Guest Post: Three Ring Circus! By gmax

Keen eyed US readers may recently have spotted that some unusual format binders from Plotter were on offer at the San Francisco pen show.

One was the Mini 5 Square format (which, for some, would warrant a dedicated discussion), but the one that really caught my eye was their 3-Ring format.

Both of these have been available in Japan for some time, but are little known elsewhere. I’d spotted the 3-Ring offering a while ago and fell instantly in love!

I just find them irresistibly cute, being smaller than the Plotter Mini 5 or the Filofax Guildford Mini Extra Slim. Plotter describe them as “the smallest specification of PLOTTER’s Leather Binder line up…so far!”. (I can’t wait to see what might be even tinier.)

Here is a photo comparing the 3-Ring to the Mini 5 (left):

Three-ring formats have been around for a while – Filofax have the M2, which is discontinued but still supported for refills. Lefax also had a model called Soho (sadly long obsolete), which used a half-size personal paper.

Filofax today produce mini jot pads, which are of a similar size too.

The beauty of these three-ringed leaves is that they can fit into many of the other ring-bound formats.

For the Plotter models, the dedicated leaves are a “business card” size. Rhodia also offer lovely, punched refills in Japan that are still a perfect fit, but provide some extra writing space. They match the width of Filofax personal size, which appeals to me.

These five sizes are compared below (clockwise from top left Lefax Soho, Rhodia Organizer, Plotter Card Size, Filofax Mini Jot Pad, Filofax M2.):

 

Plotter and Rhodia pads:

Here’s the Plotter 3-Ring alongside a Filofax M2. 

This particular 3-Ring binder is made of Liscio (“tanned, oil-smooth authentic Italian”) leather, nominally blue but actually green in appearance. It has 11mm silver Krause rings and a pink gold backplate. I think it was a limited edition, which came with a matching “ring supporter” to help prevent indentations from the rings. The design is very minimalist, but you can purchase a leather card holder insert to provide a pocket if desired.

I’m currently finding the combination of a Plotter 3-Ring with a personal size binder is hard to beat.

Thank you Max for sharing the details of this binder with us and our readers. 

Quiet Sunday - M2 and Mini

Not a normal 'Silent Sunday'

The Filofax M2 size and Mini size use very similar size paper, with M2 being 103x64mm and Mini being 67x105mm.

Both sizes are quite close to A7 size paper (an eighth of a sheet of A4!) which measures 74x105mm. Rhodia No11 pads are A7 size with a small margin that is perforated.

I can therefore use paper from one of those in both sizes.

M2 Diary Inserts

Filofax have discontinued diary inserts for the M2 organiser size for 2016.

The M2 size is similar in page size to Mini but in landscape format rather than portrait.

We are making the two designs available today as ready to download and print sets for 2016. These come as Word documents or PDFs. If using the PDF files be sure to set it to print at full size as explained here.

But if you want to use these layouts as a starting point for your own personalised creation, then you'll need to download the base Word file and the Excel data source. When you've made all the changes you like to the template, you can perform a mail merge to create your own insert for any period you like. Check out our Free Diary Inserts link if you want more information on how to do this, including videos.

M2 Week on Two Pages - Horizontal.

You can download and print finished versions for this year from our diary inserts page.

Download source files: Word file and Excel file (you'll need both)

M2 Week on Two Pages - Vertical. 

You can download and print finished versions for this year from our diary inserts page.

Download source files: Word file and Excel file (you'll need both)

Once again a big thank you to Ray at 'My Life All In One Place' for his hard work and co-operation with helping to create and support us with all these inserts.


This work by Philofaxy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. Please download, adapt, use, share, but don't charge or use commercially.

Other A6 page size combinations.

Naturally I often wonder what other pages sizes will fit a particular size organiser or particular ring spacing.

So what other size pages fit an A6 organiser?

Well apart from A6 I've so far found the following.

Filofax Pocket size will fit on to the rings.

