2017 starts here......

Happy New Year... We start a New Year today, hopefully one that brings us all joy and happiness..

So what do you do on New Years day? Apart from get over the over indulgence of Christmas and New Year Eve? 😎

You could sit there with a blank sheet of paper and create your Top 10 New Year's resolutions? Well you could, I don't think I will be though... I'm not big on New Years resolutions myself.  By the time you are about 2-3 weeks in to the year you have either broken them or forgotten them, or why you even set them.

You could sit and set up your planner for the new year? Well yes but by New Years day I will have already done mine. Yes I'm that annoying person who has all his inserts printed out in September and can't wait for the last week of the year.

Or you could sit down and set your self some personal goals for the coming year, unless you have some from last year?

Again I'm not very good at setting those either. Strange as this might sound I was very good at setting objectives (another word for goal?) for my 10 engineers that I managed up until 2004. I was very good at setting their work objectives, but useless at doing my own!

OK you have got this far in to this post and you still we have no idea what we are doing. So let's cut the funny stuff and get down to serious business. If I help you I'm sure it will help me... deal? OK done.

So let us assume that New Years resolutions are similar if not the same as goals or personal objectives? That should make things a bit easier. You can put what you want at the top of the page, it is what is in the meat of the page that matters.

To get you started on what you should be considering for your goals for the year or years to come, these are your own personal goals, they might go towards meeting your goals at work, but you should consider work goals/objectives as a separate list.

When doing work goals you should discuss them with your line manager so they have a measure of what you are aiming to achieve and they can help you achieve them and report your progress accurately.

When setting your personal goals don't just think of them as just being 12 month goals. Some things will take much longer to achieve. If you have any that are say more than 2 years then consider them as long term goals and have some short term goals that contribute to you achieving your long term goals. To use an old cliché 'Rome wasn't built in a day'

If you haven't set yourself any goals before, or you have not been successful in doing this, start with some simple goals for the coming year, some simple ones that you can complete in say 3-6 months. This will ease you in to the process much better compared to tackling a list that might appear impossible to complete. We all have to build up to these things whether it is becoming an astronaut or just losing a few kilograms of weight or learning a foreign language.

Unless you have to, try to avoid having a hard fixed deadline by when you have to have completed one of your personal goals, this will only add to your stress levels. Although in certain circumstances you will not be able to avoid having a deadline, for example 'Lose 5 kgs in weight to be able to fit a wedding dress/suit for your wedding day' and the date is firmly fixed on the calendar... better give me/away all those Christmas chocolates then?

If you fail to achieve any of your goals, don't fret over it, try to analyse why you missed a target or why things didn't work out as you wanted. Quite often we might miss a target or goal because of things that are outside of our control, ok it might have been good to anticipate this when setting the goal, but that isn't always possible when you don't know what steps you are going to have to take to get to your goal. This is were breaking down a goal in to smaller steps pays off.

As well as setting your goals it is important to track them in some way. I try to journal each day and record what I've been doing, even if it is something simple like going to the shops, or writing this blog post or doing preparation for another post. It gives me something to look back on and see what I was doing, what I achieved etc.

If you want more detailed information or some examples on what personal goals to set Google is your  friend, just search for Setting personal goals  There are also dozens of templates on line that will help you record them, although you only need a blank sheet of paper and a pen really. I found mindtools.com had lots of information and useful templates.

I hope you have a successful and happy 2017.

Free For All Friday No. 423 by Anita

As the end of the year approaches, I've been mulling over some ideas and finalising my Filofax New Year's resolutions:

• Number one - to not buy or sell any more binders! Since writing my post about zero spending, all four that I'd planned to keep have been sold or returned. I will be starting 2017 with three (carefully chosen) binders which incorporate all my favourite features/qualities - more posts to come
• Use up the supplies that I have 
• Use the accessories that I have, or give them away - e.g. my Muji checklist stamp that fell down the back of a cupboard years ago and recently found whilst playing with the cat, or a Coleto multi pen that I won in a give away and had forgotten about
• Do an end of year review - to consider what's working well or not and to help me simplify
• Write more Philofaxy posts and finally get round to being a guest on the podcast.  

Do you set any planner New Year's resolutions? 

And as always on Fridays, please free to discuss/ask anything ring-binder related. 

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and all the best for 2017. 

Filofax New Year's resolutions

I'm not normally one for setting New Year's resolutions, but I have been thinking about how I'd like to use my filofaxes this year:

• To be content with the two binders I already own (my Malden and Holborn) and not purchase any more
• To use my set up more consistently and not be tempted to change after reading about other people's

Before: crumpled tabs needing replacing

After: same sections looking nice and tidy :) 

• To use my weekly menu pad to focus on my most important tasks each day

• To use my PocketMod as my capture tool (Steve wrote about using his M2 in a similar way) and transfer items into my filo regularly. I don't normally have my personal Malden with me and I've found this little free booklet a simple way to jot down ideas so that I don't lose them

• To process my notes/in section regularly, instead of leaving it full of random notes that I haven't finished the thinking on
• To enjoy using them to help me focus and not have notes all over the place. 

