I have 3 Filofaxes; one pocket-size, one personal, and one A5 Chameleon (love!). The personal, a Fusion (as pictured on the left) is carried with me at all times, and I’ve got to admit: a lot of times that’s all I do with it. Come to find out, I’m more of a recorder than a planner, so it ends up that I scribble things at the end of the day (or 3 or 4 days later), and pretty much birthdays/anniversaries and my guy’s doctors appointments are the only things that are written ahead of time.

Plus, it’s heavy. Not ‘Oh my gosh, what the hell do you have in there?!!” heavy, but noticeably so when it’s not in there. It’s packed full of things I carry with me and pages to use…none of which ever happens. It’s like buying a bigger purse: you shove in a ton of ‘just-in-case’ stuff, and discover that 99% of it never gets used and you’ve got a persistent backache to show for it.

So last night I pulled out Write It Down, Make It Happen, because I wanted a hardcover to read while eating dinner (you can lay a hardcover down and turn the pages), and as I’m reading along, I found a suggestion that I’m going to try. She notes that she gave a workshop in Greece and supplied her students with mini notebooks (those ones that look like composition notebooks, but are pocket-sized) and called them “Tidbit” books. They were to “take the book wherever they went and jot down concepts as they came to their mind, perhaps images they might want to write up more thoroughly later, or plans to put in motion once they returned to their own countries.”

I had just been wondering what to write in my Filofax (aka Miss Moneypenny) for the day, and reading this was like a bolt from the heavens. I remembered that I had 2 or 3 of those exact notebooks (stationery collector, what can I say), and I dug them out. Lo and behold, on one I’d written Tidbits and dated it; May 13, 2013. And I’d written in it for exactly two days. What I noticed, though, was that I’d used it more like a Gratitude Journal than a brain dump, and I’m pretty sure that’s why it didn’t last long. I also think that’s about the time I got into Filofaxes, go figure. 😉

I placed the book next to the bed when we headed off to snoozeville, and as usual, my brain was still running and running with ideas, so I grabbed the tiny book, headed off to the bathroom so I wouldn’t disturb Himself, and scribbled away all that was on my mind, including blog ideas (like this one). Then I was able to zonk out peacefully til morning.

I’ll be heading off to work in about an hour, and Miss Moneypenny will stay home (which means, of course, that there will be something in it that I’ll need today)., but the tidbit book is tucked in my back pocket – along with a pen that I hope doesn’t break. I’m going to play with this for a while (and once this notebook is filled up, I’ve another in the wings). And hey…I had NO idea they came narrow-ruled, too! Woohoo!

Another thought I had was to take my pocket Metropol Filofax, punch holes in a lot of index cards, fill it with those and those alone, and use it in the same manner. But it doesn’t actually fit in one’s pocket, and I think having to dig it out of my purse every time I want to jot down a random thought would be counterproductive. So I’ll see how these minis work out first.

Do you have a way to keep track of all those random thoughts and ideas that disappear moments after you think of them, even though they are sometimes very important or inspired? What do you do? Comment away!

©Pip Miller – March 2015