My first filoFAX

I came to know 'filofax' just by accident. During October, we was searching on the internet about the way people use their moleskine notebooks, and the name 'filofax' was mentioned from time to time in some discussion boards. 'What is it? Is it a fax paper or fax machine? What is the connection with notebooks?"
After I typed 'filofax' into the search engine, I then walked into the wonderful world of Filofax!

In November 2nd, 2012, I went to the dealer in Hong Kong to buy my first Filofax. It is a personal ochre Malden and a A5 purple Finchley.

ochre personal Malden (left) and purple A5 Finchley (right)

Let us look at my ochre personal Malden first:

When you open your malden, on the left is six pockets in which you can insert your cards. There is also is zip when you can put your valuable things inside. I was told that I may also put some coins inside!
On the right side is the binder and the papers. There are some dividers with tap on it. With the names on the tap, you may go to the section you like quickly!





The malden comes with some inserts provided by the manufacturer when I bought it, but most of them are 2013 diary. It is still November 2012 and I cannot use them immediately. I made a big decision: I will draw my own diary and calendar of 2012 all by myself!

Paper
Here are the tools I use to cut the paper:  
1) A4 paper
2) a knife
3) one-hole punch
3 pieces of Personal sized paper can be cut from one A4 paper.
Using one-hole punch can be tricky when you have to punch six holes on the paper! 

Pens: I use Pilot FRIXON to draw all the lines and frames on the paper! The advantage is that you may 

erase the ink when you don't want them. 

Calendar for November

November calendar: here is my November calendar drawn by hand. It is spread over two adjacent pages.

There are sections around the calendar. Inside them you might write down what you want to do.

Calendar for December

For this month, I decided to make a change! Calendar was put on the left page, leaving lots of space on the left page and the while right page is blank. You may write down your planning on the blanks.

To Do list, One week on two pages view:

3 days on the left page, and 4 days on the right page. Saturday and Sunday only occupy the area same with the weekdays because we don't usually have much to do in those two days.

I was trying to make the above pages more vivid but due to my limited talent in drawing, that is it at the moment. I promise myself I will continue to practice and improve my skill in drawing and hopefully in the near future we will have more much good result.

the Pen Loop

I have to say that I am not very happy with the pen loop inside my Malden. 

When I put my pen inside the pen loop, some part of my pen will be left outside my Malden! 

I have no other way but to put my pen clipped on the binder ring! It works!

This is my setup for my Malden at the moment, and I will begin to set up my Finchley tomorrow!

It is very lucky for me to join Steven's Philofaxy community. It gave me an opportunity to see that so many people around the world are sharing their experience of using filofax. I also sincerely thank Steve, Tracy and Magaret for sharing their wonderful experience of using their filofax(s) on the Nov. 12 skpye conference!

I sincerely thank you for reading my first article in the blog and your understanding of my poor written English as I am not a native English speaker, some of my expression in English may make you feel a little strange.