Cuban Personal Zip - Training

I've had the Cuban Personal Zip for nearly a year now and you will find my original review back here.

It has huge 30mm rings so it can carry a ton of stuff and given that I'm using my Compact Malden Zip as my carry around Filofax these days I'm not having an issue with the Zip.

However, sometimes I would just like a little more capacity compared to the Compact Malden has. OK may be something like a Holborn Zip might be a better compromise for me. But I have the Cuban Zip in the cupboard.

The thing that has always annoyed me about using the Cuban Zip has been its inability to lay flat in normal daily use. So I thought I had to do something about this. Could I get it to lay flat for long enough in normal use.

So the first thing I did was to give the leather some care cream treatment and some wax cleaner on the inside and out, not that it was dirty, but to just 'feed' the leather, I paid particular attention to the spine where the leather is going to hinge when opening and closing.

I also thought that I had to train this binder gently, like you do an athlete, you can't be a couch potato for 20 years and then expect to run a 4 minute mile after you have just been to the sports gear shop for some new running shorts... <scary image> !

So to start with the binder when open would sit at about 100 degrees in it's relaxed state, not the flat 180 degrees we all aim for.  Pick up my full A5 Malden and it flops to 270 degrees with no effort! The Personal Malden about 200 degrees ok with a few lumps and bumps... So there was some work to do on the Cuban.

I continued to flex the binder to the 180 degree opening and a little beyond that gradually. But I also took care to apply some more leather care balm to the spine to ensure there was no cracking of the leather.

This continued over a few days until I could get it all the way back to 360 degrees [gulp] After it had been flexed to this point it then would lay flat.

Take a look at the video to see the end result....


The key lesson is to only do this sort of thing after you have applied plenty of leather care balm to the spine to ensure that the leather doesn't crack as you flex the organiser. Also don't try to rush it, gradually flex the leather over a few days, reapplying the leather care balm each day.

And naturally I will not be held responsible for any damage you might cause to your own Filofax organiser training it.....

Nan's 2012 Midyear Setup - Personal

In addition to the A5 I use for work, I have a Personal-size Filofax that I use as my wallet and daily planner.

This is the organizer that's by my right hand when I'm sitting at home or at work, and comes with my in hand, handbag, or gym bag every time I leave the house.

I started 2012 using the red Finsbury I've used most of the time since I bought it in 2006, carrying over the page setup I used 2011: DPP Diary; followed by a few leaves for FLYlady routines, task reminders, projects, financial, and notes behind a tabbed transparent flyleaf; and Slimline A-Z tabs for contacts and a few pages of lists and reference information.

Notice how I keep saying "a few."With the DPP, you don't have room for a full set of 6 tab dividers plus a set of A-Z tabs.

By March 2012, I was ready for a couple of changes. I was yearning to use my warm brown Finchley, which I haven't taken out for about 3 years.

Also, I was growing tired of having a jumble of things behind that one tabbed flyleaf. I was referring to the pages back there more than to what was on the DPP.

So I switched back to my brown Finchley, with Wo2P cotton cream paper and the following tabs:

• To-Do - Lists of things to do without a due date, with one page per category: Calls, Web, Errands, Home, etc. 
• Flight Plans - Daily to-do list, based on FLYlady chores.  
• Projects - One yellow ruled page per project. A project could be something like Christmas shopping, cleaning up garden, etc. 
• Notes
• Financial 
• A-Z Index - Contacts, shopping lists, directions, etc. 

This setup worked fine, and I really enjoyed the cotton cream paper, but I missed the extra space on the DPP. So I went back to the DPP and the Slimline tabs. My daily flight plan fits just fine in the right column on the DPP—no flipping back and forth! In the left column, I have room not only for appointments but their accompanying information...address, things to bring, money spent on the road (which is mainly what I was using the Financial section for). 

I'm loving the DPP setup in my new Ink Cuban. I use it for my wallet, too: the cash goes in the mesh pocket in back. It's the only thing I need to take when I leave the house. Behind the diary, I have a few white ruled pages and jot pad pages for ideas and reminders, since there are no tabbed sections. But most of the time, since I have the whole year in DPP, I can write everything right on the day where it belongs. 

So where will my longer-term projects go? That's the subject of my next post. 

Guest Post - Alice - Erin

Thank you to Erin for sending in the details of her Cuban she calls Alice!

This is my A5 Cuban Filofax in Chili that I named "Alice." There's a story behind the name.