So will Filofax Mini size.

Cut A6 size paper in half and you get A7 size, naturally this will fit A6 when punched with just three holes in each page.

Which leads me on to Filofax M2 size. M2 is 103 x 64 mm, similar to Filofax Mini which is 67 x 105 but landscape not portrait. So you can fit two M2 pages which are also three rings to an A6 organiser with a convenient gap between the pages. So a Filofax M2 would not only make a great wallet but also a notebook with pages you can easily store/transfer/archive in your A6 size organiser.

What about A6 paper in other sizes?

Oddly you would think A6 would fit A5, sadly not, the ring spacing doesn't match up at all apart from the top three holes.

So to get this to work the 6th hole would have to be a slotted hole, that would work if you wanted to mix A5 and A6 pages in an A5 organiser.

Can I fit A6 spacing rings in to a Personal Filofax?

Initially this question peaked my interest, I thought ok A6 is 10mm wider than Personal size so the pages will not easily fit the existing rings if punched for personal spacing rather than A6 spacing.

However, I then had the idea of taking a personal size with 30mm rings and fitting it with 20mm rings  but A6 spacing ones. The reduced ring size would give us back some extra room for the wider paper. Although the paper being 23 mm shorter in height might look a little odd, it had to be investigated.... because that's the sort of thing I do, right?

Sadly it doesn't have a happy ending and here is why...

As you can see the mounting points are in different locations on the base plates, so unless you changed the base plates inside the organiser you can not fit A6 rings in a Personal.

I even tried fitting the A6 ring halves to the Personal base plate. Yes they fit, but you can't get the tabs to work or the top cover to fit because that fits over the base plate. If you modified the top cover to fit it would leave the Personal base plate exposed at each end. Not very pretty and it is also quite sharp metal.

I always like my modifications to look original, be reversible and not de-value the organiser in anyway.

Filofax Malden Wallet to Filofax M2

I've been using a Filofax Malden wallet for a couple years now, it's quite compact.

and the inside is quite nicely organised too

It has a coin pocket on the right and card slots on the left and this card slot section hinges to reveal two mesh pockets .

It also has other pockets including one on the outside and two full width pockets for bank notes. All very nice, but it doesn't have any rings I hear you say.... this is true... 

So with the contents of my wallet emptied on to the desk, step forward my latest find from Ebay... It was described as a 'Filofax Wallet' but you and I both know that it is in fact a Filofax Portabello M2 organiser. 

Seen here with my 'baby blue' Cross M2 you can read my post about that one here. 

They are quite different in their internal layouts, so for the purpose of comparison here is the inside of the Cross M2. 

It has a full width wallet pocket at the back as you would expect. On the left hand side there are the three card slots, on the right there is a gusseted pocket for coins, and a horizontal pen loop at the bottom. There's also a full height pocket behind the card slots. I've used this organiser in the past as a notebook it slips in a shirt pocket neatly and works quite well in that role. 

So moving on to the Portabello. 

So again it has the full width wallet pocket at the back. But there's no coin pocket, no pen loop either. Instead you have 6 card slots in total, these are equally split between the front and back with full height pockets on each one.

In both cases a set of 11 mm rings. Just to refresh your memory. M2 format is 103mm by 64 mm in landscape format, it is similar in size to the current Mini size which is 67 mm by 105mm, but that is the traditional portrait format with 5 rings, M2 as you can see is just 3 rings, but they are the normal 19mm spacing so any punch will work.

So moving swiftly along to. I put in my cards, and other bits of paperwork, along with my 'pocket paper money'

That all fitted in nice and easily.

I then added some plain and quadrille paper

I would use the pages for jotting notes down, shopping lists, noting down shop opening hours, model numbers etc The usual stuff when you are out shopping.

The next issue was coins... no coin pocket on this particular model, but I'm not so easily beaten.

