Six Weeks with my Filofax: A Recap

I’ve had my Filofax Domino A5 in the color ultra violet for six weeks now and I wanted to let you know what I changed… I found out several things that didn’t work for me and I took out several sections. As a reminder, here is the “before-version” of my Filo:

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at my parents’ place and I can’t show you any “after”-pictures. (I’ll post them as soon as I have them, promised)

In short, I changed the following to make my Filo work for me:

• Goals Section: I took out the whole Goals-tab and all my DIY goals sheet. I just didn’t use them. It was a nice idea and I thought it would help me stay on track. But the sheets were just sitting there and not being used. So I decided to slim my Filofax down and take them all out.
• Money Section: Same here. I started recording my spendings but I wasn’t consistent with it. So it was useless because half of my spendings were missing anyway. I do – though – keep all important receipts and safe them in my Filofax first (right when I spent the money) and I put them in a box at home in chronological order. This is a VERY useful habit I think. My parents have been doing this forever (also because of taxes etc.), I just didn’t bother enough. But now I’ve had several cases where things broke and I had them repaired for free because I still had the receipt. But I don’t want to write every cent I spend down. So I just kept the clear envelope in my Filo and tossed the Money-tab and all sheets in it.
• Health Section: You may have read a short blog post about my recent weightloss and healthy lifestyle change. I’m still on it, of course. And I still feel motivated. But I’m using different tools now. I joined SparkPeople yesterday and it worked so well I decided to take out the health section of my Filofax. I record all my food intake and my exercise, I even record how much I drink and sleep. You can basically record anything you want. It’s a healthy living community and it’s free. I was sceptic before because the site didn’t really show what it offered unless you registered. And I don’t like that AT ALL. I want to know what I get if I give them my data. But I’ve heard so many good things about them, I decided to register anyway and I’m glad I did. It’s an incredibly supporting community. There’s so much positive energy. No haters. And there’s people on there who have lost 100, 200 pounds… It’s just amazing and so motivating for me. If you are on there too, send me a message or add me as a friend. My username is Katie-runs. (with hyphen; there’s also a Katieruns, but that’s not me)
• Journal Section: I decided to keep a bound journal after all. I can take notes during the day if I feel like writing something down when I have time (I’ll do that in my notes-tab), but I felt kind of weird carrying my journal around with me, since I tend to write down (very) personal stuff to get it out of my head. I just didn’t feel comfortable with it. I have a whole collection of blank bound notebooks at home, but I haven’t decided yet which one will be my Move-to-Miami-and-start-grad-school-plus-lifestyle-change-journal.
• Diary pages: I love the colorful design of my Dodo Acad Pad. I really do. But I’m still thinking about switching to the standard week on two pages diary layout that was in my Filo when I bought it. It has just so much more space to write in and no distracting grid lines. I’m not sure yet. So for now I still use my Dodo Pad. We’ll see what the future brings…

So, that’s it basically.

One of the next articles in my blog will be about my weightloss (I’ve lost about 15-20 pounds so far – I don’t own a scale so I can’t tell you more precisely how much I lost) and what I changed to achieve it. Thanks to all the nice people who supported me!

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Tags: change, dodo acad pad, dodo pad, filofax, filofax domino, journal