My parents, who both recently passed away, had a great sense of humour. My Dad used to joke with my Mom that he hoped they would never get Alzheimer's Disease.

For a joke, he called himself Al Z. Heimer and he called my Mom Alice Heimer. So, I don't mean to make fun of anyone with this horrible disease, but they used this terminology as a fun way to call each other these pet names.

He called her "Alice" so often that many people thought it was her name. So, I named her Alice in honour of not "forgetting" anything since I have my trusty Filofax to write everything down in.

This is Alice's inside cover and my cover page.  I love dogs so that's why I chose this piece.

This is Alice showing off her spooky Halloween sticker...Alice leaves me lots of room to write in the day per page format.

These are Alice's brightly colored tabs  "To Do"   "Books"  "Finances"  .   I have a few blank ones that I need to figure out what to do with.

Alice's inside front cover showing the Filofax page cover sheet and a drawing that reminds me of my husband and myself.

Thank you Erin for sharing your photos and story with us.

Cuban Zip Review

Firstly, thank you to Filofax UK for supplying me with the Cuban Zip for review.

The zipped range of organisers from Filofax are not high in numbers. In a recent post I asked for peoples thoughts on zip or clasp closures. As you will see from the comments some people like the extra security that a zip organiser gives them whilst others prefer the 'speed' of being able to open and access their information.

The point of this review is to look at the Cuban Zip in detail and pick out the differences and the features contained in this particular model/design.

The Cuban Zip is of all leather construction, although the many pockets are lined with a textile material. The leather is smooth Italian leather and the one in the pictures is the saddle brown model with cream stitching. It is also available in chilli red.

The personal size Cuban Zip is slightly bigger in overall size compared to say a Malden Personal. It's also thicker, but it does have 30mm (internal diameter) rings rather than the 23mm rings in the Malden.

On the outside front there is a vertical pocket, this has a small flush magnetic closure on it. This pocket would be useful for tickets and papers you need speedy access to whilst travelling. It would save you those vital seconds to unzip the organiser. I'm surprised other organisers don't have this feature.

Opening the organiser after unzipping it on all three sides. My first thoughts where how small the pages looked inside the organiser! A combination of the slightly larger size and of course the large rings I suppose.

One of the first things you will want to know is 'Does it lay flat?' No not out of the box is doesn't. But I know with time and a little 'training' and some leather treatment it will improve, although I might need to borrow some dumb bells if I am going to follow Terri's example!

The inside left hand cover has seven credit card slots, although using the very top slot is a little fiddly next to the zip... not that I have that many anyway.  There is also a business card slot at the bottom of the inside front.  There are two individual lined vertical slot pockets and also a deep vertical zipped pocket.

On the inside right hand cover there is another vertical pocket, this will hold a personal size notepad if you require it.

There are two pen loops, one each side on the inside of the zip, so you shouldn't lose your pens. Both pen loops are leather with a short elasticated section included in them. These hold most pens I've tried nice and snugly.

The larger size rings certainly gives you more capacity. As a comparison I removed the standard page fill supplied with the Cuban and then replaced it with the pages I currently have in my Malden. The Malden I would say is about at capacity in terms of being comfortable to be able to turn the pages and to be able to close it easily. Although I have seen pictures of people with a lot more pages than I have in similar personal size Maldens!! But the Cuban just swallowed the contents of my Malden as if it was just a snack and it laughed back at me 'So where is the rest then? Plenty of room in here!'

I have tried my two diary insert set up in the Cuban and it fits easily. In the Malden this same set up is a bit of a squeeze and I have to be selective as to what pages I include. Oh for a Malden Personal with 30mm rings!

Another advantage possibly to using the Cuban I discovered is because the organiser is wider than the clasp closing type it has the extra space required to be able to use Franklin Covey Tabbed pages without them sticking out the edge of the organiser.

To be honest I'm still undecided on my preference if I had to decide between the Malden or the Cuban Zip, both have their advantages and disadvantages for me. I will alternate between both to try them for more than just a few days, to see if there is one that I like more than the other.

Other zipped organiser posts:

• Migrating to the Cuban Zip - Filofax Fixation
• Never ask a lady her weight - Filofax Fixation
• Filofax Cuban Zip Personal - The Life of the Perpetual Student 
• My Filofax My Love - Rori Rants

Once again thank you to the people at Filofax for supplying me with this review sample.