In our collection of stationery I found this plastic holder, it is the right size and with a little bit of trimming to make the tab slot in neatly and three holes punched in it I have a coin holder.

I try not to carry too many coins, even in my Malden wallet it made it too heavy and slightly unbalanced. So this small number of coins will do me for most things to cover things like postage and the car wash.

I then had a look as to how to carry a pen easily. Not essential but it would be useful to have.

The Mini Filofax Pen I have I found you can slot the clip in to one of the full height pockets and that seems to hold it there well enough, or I could add a self-adhesive pen loop to the coin pocket.

Overall the is not much size difference between the Malden wallet and the M2, but the M2 has the added advantage of being able to hold paper as well for note taking.

I'm very pleased with the result, it's still quite compact in thickness too. As expected the coins are the bit that add bulk to the set up. This set up will mean I don't need to carry a small notebook as well as my wallet.

A big thank you Jane who spotted this M2 for sale, being described as a Filofax Wallet resulted in no other bidders and I got it for the starting bid price. So it pays to alter your search terms if you are looking for an M2.

Using my Filofax M2 as a capture device

As you might recall I introduced you to my Filofax M2 organiser a quite few weeks ago now. It was sat on my desk after the review, when along came a blog post and video by Neil on his blog Filofax Filosophy.


His blog post and video about his M2 grabbed my attention by my lapels and made me want to use it everyday... all day, any time of the day, always in reach, always there to jot down a note to remember the hundreds of thoughts and ideas I get in the day of things to look at, write about, talk about or whatever.

Neil mentioned using a Rhodia number 12 pad, these measure up at 8.5 x 12 cm a bit bigger than the M2. When I went to my local supermarket I found the Rhodia number 11 pad, which is in fact A7 size (10.5 x 7.4 cm) this is 10mm taller than M2 paper.

However, I found that by punching it slightly off centre, it fits in just right in the M2 and I can still keep my Filofax Mini Pen in the pen loop which is horizontal at the bottom of the right hand inside cover.

So I punched a handful of sheets and started carrying it around with me in my pocket, leaving it on my bedside table at night and I started jotting down things. It was quite a change to my routine but it worked.

If I didn't do something straight away whilst I was wandering around the house or if it was something I had to remember for later on I transfer my notes to my A5 Filofax that sits on my desk. I can get a reasonable number of notes on each sheet, but once full, crossed off or moved to the master A5, I just tear out the page and start a fresh page, I don't even bother to open the rings!

I've been using this for about 3-4 weeks now, and I have far less forgotten thoughts and ideas, far less frustration because I had an idea and then a few hours later I can't remember it.

Oh and you will like this.... I discovered my Kindle clip on light fits on to the top of the M2 a treat, so I can get to jot things in the middle of the night even without putting on the main lights and risk waking up 'the hand of Philofaxy' !

So a great success and it's now part of my tools that I carry around, the M2 goes in my pocket where ever I happen to be. But please don't go rushing off to Ebay to look for an M2 for yourself... yes they do appear on there from time to time.

The Filofax Mini is virtually the same paper size but the traditional portrait format as opposed to the M2's landscape format... but there's nothing to stop you using a Mini around the other way? With the rings at the top of the page holding it with the paper in landscape format. 

So I tried some of the A7 size paper in the Mini and it fits in there very nicely too. Although I have found that with the A7 paper the pen doesn't quite fit, so I have trimmed it down width wise by about 8mm or to the nearest line which was easiest to line up each time..

Remember if you have a punch that will punch Filofax Pocket size... it will also punch for Filofax Mini size too... Mini is the same but one ring less.

Comparison of paper sizes.
A7 10.5 x 7.4 cm
Mini 10.5 x 6.7 cm
M2 6.4 x 10.3 cm

So with M2 and the Malden Mini I have two very nice organisers I can use as capture notebooks.

Do you use a separate notebook or organiser to capture your thoughts and ideas during the day? 

