Anatomy of my Filofax: Diary/Calendar

Hi everyone!

I thought I'd share with you the different things I have and use in my current stay-at-home Filofax, a Personal Pink Baroque.  This will be the first in a series of posts that will detail how I use my Filo, what it contains, and what I did to customize it.

Baroque with some of its contents

The set-up hasn't changed much from when I last wrote about how I use my pink personal Classic here.  Incidentally, it was a Guest Post on Vanjilla's Blog.

Let me start with what Diary I use and why I prefer this format.

2012 Christmas Week

A sample of what a week looks like, and how I use the opposite blank page.

As you can see, I use a Dodopad filofax-compatible personal diary.  Week-On-Two-Pages with Notes was my favorite format for years.  Recently, I'd been using WO2P because that's what came with the binders I bought and I didn't want to spend any more money on a separate format when they were quite usable.  I hadn't even heard about the Dodopad till about February.  I held off on getting it for a while, but my curiosity won out, and in April, I bought it at half-off from ebay.  It was almost the middle of 2012 after all, and it was a good deal.

How I use it
I have tiny handwriting.  Otherwise, this format would never work for me.  The grids are really quite small, and I tried to use all the columns for each aspect of my life so I was really limited to one grid per day.  The weekly grid is on the right-hand side, the opposite of the Filofax brand WO2P with Notes.  There's also a bit of space on the top and bottom of the grid for notes, doodles, etc.

On the left, there is a blank page for just about anything you want to do with it.  I use it for a To-Do list and a Menu List. I recently started writing a menu for the week and I write about it in detail here.  An Avery round tab takes me instantly to this week.

Pink Avery round tab

At the back are grids for forward planning which includes January through June.  After which time you should be getting your own 2013 diary or you're really not planning that well, are you?  (:  I have used them as intended with a few things in March onwards.

2013 Forward Planner

I like the Dodopad because it's my ideal format, but much more fun, colorful, and interesting. I don't really need to pretty up my pages with stickers and drawings since Lord Dodo already did that for me.  I've stuck to this format since April so I guess you can say that this works for me.

You may have heard they're revising the 2013 format to include bigger grids, and I'm pretty sure I'll be getting that too.

The entire Diary portion lives behind a calendar side tab, after which I have 3 top tabs:  Y (Year), M (Month), and W (Week).  Here, I have tasks/chores that happen at any particular point in time.

The 6 custom side tabs

Top tabs

Under "Y": Birthdays and Anniversaries

Under "M", my least favorite subject:  Bills  (:

Under "W": TV shows

Also under "W":  Chores

As you can see, the pages are just hand-drawn and I write most things in pencil.

And, that's how I use the Diary in my Filofax.


Next up, Dividers.

Thanks for visiting!