Cheating on Mark

Although I really love my Mark's Tokyo Edge planner, with its lush paper and its awesome and stylish colour, I've been left feeling a bit unsatisfied as of late.

I miss the Moleskine week with notes layout because of the extra space I had for notes and doodles. As a matter of fact, before I got the Mark's I was going to get another 18 month planner because I felt it had worked quite well last time. But of course, the allure of trying a new, Japanese planner in lime green was too hard to resist. And although I do like the weekly layout in columns, I've grudgingly had to accept that the day columns just aren't wide enough for me.

I really  hate not finishing a planner, switching to a new one at a random date, especially when we're only in April. So I considered trying a Filofax with planner inserts designed by me. I could just create inserts for April, see how it goes. If I like it, and don't mind using the Filofax, I can stick with it for a month, while at the same time still using the Mark's as a backup, in case the Filo doesn't work. Once the month is up I can either create more inserts or go back to my Japanese.

This past weekend, perfect as it was the start of the month, I designed the inserts with the mole's layout in mind, made the paper size bigger for more space. The day spaces are the same in height, but narrower due to the smaller page size and the spacing for the rings. The weekend slot is shared, I personally don't mind that as I don't need more space.

I have started using it last Monday (1st of April) and am only carrying this month's inserts and a few lined pages for notes. It makes the Filo quite thin. I am also being good and updating it every day, writing down my daily tasks and future appointments. So far it's going well.

But there is one thing that bugs me A LOT:

The rings!

Because I like the week on the left page, when writing, the rings get in the way, making my handwriting crooked. I do not want to swap the layout, and I don't want to be opening and closing the rings non-stop to take the page out every time I want to write something down. (Yeah, I know I'm nuts!)

I honestly can't remember how I managed to use a Filofax a few years back without any problem, maybe because the day spaces were much bigger, it wasn't such an issue, or the fact that it was always quite fat, made the rings less protruding? If the latter is the case, I will try adding extra inserts and see how it goes.

I will keep you all updated on how this little tryout is going next week.

Hope you had a lovely weekend,

Oni