Filofax Cross M2 - Review

Although I've posted about the M2 size before, I've never had one in my hands to be able to see what this size/format is like.

Recently some of these M2 organisers have been appearing on Ebay, some I must say at higher prices than I was prepared to pay. But with thanks to Tracy, she spotted one going for £15 plus postage, but they would only post to UK, so Tracy kindly offered to purchase it on my behalf and bring it along to the meet up in London.

So here it is the Filofax Cross M2 in a very light shade of blue, may be not a very manly colour I will agree, but it is the same colour as a lot of shirts I wear, so I find it an acceptable colour.

The organiser is in quite good condition, the leather has some tiny cracks in the surface on the clasp, but you need to use a magnifier to see them. The stitching is all in tact. The only thing I found odd about it was the smell of the interior, slightly musty as if it had been stored for some time.

After cleaning the leather the smell was still there so I soaked some kitchen paper towel in some liquid fabric refreshener (Febreze). then I put that in the long back pocket and left it over night. It hasn't totally gone but it is a lot better than it was at first.

The M2 organisers are no longer sold by Filofax, but they still sell inserts for this size. The paper size is 64 x 103 mm similar to Mini which is 105 x 67 mm, the main difference is that the M2 is in landscape format rather than the usual portrait format.  With a page width of 103 mm the M2 is slightly wider than Filofax Personal size (95mm) so there is plenty of width to write in.

As you can see it only has three rings, but they are the conventional 19mm (¾") apart, so existing Filofax punches all work just fine.

Rather than buy inserts for the M2 I set about creating some of my own, to start with I've just done some ToDo lists and some lined paper. Ideal for shopping lists and the like.

The Cross does have the full length back pocket and three card slots in the front inside cover. There is also a full height pocket behind the card slots for stamps and may be other less frequently used cards. In the back inside cover there is a zipped coin pocket which has an elasticated gusset at one end, which is quite a neat design feature.  Below this pocket there is a horizontal leather pen loop, which takes my Filofax Mini pen quite nicely.

It is another addition to my growing collection!!

I've created some templates for the M2:

• Addresses .docx .pdf
• Lined Paper .docx .pdf
• To Do .docx .pdf

Filofax M2 Format

Originally I was going to include the M2 size into the Diary Inserts series of posts, but as there is only one layout available, I wondered about just adding it to the Filofax Mini post. That is until I had another of my 'bright ideas', so that was when the M2 size became a post of it's own, but covering more than just diary inserts.... read on.

So the M2 size is discontinued as far as binders are concerned. You might find them on Ebay or on Craig's list, but Filofax still produce a dairy insert and other pages for this size.

This is a sample of an M2 organiser I found on the internet:

The page size is similar to Filofax Mini, but in landscape format rather than portrait format. The actual size is 64 mm high by 103 mm wide and it has only 3 rings spaced 19mm (3/4") apart.  This compares to the Mini which is 105 mm high by 67 mm wide with 5 rings.

When you see this format for the first time it does look a little strange I think you will agree. But it might suit some peoples hand writing style.

As well as diary inserts Filofax also sell, To-Do pages, Name and Address and ruled Note paper in this size. Check out the site for full details.

So this is all very good but why am I telling you about a size format that has been discontinued? Good question...

What else also has ring spacing 19mm (3/4") apart and a page width of 95 mm? Personal size... OK M2 is 8 mm wider, but a normal Filofax Tab is 101mm, so they should fit ok. A5 also has 3 rings magically spaced at 19mm apart but with a page width of 148 mm, so M2 pages will fit the A5 easily.

So you can use M2 in a hybrid sort of way in the same way I suggested using Mini in A5 organisers....

So you could mix plain paper and to do pages in the same view. 


You could of course make some 'half size' inserts by cutting Personal or A5 size inserts in half and then may be trimming a little bit extra off, so that there are no page overlap issues.

Please note that the M2 size inserts are available on most of the Filofax On-Line stores, not just the UK one.