Franklin Covey Two Pages Per Day inserts in my Filofax

After seeing Patty's amazing Franklin Covey setup, I was extremely inspired to try the Franklin Covey two pages per day!

For years now I've lamented not journaling consistently. When I use a large page per day book, I capture things on the day's pages that I would never otherwise get around to journaling. But a big day per page book is heavy to carry and doesn't have enough space for my lists and other information.

So I decided to go for the Franklin Covey two pages per day. I like the structured layout, and the paper is so much nicer than Filofax paper, thicker and with no bleed-through of inks.  These are the Compact pages. The pages are a little wider than personal Filofax pages, but I appreciate that little bit more writing room.

So here are some photos! I also ordered the storage binder, and I'm glad I did because the full year of 2PPD pages fills the thing up.

I'll use the binder as Patty says she uses hers: storing used pages and pages waiting to be used.

The storage binder has genius loops that open easily for handy access to pages you need.

The months are tabbed. These are the Seasons inserts, so they have seasonally colored tabs and themed seasonal images. I love them!

I got the July 2012-June 2013 inserts on discount.

The month on two pages calendars are tabbed, and not printed back to back so you can splice in pages. The front of the first month page has an index for that month, which I will use for that month's goals:

This is the design for the summer months. The tabbed month on two pages calendars are glorious! 

Except I have only two complaints: I'm used to Monday through Sunday weeks in my monthly calendars, so having the Sunday-start weeks threw me off a little. I'll adjust. And, these are North American inserts so the UK holidays aren't printed in the day spaces. No big whoop, I'll write them in.

On the back of each monthly calendar there is a Master Task List for personal and business tasks.

The two pages per day are printed back to back so when you turn the page, it's the next day's two-page spread. But the first and last days of the month are not printed back to back with the day pages of the adjacent month, so you can splice the entire month's day pages between the monthly calendars, so each tabbed month is followed by that month's day pages, then the next tabbed month and its day pages, and so on.

The front of the first day of the month has an index page again, which I will actually use as an index to easily find info written on that month's day pages.

The back of the last day of the month has a Business Expenses record page, which I will use to record my monthly bills and categorized expenses (groceries, petrol etc.).  Somehow I failed to get a photo of that page, sorry! But it's a multi-column expenses page that you can customize with your own column titles. Very handy.

Here is the two pages per day layout in all its glory! This is the design for the autumn months. Click on the image to enlarge. On the left page there's a Task List and Daily Tracker on the left side of the page, and Appointment Schedule on the right side of the page. The right page is lined for daily notes. Every day, even Saturday and Sunday, has this two-page layout!

I write my must-do tasks for the day in the Task List, or if I need to do them at a particular time I write them on the appointment schedule. I also write in tasks that came up during the day that I wasn't expecting, to have a record of when I did what. In the Daily Tracker I write expenses for that day. On the right page I take notes, jot numbers, note the weather and (yay!) journal!  I like knowing that I don't have to make choices about what's worthy of being written on the day's page. If I need more space, I can add another page!

I didn't take a photo of it, but I keep my weekly task list on a sticky note stuck to my page marker. That way if I get done with my tasks for today, I can see what else I need to do this week and work it in. The sticky note partly covers the right page, but that's fine because I use those pages for recording, not planning so it's not covering up anything I need to do. I really like this layout: Today's schedule and to-dos on the left, weekly to-dos and recording on the right.

I'm enjoying using the monthly and daily planners. Normally I can't function without a weekly view, but so far I'm not missing it.  Right now with everything I have going on I need the month calendar to see the big picture and what's coming up (which really helps prevent surprises), and the tons of space each day for details.  As I discovered earlier this year, my limit for places to look each day is two, so this two-place planning system is working well for me.

I love the seasonally-changing images! Below are the pages for the winter months:

 And here is the colorful springtime design!

The Franklin Covey two pages per day inserts include 12 full months of tabbed month on two pages with list space on the back side. After those, there's the next 12 full months of monthly calendars, these printed back to back:

 And there's a future planning page for the next year:

So here are the pages in my Aston. I decided to put in all the monthly calendars and 3 months of 2PPD into my binder so I could have as much future planning as possible, and last, current and next month's daily pages.

I knew the binder would be stuffed, but dang. The rings were absolutely full.

Here you can see not only how stuffed my Aston is, but also the difference in width of the Franklin Covey pages on top and the Filofax pages (my tabbed sections and address pages) below. My pen nestles neatly in the space there.

But really, this is crazy. Not only do the colors clash, but the pages stick out way too far from the edge of the binder. They'll get destroyed in my bag.

 This was just not going to work.

So I went through my Filofax stash to look for a wider binder. My old friend Buckingham was more accommodating, with less page overhang:

But it was so over-stuffed I was afraid I'd ruin the binder forever.

So I took it all out and put it into my Finsbury, which is not too bad but still has a fair amount of page overhang.

 The tabs stick out pretty far, and the June tab is crushed by the strap.

So in the interest of not having my Filofax crammed to bursting, I took out one future month leaving me with two months of 2PPD. I would prefer more, but oh well. An obvious solution is to buy a (wider) Franklin Covey binder with larger rings! The one I want (Compact Antique Leather with 1.5 inch rings) is out of my price range right now, and only available from the US site so I'd have to pay international shipping. But if I stick with this system for awhile, maybe I'll get it as a birthday or Christmas present!