the zeitgeist of zoe

As some of you know, there was an unexpected addition to my Filofax family over the weekend due to some mutual enabling at the New York  Meet-up. I’m not going to bother writing it up, as Kanalt’s post would be hard to top.

Anyway, the addition to which I am referring is a Compact Regency – which you will soon be reading about in depth in a pending guest post on Philofaxy – but because I’m a rogue, you can take a peek on Flickr if you must see it now. Unexpected because I am a devout worshiper at the temple of Personal. I like my Filofax FAT and stuffed to the gills. Me, go Compact? No way.

Or so I thought! Once I had the regal Regency in my grubby little paws and felt that shiny Italian leather with the ostrich embossing I was smitten. Compact/Personal…what’s the diff? I’ll just put fewer of my inserts in it and away I’ll go. Right?

Without blowing the surprise…WRONG.  Long story short, my beloved Franklin Covey 1 Day per Page inserts won’t work in it because Compacts are apparently about 1/2″ narrower than Personals and the FC pages are 1/2″ wider than Filofax pages to begin with.

Cue sad trombone : (

But this Regency is mad fierce, so I’m pretty determined to use it…which means yet more searching for suitable inserts, and since this is a Compact we’re talking about, searching shall commence in the realm of Weeklies rather than Dailies.

THE CONTENDERS:

1. Filofax Week To View

1a. Standard (Lined)

We’ve all seen ’em…most of us have also used ’em. The pluses are they are clean, basic, uncluttered and you can basically do whatever you want on them. The con (for me) are that they are too unstructured. My day has a lot of To Do items and I am a very “out of sight out of mind” kind of person, so I like to have at least the major To Do’s right on my day.

Could I write them in? Sure.  But my particular flavor of OCD is one that requires check boxes so that I can tick off my list items, not merely cross them out or check them off willy-nilly. The vote is still out on these.

1b. Horizontal(Lined)

Don’t adjust your sets kids, these are supposed to be sideways. They feature hourly ticks 8 am to 6 pm and the weekends are as small and sucky as frankly ANY Weekly diary I have found. My thinking here is that orienting them horizontally takes the rings entirely out of the writing space, thus making them, as it says on the Filofax website, “easy to use”. Once again, no check boxes for my slew of To Do items.

But, like a ferret who has spied something shiny, I have these on order…just to play with. A review post will come when they do.

2. Day Runner Pro Weekly Planner Refill

On the left of each day there are hourly ticks 7 am to 6 pm (“Schedule”) and on the right of each day there is a “Record” section…yes, with check boxes…but I hate, hate, HATE the paper they use. It feels thin and cheap and I swear it sucks the moisture right out of my fingertips when I attempt to turn the pages.

I like that you see the current & next month in the upper part of the page, but frankly, it’s printed so small I can’t read it without my glasses. In fact, the beige, muddy color scheme they use is very tough on the eyes and, not only don’t I care for it,  I can barely SEE any of it.  Fail.

3. DayTimer Two Page Per Week (Original)

These also break up each day-block for items “To Be Done” (this time of the left side) and “Appointments” on the right, with a bizarre center location for hourly ticks from 8 am to 5 pm. There are blanks above 8 and below 5, so you could go 7 am to 6 pm if you had to. I have used these with success in the past, until my work schedule changed and I felt I needed an entire day per page.

My workload has not decreased – to the contrary, my plate is now more full than ever (heaping even) – but these inserts have the crisp, (mostly) white, clean, easy on the eyes appeal of the Filofax pages yet feature check boxes like the Day Runner ones.

Right now, these are tied with Filofax (horizontal or standard) for the top seed.

4. Franklin Covey Week on Two Pages (I know, I know…not a contender for the Regency, but since we’re talking Weeklies here I felt I had to include them for general comparison purposes)

4a. Original – Vertical Week

Not wild about the vertical week. Seems like not much room for anything really…cramped columns and a truly measly Task List there at the bottom. You have the current month only at the top and a quote (who cares) where the following month SHOULD go. Even the inclusion of check boxes won’t save these I’m afraid!

4b. Her Point of View – Standard Week

They’re frou-frou, I know. But…these are one of the few weekly designs that FC hasn’t changed to the vertical format. You do get the current and following months up top (and I can actually see them, which helps), they are clean like the FF inserts (as in, you can make your own hourly ticks) and there is ample space at the bottom for Notes. I wish they had used the Note space on the right-hand page to give Sunday it’s own entire day-block, but whatever. And no check boxes. Thank you for playing, please move along.

Fortunately for me (unfortunately for my wallet) I actually HAVE on hand, 2011 Weeklies for all of the ones that will fit in the Regency.  Day Runner, Filofax (standard layout) and DayTimer.

All I can say is…I’m going to try each in the Regency and see which contender wins the bout.

Take a gander at the poll and let me know which one YOU think will win…..