Archiving and Storing A5 Inserts

At this time of year my A5 organiser needs to go on a diet. This year more so than other years I've had more and more appointments popping up in the next year as early as June 2024, I was getting appointments for 2025, at first I just used my simple year planner, but as they multiplied I needed something with more detail. 

In the end I got to August and started thinking about my inserts for next year. The result of which you will see in an earlier post. Basically my usual inserts with a little bit of a tweak to the design.  

Once printed I wanted to get them in to my organiser. I had to archive the first 6 months to get them in. My Van der Spek 35mm Customs have been retrospectively fitted with 30mm Krause rings. This makes them more manageable but obviously it reduces their capacity a little, but makes the full organiser less of a brick to carry!

For the past few years I've been using other A5 organisers to store my past years of inserts. I have them going back to 2017 and before then. I also have some years of personal size inserts when I was using that size as well. 

Using an organiser is an obvious but not the cheapest way of storing your inserts and spare inserts. I decided to look for an alternative so that I could get back my organisers for normal use. 

It's not difficult to find suitable boxes, a visit to your local stationery store or supermarket with a handful of pages will quickly find a size that will work. I have done this for most sizes. I have some small plastic drawers I use for a lot of my spare pages, blanks etc. 

Don't just think of looking in the stationery section, also consider looking in the food storage and household sections of any shop. There will be something that fits the bill. 

For my previous years inserts I thought using something that held them in the right order would be a useful solution. 

I discovered that Filofax still makes storage binders which are a simple plastic cover with posts to put your pages on. They do these in A5, Personal and Pocket size. 

I also discovered some cardboard A5 organisers with a 6 ring mechanism, they did them in packs of 2 for quite a sensible price. 

I ordered some and they arrived and despite them only having 20mm rings, I was able to just about squeeze 3 years worth of inserts in to each one! 

Now they aren't easy to turn the pages when they are this full I know, but for occasional access they will be fine. I also like that they aren't made of plastic. 

I've ordered some more so I have a future supply of them available as well! 

How do you store your spare pages and/or previous year's inserts? 

Taking stock - by Anita

I thought that I would write a bit of a follow-up to my previous post about Filofax New Year's resolutions, and also borrow a little from Steve's one back in 2010. However, I will be focusing on accessories as I've started some decluttering, so am looking at what to use or give away.

Whilst I love stationery, I don't own very much and keep all my Filofax bits and pieces in this small box. Most of my blank paper is kept in my Franklin Covey compact storage binder and of course, there's my trusty KW-Trio punch. I will be able to free up more space in the box as there are more inserts that can go in the storage binder. I had a quick hunt in my desk drawers and around the place to make sure that it's all in here for the photo.

I admit that it's easy to just pop items in the box and forgot about them. Therefore, I thought that it was time to go through and see what treasures I can find!

Some recent purchases - new dividers (post to follow), a shopping list pad to hole punch, sticky notes and a Hobonichi stencil. I don't decorate as I find it gets too busy for me to look at, so things like this will add a bit of interest and colour.

Some older items that I'll definitely be using - Daiso tabs, Davinci inserts, Muji checklist pad, Muji checklist stamp and Muji pen loop. Haha, I've just checked back and I purchased the checklist pad at the 2012 London meet up! I was lucky to pick the checklist stamp up on eBay for a bargain price.

Other older items to be used - some remaining pages from a menu planner (also from the 2012 meet up), a Coleto multi pen and a couple of jot pads. I also have some small note pads from Artbox and Rhodia that I'm going to use as sticky notes with my one roll of washi tape.

I treated myself to a nice desk with better storage, so I will be moving these items out of the box and into a drawer for easier access and to make sure I use them up.

Plastic pencil case hack

Since returning to personal size, it occurred to me that I like the idea of being able to sometimes use my purple Malden as my wallet. However, what would I use to carry money in so that it's both safe and easily accessible? I don't like the Filofax zip-lock envelopes and gave mine away as the plastic zip part made the contents a bit too fat for my liking. I considered other brands like Day-Timer or maybe trying to hole punch some grip seal bags, but then it came to me, what about a plastic pencil case like the one I used for exams at school? I looked in WH Smith, but they were all either too expensive or too thick. And then I saw them at my local supermarket! Luckily the big Tesco here also sells a very limited amount of filofax stock, so I was able to compare the pencil case size to a personal size diary and bingo, it was a match.

I did find hole punching it a little tricky as the plastic got a bit stuck, but after some gentle determination with some tweezers it was done. I'd definitely recommend a single hole punch for the job though. It will be hard wearing and I like how the zipper sticks out past the inserts. This means it doesn't add much bulk and it's easily accessible when I'm at the till. My plan was to only pop it in for when I'm using it as a wallet, but I like it so much that it's now a permanent feature and can hold so much more than the normal top opening envelope. I did initially fancy something a bit less plain, but at about 40 pence it was too good to turn down and couldn't be a better fit.

Reader Question - Filofax Storage?

How do you store your unused pages or inserts? As the end of the year is approaching, how do you archive your past years diary/journals from your Filofax.

Does anyone have any different way of storing their 'spare' Filofax organisers?

Share your ideas in the comments.

Filofax Storage

What do you do with used diary pages or other inserts that you want to keep?  I think some people use other organisers to store used pages.

For Filofax A5, Personal and Pocket sizes Filofax sell Filofax storage binders. 

However one of our readers asked me a question about storing Filofax Mini pages.  Sure she could use another Mini organiser, but they are quite small to start with and therefore they don't hold that many pages.

The hole spacing on the Filofax Mini pages is the same as Filofax Pocket pages, but only 5 holes rather than 6 holes.

This means that you can slot Mini pages in to Pocket size including the Pocket Storage binders as shown in the photograph above.  But did you know that Mini pages also fit Filofax A5 binders too and you can fit them in two rows as it were, without overlapping and they only overlap the upper and lower edges of the A5 page by a couple of mm so this is another possibly viable solution for the bulk storage of Filofax Mini pages.

I'm not sure if this was a deliberate design thing by Filofax or it is just a 'by chance' thing, but I think it's quite a neat solution!

My own solution to storing A5 pages was quite a simple one. Picture if you will, me walking around a French supermarket clutching a tape measure. Going from department to department looking for suitable size box. Nothing in the stationary area, nothing in household. I found one in the laundry department, and it's perfect and only cost €3 with a lid too. But it means I can store my previous years diary pages in the bottom and my unused inserts in the top, sorted!