My Week #2

Hi All, so this week isn't remarkable with regards to both events and presentation of my diary! 

In fact, the only thing this week's entry is useful for, is to show you what a typical mid-summer (non-studying) week looks like for me. Pretty uncluttered but rather ugly. I didn't see the point of colour-coding anything because I'm not majorly busy. Most of my weeks involves my horse and trying to complete miscellaneous to-do tasks! 

I'd say that the highlights of my week were:

• Finally deciding for good and telling my family what my future career plans are. After being unsuccessful at gaining a place at medical school 2 years ago, I have decided that I'm not going to give up and want to pursue GEM. 
• I got a beautiful lamp for my new house. It's a coral anglepoise and is gorgeous!
• I managed to do half of one of my assignments that I'd been putting off for ages. 
• I went for a fantastic ride with my horse - the first time we'd managed to gallop in about a month! 

Filofax or Lilly Pulitzer?

First of all, sorry for my huge lengthy absence! All I can say is that end of year exams + full time internship + being lazy = no posts! 

For a while, I have been seriously considering using my filofax as a more overall planner to include finances, family engagements, etc. So basically a desk-bound reference planner. For this to be practical, I would need to get another planner just for my academic stuff. The problem I have with using the filofax (personal size) for university is that I just can't fit assignments, classes and everything else on one day. I am also reluctant to lug around a bigger filofax due to the already-heavy weight of my bag! 

In high school, I was a massive fan of the Paperchase academic diaries, but my American friends are absolutely raving about the Lilly Pulitzer agendas. I don't blame them either. The designs are beautiful and they even come with stickers (appealing to my, perhaps dominant, childish side!). The colourful layout and inspiring quotes even encourage you to want to organise your life! 

Image from devonalanadesign.com

"Well why don't you just get one, then?" I hear you saying...one problem: I'm in the UK. Lilly does not ship outside of the States. The handful of companies that do ship charge a hefty £16.59 postage charge, on top of the price of the agenda, which is considerably more than your average Smith's diary. 

So, do I just bite the bullet and fork out the £30 something, or just make do with a UK one?! Have any of you guys had experience with the Lilly agendas?

My Week #1

This is my first ever 'My Week' post as part of Paperloverstory's blog posts. This week's been quite an odd week because it was the last week of exams. I still had two exams left, so the majority of the week was spent revising for them! There's also the end of year Ball at the University to get ready for. All in all, it was a hectic but (almost) enjoyable week. It's so refreshing to not have to get up early in the morning and revise any more! You may have noticed that there's an abundance of cat stickers...I may be slightly obsessed with them!

My Filofax Setup

As a form of subtle procrastination, I have recently been tweaking certain parts of how I organise my filofax. I'm still not 100% happy with it though. I think the main trouble I'm having is managing to fit all of my lectures in to the pages as well as everything else, without it becoming an illegible mess! I'm seriously considering upgrading to a an A5 size for next semester or changing to a 2DTP diary, because I'll also be doing my dissertation too. I would also love to implement some kind of colour-coding system! Anyway, back to the layout. 

So, say hello to my loyal personal Chameleon in black! It's been in use for about a year and has weathered all of the chucking around etc. pretty well! I mainly use it for the diary/organisation side of things, as well as lists and other stuff. However, I don't really use the address section because I already have an address book.  

                                            

As you can see, I fully utilise the card holders - it's my purse overflow! I also keep my Paperchase cute animal sticky notes and some classic heart shaped post its stashed away too. The front is just decorated with patterned tape, although I am tempted to experiment with pictures and scrapbooking stuff too. 

                                          

Here is a (rather shoddy) example of what one of my term time weeks looks like. Usually it's busier than this, but all the lectures and other classes take up so much room/looks really messy! I like to space the lectures out on the page according to what time they are at so that I can more easily assess whether I have any blocks of free time for work or meeting up with friends/going to the gym. Saying that, my exercise regime has been steadily declining in quantity...not good! 

                                         

As well as having a WO2P diary, I also have a monthly one further back which lets me quickly scan for any events etc. The two tabs behind this are for my blog ideas, lists of things (books, wishlist, presents for people) and exercises. 

I hope you liked the tour and I would be very grateful if you have any ideas about organising my main diary pages more efficiently!