Somewhere in January, after my year review post is written, new goals are set and new projects for the new year are selected – comes the time to archive previous year diary inserts. I’ve kept all my inserts from previous years for both sentimental reasons and for references, as I do often have to look some details up.
Filofax inserts archiving options
I was on the lookout for the storage solution from the very start and all the existing ones had issues.
Options were:
- Using other Filofax binders
- It is an expensive and not very convenient, as they take too much space and I don’t have and don’t want to have that many binders, neither branded ones, nor inexpensive no-name ones.
- Plastic storage binders for refills
- Filofax sells them, but at a price of 11,5 pounds, which I find too high, for what they are. Never considered them seriously though, as they don’t have rings, just two scary-looking spikes and studs, so no casual flipping of pages, you have to remove pages and put them back, to comfortably view your info…
- “Treasury Tags“, as recommended by Philofaxy
- Never saw anything like that in stationary stores in my country, so I was never able to try this…
- Packets/envelopes/files/etc
- Availability of options varies, as Filofax paper sizes (other that A5 and A4) are not that widely used elsewhere.
For first 2,5 years of my Filofax usage – I’ve used original Filofax inserts and used clear packets they came in for storage afterwards.
But in 2016 I’ve started to print my own inserts, adding monthly tabs and had to come up with a better solution for them…
My solution was a spur-of-the-moment decision, which worked so well, I’ve kept doing it ever since.
My inexpensive archiving solution
During New Year holidays of 2017 I was working on a sewing project for one of my dolls and had to buy a bunch of sewing materials. Among stuff I’ve bought was soutache (сутаж) in different colours and, since it was quite cheap, in excessive amounts…
When later that January came the time for me to archive my 2016 inserts, red soutache was still on my desk and I had an a-ha! moment.
I used thin tweezers to guide the thread through the holes, mirrored it all the way back on the other side, cut the thread of soutache and just tied it all with a bow.
This worked great – inserts can still be flipped through easily, thread doesn’t add any bulk and the whole price for the solution is cents for meters and meters of the thread.
How-to
My threading solution, explained:
Since I’m printing my own inserts and hole-punch them myself too, holes in my pages end up not always perfectly aligned – tweezers help immensely here, I use them to slowly and carefully guide soutache through the holes of all pages. Mirroring is much easier though!
My threading pattern goes like this:
Other patterns can be tried and explored.
Storing inserts
For storage, I’ve put all my diary inserts from previous years in a small open-top box that I already had, it’s perfect for easy retrieval, when needed. I keep my bound planners from 2010-2013 in there too.
The box is kept somewhere near my work desk – I had it in a bookcase, in a Ikea trolley, whatever is available at the current location.
Thread through my life
Over the years, archiving previous year diary pages became a ritual of sorts, and I quite enjoy that every detail of my “cheap & easy” solution lends itself to symbolic interpretation.
I’ve got literally a thread running through my “life”.
I also like the fact, that it’s a bright red thread – red colour feels happy and celebratory to me, somehow even lucky; “red thread of fate” is a existing mythological concept in Asia, and in the West we have Theseus following a red thread out of a labyrinth.
* Meaning of sticker “Пиздец”: if you know – you know.
