Thinking of a New Planner

I love Filofax. I do. Filofax is like... everything that's good and beautiful in the world, made into a six ring planner. I've had regular planners before. I had one small ring planner back in the past millenium, when I was at the university, which was a cheap, Garfield planner I loved, and which I've got because what I really wanted was a filofax. Like any kid in those days, I had cheap but playful planners full of drawings and whatnots. Plain planners were dreadful, and sometimes those were the only ones you've got, but you always wanted something pretty for your school appointments, and actually never checked it. From the University I went to work and there I needed a planner even more. I was checking it more frequently, specially when I had to call clients or keep tabs on this or that. Then after sometime I went digital with a PDA. No, not "Public Display of Affection", but "Personal Digital Assistant". I had a Palm Pilot. I felt I need something that wouldn't take that much space in my bag, for by then I was using A5 PPD (pages per day) planners, and that only added to the bulk, not to mention that I couldn't fit them in all of my bags. A Palm was as small as the palm of my hand (and actual "palm"), and held in everything I needed.

The passing from paper to digital was interesting, exciting, full of new possibilities (wow! You no longer have to re-write all the birthdays every year! And you can make cyclic appointments and reminders with just a click, not to mention that it chimes to remind you of your appointments! You'll never again have to worry about forgetting to check your planner because the planner check up with you!), and their particular setbacks (no use of creative color codes, no fun lettering, no writing in different directions, no stickers, no drawings, no handmade maps, AND you must watch to make sure it has battery life, or all your records would get erased), but it was easy to settle in it and live with it. When my PDA died - because all electronics die at one point or the other - I think I went on with my phone's calendar, and then, at one point (2010, to be correct) for some reason a small, WO2P (week on two pages) paper planner got to my hand. I think I used that and had fun with it, but probably I was using my phone quite a lot too for my appointments. If I recall correctly, I was thorn because I wanted a new PDA but by then the PDA industry had died out, and you had your phone or nothing.

For 2012 I've got a beautiful planner with guilded pages. A friend of mine, who works at a bank, got it for me. It was an A5 PPD type. At first I was adamant about going to paper after having lead my life digitally, but once I've got back to it I realized I loved it. Of course, a PPD layout gave me loads of space for me to go crazy, and crazy I went. I noted everything on it. If I was considering going to the movies, I wrote down all the movies that interested me, all the hours and all the movie theathers where they were being shown. Thus I decided how, where and when would I see what. (I wasn't working at that time, and I love movies, so watching two to three movies in a day was absolutely normal for me.) If I went somewhere by train, I wrote down all the scheduled departings and arrivals of the trains I might need. When I blogged (and that year I blogged every day), I wrote the title of the post and the blog in which I blogged (yes, I have more than one blog, and the other one is in Hungarian, so...), if I made a purchase on Amazon or ordered something from a store, I wrote down every single detail of it. One year and I was hooked back on paper.

By October (or something like that) I knew I would need paper for the rest of my life, and so started the search for the ringed planner that would be my forever companion. It was a work of weeks and weeks comparing Day Planner, Frankling Covey and Filofax binders until I decided to stay with Filofax, and within it, finally, with a Personal sized Sketch in chocolate color. One of the first things I knew I wanted and needed from a planner was a size such that gave me room to ramble, but was small enough to fit in any of my bags (or most of them). I made a template of the sizes on a piece of paper and then tried them out with my bags. A5 was automatically ruled out because I knew that wouldn't fit. The Pocket size was too small, and so the decision fell on the Personal size. I loved that planner. Ordered more inserts that what I needed, got disappointed when I realized I can't really use the PPD inserts because it wouldn't fit in my planner along with all the rest that I wanted in it, so I had to make do with the WO2P it came with.

Before the year was over, however, the clasp of my planner broke, so I had to order my second planner, a Personal sized Identity planner. This one was love at first sight as I've got it. Unlike the Sketch, it has two elasticized penloops and the clasp is firmly attached to the back, so no chance of it ripping off. The planner itself feels thicker because of the cushiony characteristic of the cover, but it's still quite sturdy. It quickly got the lower corners bent, and now the lining is separating right above the rings. It did last two years so far, but I'm spending quite some money for something I expect to hold together for at least ten years if not... sixty. Sure I can and will glue back the lining, but that's not the point. Today is the lining, what if tomorrow something else goes wrong? So I've decided that the time has come to think on the real long term, and get myself a planner that will stay with me until the day I die. For that, I'll need a leather planner. And I mean leather as in real leather, like an animal had to be killed and the hide pulled off, treated, cut and made into a planner. I mean true, real, DNA tested leather. I need something that can take damage, that can get worn without getting destroyed, without the fake stuffing of cardboard and synthetic foams spilling out like in the case of a teddy bear murder.

The prices will go up and I'll have to give up my double elasticized penloops, but I think the time has come for me to make this step. For 2016, mind you. I'll have  perhaps eight months to research, compare, watch videos of the planners I select as candidates, and make my decision.