Someone asked me recently why I switched my Filofax from A5 to Personal size. Only one reason, but an important one – it’s lighter and easier to carry.
I love A5 Filofaxes with 30mm rings. You can fold A4 paper in half and punch it and it fits. All pages from A5 notepads fit. It is a nice size to write on. They have nice notepads at the back. You can stuff in articles, recipes, things to read, reports, birthday cards just in case you need one. Those 30mm rings take a whole lot of paper. But there is no getting around the fact that a full A5 is a brick. Heavy and takes up a lot of space.
With my job I can start my first meeting at 7am, finish at 09.30pm and walk more than 12km between meetings in a day. You feel that full A5 after a day like that. I recorded one day in the life of my Filofax here and, quite simply, it is exhausting. I have a huge handbag to carry with water, lunch, all my books and papers for work, an extra jumper, umbrella and everything else I need for the day and I just couldn’t lug around anymore.
So now I have moved over to Personal and it is working very well. I cannot carry as much useful information in it as I could my A5 but to be honest, I haven’t needed any of it. I can’t overstuff to backbreaking proportions and what is even better is that now my Personal functions as both my wallet and my Filofax so I have actually downsized the amount I have to carry. My Filofax is no longer my everything in one but what a difference it makes to my day. My bag is lighter and so is my step.
If I worked in an office where my Filofax sat on my desk all day only moved home and back, I would definitely use A5 and only A5. But being as active as I am I just needed to downsize.
Another thing I am trying is keeping my personal things (wish-lists, photos of things I want to buy, favourite websites, recipes to try) in my Deco and my work items in my Personal Compact Temperley (which also functions as my wallet). There is no need for me to lug around personal items when I am working because I have no time to even look at them.