New Years Resolutions?

So the year is drawing to a close... time to think about what new years resolutions you might set yourself in 2010.

I'm normally not very good at setting myself such objectives/targets. Although I did fairly well in 2009 to record more of my life on a weekly/daily basis in my A5 Filofax journal organiser. I feel this coming year I'm better prepared. I was slightly phased last new year when I quickly realised I might have bought the wrong refill for 2009.

This coming year is likely to be a fairly busy one for my wife and I as we are hoping that our house sale is finally concluded and we emigrate from UK to France... there will be another blog! So my Filofax organisers will be more and more important to the smooth running of my life this year.

So share with us your Filofax resolutions for 2010, if you have thought of them yet...

New Year's Resolutions!

Hey everybody, how are those New Year's resolutions going? What, you ask? It's September! Nobody is thinking of New Year's resolutions. To which I reply: exactly. Because if you think about it, by now you have either achieved your resolutions, are still working on them, or have scrapped them entirely. So, which is it?

Let's take a look at my New Year's resolutions this year and see how I'm doing. I'll have a look in my trusty Filofax to review what exactly those were:

1) Stick to an exercise program. I have been off and on with this one. I was actually doing really well with it for a couple of months until this month with the simultaneous occurrence of my in-laws staying with us for two weeks and me having a rotten cold that I am still trying to get rid of. I have plans to get back with it soon!

2) Save X amount of dollars in my bank account. Welllll...this one hasn't been going as well as I expected. There have been several trips this year that I didn't foresee. They have all been good, and of course I love to travel. And I know where the money went. But, the bank account is definitely not where I hoped it would be by this time.

You get the idea so I won't bore you with the rest. Interestingly, looking back through my Filofax archives I discovered that I have had the same NYRs for the last 3 years now! Of course, they have mostly been ongoing-type things rather than distinct goals to achieve. I guess my lesson learned is that it's inevitable to get sidetracked during the year for various reasons, but I just have to get back at it and keep my goals in mind.

What were your New Year's resolutions this year? Do they tend to be ongoing things like eat healthier and exercise, or do you tend to set distinct goals to achieve such as complete degree, get promotion etc? How are you doing with those resolutions so far this year? Have any of them changed, or are no longer relevant to your current situation? And, are you thinking yet what your resolutions will be for this New Year?

Filofax Nirvana

I've returned from a whirlwind trip to my hometown of Kansas City, where I dined on steak and barbecue, and reflected on the past year and the one about to begin. For the first time in memory, I'm committing to a couple New Year's resolutions.

First, I resolve to read at least one book per month. I am ashamed to say it, because I think of myself as an intellectual, but my book-reading has been waning dangerously over the past year or so. Indeed, it has waned to the point that a one-book-per-month commitment would be an increase in frequency. It actually pains me to say that. I mitigate my shame by telling myself that the one-book-per-month rule is a minimum, and I really want to read two books per month. (In life generally, I like to set low expectations, for obvious reasons.)

Second, I resolve to put a large number of typed words together in a reasonably coherent order, after which I shall affix the designation of "novel" to the assembled words. (I just can't say "I resolve to write a novel," because it is too much of a failure cliché. Who doesn't want to write a novel? Who doesn't want to lose weight? Who doesn't want to repair all damaged relationships with family and friends? Yet hardly anyone ever does any of them.) For the past couple of weeks, an idea has percolated in my head, and it appears to have matured into something strong enough to support a book-length project. I have never had a shortage of ideas. But they usually lack some key component of readable fiction: plot; character development; being-worth-a-damn. This idea seems to have some meat in it. I fear that it might resemble too closely a book I read about 12 years ago. I have to go back and check -- it is possible that every clever detail I have dreamed up has really been dredged from dormant memories of that book. Hope not.

What does all of this have to do with Philofaxy? Not much, but some. I will be maintaining a rotating list in my Filofax of the books that will enable my resolution-satisfaction. And I have already used the "Notes" section to record some thoughts about the planned long, coherent list of typed words. Ultimately, these are pedestrian uses of my Filofax, well within boundaries well-trod by previous Filofax users. But the promise of Filofax is fully realized only when it reflects the drudgery of life. Filofax nirvana -- pure Philofaxy -- is when the Filofax is a mirror of the user's life. It contains the entire user, nothing more, nothing less, nothing untrue.