my husband is from Kent, I am originally from Scotland and my family still live there. This means that twice a year (usually) we have to get ourselves from a place that's almost in France to the right side of the border.  Pre-child that was usually easy enough, but now that the toddler has come along it takes a bit more planning.

We have a first generation iPad which has now been fully devoted to toddler apps which is a great travel aid. We have it loaded up with Peppa Pig apps, colouring-in apps, counting apps, letter apps and almost endless episodes of Chuggington. It's enough to keep him amused for a fair old time. Of course, not wanting to irritate all the other passengers, we have invested in some headphones to go with the aforementioned iPad. It took a bit of searching but we managed to find some children's sized headphones that are also sound limited, limiting how high the volume can go. This is great as it means we don't need to worry about him turning the volume up to ear-splitting levels!

Along-side these two essentials we also pack a backpack with reading books and colouring-in books, a new magazine with lots of stickers and a small Aquadoodle. I have to say that since I've been introduced to the world of "toddler toys" the Aquadoodle still holds the place in my heart reserved for the cleverest of inventions as it enables multi-coloured drawing with a pen containing nothing more than water. It makes it the dream toy to use while travelling.

We have chosen to fly this time as driving with a 3 year old didn't appeal and didn't have any advantage over flying as we can borrow a family member's car while we're North of the border and getting the train on a weekend is more frustrating than anything else. When flying, we always make sure we make ourselves known to the ground crew and ask for a pre-board. As we are flying scheduled flights, it makes boarding so much easier without having a hundred huffy business men and women standing behind us waiting for us to get all our clutter away.

Of course, planning a 2 week trip to Scotland involves a lot of reference numbers, packing lists and a lot of information in my holiday Filofax, which I'll be reviewing soon (with pictures, of course!)

Journalling

For the last few weeks, Ray from 'My Life All in One Place' has been running a series of posts called 'Journalling School' which has really got me thinking about starting a journal. I have started journals previously, but have never kept them up beyond a few days. But the hints and tips that Ray has been publishing have really been very useful in changing my way of thinking, and with the Philofaxers' 350/30 lists that began on the 1st of September requiring a daily entry, it's as good a time as any to get into the habit.

I bought myself a lovely purple-covered journal from Paperchase a couple of weekends ago and put aside some time to clean my favourite fountain pen and get it set up with some lovely purple ink to match the journal. I'm hoping that by having the right tools and by choosing things I like to work with, this will help ingrain the habit.

Fingers crossed!

Staples' ARC system

The stationery giant Staples recently launched their own brand ARC range in the UK. This is a series of notebooks which are held together via a system of disks rather than by rings as shown in the picture below-right. This has the huge advantage that, much like a filofax, the pages of the notebook can be moved around to suit the user.

 

The whole range is absolutely fantastic. Special mention must go to the quality of the paper used which, at 100 gsm is absolutely beautiful and which comes in lined, plain and squared flavours. There are a whole range of other inserts including dividers, pocket folders and 'to do' sheets, all of which can be inserted just where you want them!

On top of that there are three sizes of rings which are interchangeable meaning you can increase the notebook's capacity to suit your needs. I ended up with a 200+ page monster in the run up to my masters exams this year!

 

The notebooks are also available in the USA where the range also includes a hole punch, which UK Staples assure is going to be released over here in the Autumn. In the USA the punch costs $40 and really is the only item missing from the UK range to make the notebooks truly customisable.  After a lot of searching I did, however, manage to find an alternative on eBay - a Rollabind punch which is a very similar system with very similar size and shaped holes for the discs. If you really want to get the most out of this fabulous system, a hole punch is essential, so keep your eyes peeled for a Rollabind punch on eBay until Staples UK manage to get their stocks on the shelves!

Weekly Task Lists

I was in Canterbury the other weekend and couldn't resist popping into Paperchase to feed my addiction! I came across these lovely weekly task list pads for the bargain price of £5 for 50 sheets.

They're A5 size so will be perfect in my Finchley Filofax. I reckon they could be handy for meal tracking and menu planning.

Unfortunately they're only printed on one side, but it wouldn't take much to scan the design and print it on the other side to double their use!

If you could tell Filofax anything ...

... What would you want to tell them?

Following on from the comments on my post about Filofax focus groups, I thought we could create our own little focus group, gather some comments and send them to Filofax!

Website Review - Stationeryart.com

I am absolutely loving using the Coleto pens that I blogged about recently. Unfortunately they're not available in the UK yet, so stocking up means scouring eBay or foreign websites. I recently found some on a website called Stationery Art and decided to give them a go.

Postage to the UK was only £3.20 which struck me as being excellent value in the first place. I know a lot of UK places that charge much more than that for postage, so I was impressed. The organisation itself is based in Hong Kong so I reckoned I'd be in for a long wait for the pens. However, only 7 days after placing my order, they dropped through my letterbox in perfect condition. Again, service that puts many UK-based companies to shame!

I really can't fault this company at all. The only danger is that their website is so tempting, you may end up spending more than you intended!!

White Rabbit, White Rabbit, White Rabbit!

It's the 1st of September and that means that the Philofaxers' 365/30 Lists have officially begun!! Today's question ... what are your goals for the month?

Don't forget to check Imy's blog and Kate's blog for more updates.