My new Songbird Personal Filofax!

I ordered my new Filo on Sunday from Viking Direct - it was £20.47 including postage. It arrived yesterday morning (Tuesday) - so pretty good!

 As you can see it's a really nice green colour - the button which the elastic strap fastens around has musical notes on which is really cute!

 I was really happy that the elastic pen loop holds my big chunky Cross ballpoint well - I won it in a raffle about eight years ago and have only recently started properly using it. I use it as my main pen for writing in my Filo, but for recording homework I usually use the cheap WHSmiths blue fountain pen I use in class. For especially significant things I use 'accent colour' ink which rotates between purple, turquoise and pink (though I've run out of purple ink cartridges).
In this photo you can also see my tabs - this is a set that I found in one of my other personal size binders that I've had since I was seven or eight - they came in a Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Filofax thing, I think, though there's no information on them regarding whether they were actual Filofax brand or what. They're significantly thicker than the Filofax issue ones, which means they're probably a bit more robust.

 First comes my Personal tab with things like the Personal Information Sheet and passwords (heavily coded, of course) in.

 Here's the diary section, with a shot of Hermione looking wistfully into the distance, and a nice bit of my eight year old handwriting... I've only put stickers on the tabs where they were categories I don't want - there was a 'stickers' tab, and a 'stuff' tab, etc. I've changed those to Planner, Writing, Finance, and Misc. to go along with the Personal, Diary, Contacts, and Notes

 Here's a picture of the back of a divider - they all have that on, on the corresponding colour background.

 Here's this week. Fairly empty, mainly because it's the first week I've had this Filo. I've my Swimathon on Friday so I put a Quidditch sticker over the end of this week, because I can now archive my old weeks (more on that later) so I don't feel bad about using stickers.

 This is the Planner section, containing timetable, revision plan, to-do lists, etc.

 I've put the ruler which came in the Potter organiser there - it doesn't move around as easily as the today ruler, and it doesn't stick out the top, but it's useful for creating the list paper to the left - I have a column for the topic I'm revising, a column that I fill in with the date I've done that hour's work, and a tick column for if that topic is completed.

 Here's my Contacts tab - I have yet to copy in/organise these. I did see mentioned on Philofaxy a way of organising by category rather than surname, which seemed fairly good, but I want to let the rest of the system bed in first.

 Here's some address paper I found, on the left from my Potter organiser and on the right from my G-File (Girl Guides handbook). The G-File paper was a little too wide but I trimmed it, so it's fine.

 Notes section - I've always found that scene in the film really suspenseful...

 Writing section - you're not seeing in there ;)

 Finance section - originally this and Writing were the other way around, but I couldn't resist having Griphook look after my money. I don't have the official finance insert, I'm just going to list spending on one side of a page, and pay on the other side, and tally one against the other at the end of the month.

 Everyone needs a Miscellaneous section, right? Though my friends and I are confused about what cat that cat in the picture is - any ideas?

 The only two stickers that came with the Potter organiser that are left - I still have some stickers I got with the Breast Cancer Care organiser, but those aren't punched so live in the transparent wallet at the front.

 Things I don't use often enough to warrant a place in my purse - I got this card slip thing out of my G-File, the Go-4-Its in Guiding are shaped like credit cards.

 These are my two other personal-size-ish binders, by which I mean they both have the right ring layout. The one on the left is my Mum's - I've no idea where it came from. The one on the right is my guides handbook, with my scarf tucked in it. That I'd rather not pull apart to use for archiving, but the Mickey one, as it's empty, can have old calendar weeks stored in it.

And here's all three together.

How do you organise your life?

Reorganization of dressing table

For the past week, living out of a suitcase while on holiday with my family, I've had all my makeup (that I took with me, which obviously wasn't all of it) in one box - the pink one on the top right of this picture - and it irritated me so much having to dig for so long to find everything that I felt I needed to organize my dressing table. The main issue with my dressing table is that it's really just a mirror on top of a chest of drawers, too low to stand in front of, and too high and with no leg space to sit in front of. Also the light in that part of my room was not at all good. So I've cleared the clutter off the top of one of my bookcases, and spread my make-up out there. Until I get myself a tabletop mirror, I'll still have to take what I want into the bathroom to put it on, but it beats the previous situation.

Upon sorting, I found that I really had far fewer eyeshadows than I'd thought - I guess because I have been building up a collection for such a short amount of time, the rapid buying hasn't yet translated into huge bulk, thank goodness. I ummed and ah'ed for ages about the best way to sort, and the best way to distribute different items between different boxes. I still think that maybe, since the mug with the eyeliners in is quite big, I could put the mascaras in there with them and then put the lip stuff in the tall mug. The only issue is that lipsticks are quite squat, so I'd only ever be able to see the glosses.

The other dilemma I had was where to sort my 'All About Nude' palette - I suppose that since half of the palette is eyeshadow, it should go with the shadows, but that just doesn't seem right... I'll have a similar dilemma when my ELF order arrives, as I ordered a custom palette with two shadows and a blush. I might end up, since the box with the face stuff in is so big, making it 'face and palette'...

I can also see the shoebox with all the cleansing and base stuff getting very cluttered very quickly, so I need a solution to that... I could just put the foundation, concealer, powder etc in with the face stuff, and have the wipes and moisturiser out on the countertop... the OCD in me doesn't like that idea at all though.