Philofaxy All Stars guest post: Femke and her FlyLady Filofax

Many thanks to Femke for this awesome guest post on how she uses her Filofax as her FlyLady Control Journal! I know this is a topic that's been talked about a lot recently, so I really appreciate all the details!!

I’m using my Filofax as a guide for Fly Lady, to clean my house and keep up with everything. I kept our house clean but I still felt like I couldn’t have people over unexpectedly. I’d heard about Fly Lady before, but at one point I decided to just give it a try.

I’m still a Fly Baby but my Control Journal is filled to the brim. If you’re not familiar with Fly Lady, I advise you to check the website, here. Even if you don’t fully use Fly Lady, there are some great tips for keeping your house clean and neat.

When I open my Filofax (an A5 Domino Snake), I see a photo of myself running the 5K last year. This is a motivation photo, because I really want to run another 5K, but haven’t trained in a year.

First off, I start with the emergency contacts. This is the first page when you open my Filofax. I don’t have many of them, just both of our parents, our doorkeeper (very luxurious, since we live in a large building), our insurance advisor (he does all our insurances) and the vet. I advise everyone to keep a list like this in a safe place, because you never know when you need it.

Tab 1 and 2 are my weekly calendar and monthly calendar. In my weekly calendar, I write down the list of house chores, the weekly chores and this week’s zone. In the middle of the week, I keep my to do list for the zones. I mark the things I’ve done with pencil and at the end of the week erase them. I also write down my moods and if I have a migraine or slight headache, as part of my mission 101. In my monthly calendar I write down the birthdays and important days for that month.

Tab 3: my to do lists. Here I keep the lists for the weekly zones but also stuff I still need to do for my control journal, or what I need to buy. I don’t keep my personal to do’s in this Filofax, this is only for things I need to do around the house.

Tab 4: is where I keep all my lists. Daily, weekly, monthly routines, a list of the zones and what needs to be done, and my pantry and master grocery list is what you can find in there.

Tab 5: following that, I keep my “Mission 101” list in there, including my book list and movie list. This is the personal section of my Control Journal.

Tab 6 is my addresses tab. I use the A-Z dividers for that as well. In here I keep every address I may ever need. I don’t cross out, I just add.

Here I also keep a list of the Christmas cards I’ve sent out last year and from whom we received a card. This way I can easily revise our list.

Even if you’re not using the Fly Lady concept, I would really recommend a Filofax, or even a folder in a specific place with an address book (or list) and emergency list. Because it is true, you never know what may happen or when you need a specific phone number. 

Thanks again to Femke for all the great details, and the inspiration to set up my own FlyLady/ Household/ Motivational Filofax!!