How I came to own two Domino Italia / Wie ich dazu kam, zwei Domino Italia zu besitzen

After the virus had gotten a hold of me, I searched the web for good deals on Filofaxes. And found a reduced Domino Italia on filofax.it (who'da thought it?!) in a magnificent mustardy yellow. Shipping costs were also reduced to zero-nada-nix within the EU, so I ordered one in Pocket size as I had somehow had the idea to carry the big A5 as a work-Filo and a Pocket as a private Filo. Turned out that system doesn't work for me at all, but I didn't know that back then.

A couple of days later I finally received my beautiful Domino Italia. There is really only one difference between the "common" Domino and the Italian version: the clasp. The common Domino has a rubber band going all the way around it, which is fastened on the back of it, the Italian version has a button and a small rubber loop that goes around the button, not unlike the Songbird.

What surprised me, as the owner of an A5 Domino, was the suede-like inside of the Pocket version. It feels much softer than the A5 version and I really like that, although the rings leave prints on it pretty fast. I also expect it to get dirty much faster than the more rough inside of its big brother. Here's a pic:

The Pocket also only has one (non-elastic) pen loop, which, had I used it as a private filo, would have been enough. For a school-filo, though, I definitely need two pen loops and most of the time even those aren't enough.

The pen loop is also the reason why I now own two Domino Italia Pocket in Mustard. The very first time I tried to insert a pencil (not even a mechanical big one, just an ordinary pencil) a piece of the suede came of when I just held on to it. The suede material makes it hard to insert any pen that is not absolutely smooth (or tiny) into the pen loop, making it necessary to hold on to one part of the loop. Now, maybe a pic will give you a better idea of what my Domino Italia looked like after I tried to insert the pencil:

As you can imagine I was quite upset after this happened. It's not like the Domino Italia is an expensive vase that fell and shattered into a thousand pieces, but still... it was new, I liked it, I was upset.

So a day or two later I decided I'd email Filofax Italia to let them know what happened to me. I also attached two pics, but I never intended for them to do anything about it really, I just wanted to let them know that things like these happen and that I was sad about it.
Therefore, the email I got a day later was a nice surprise: They were very sorry about this and a new Domino was already on its way to me. I could just dispose of the other one.

Wow!

This is what I call customer service! I received a new Domino a couple of days later. Without the inserts, obviously, but still.

I now own two of these filos and haven't quite figured out what to do with them yet. One holds some inserts I got from Hema and one has a birthday calendar inside that I hardly ever use cause I also have all the birthdays written in my work A5. But until I assign them a purpose I will just let them sit on the shelf with my other filos and let them remind me of the perfect customer service of Filofax Italia.
I just hope that Filofax France (where I got my Holborn Zip with rings that don't close all the way) has good service as well, but that's a whole different matter which I will discuss in another post.

Gibt es irgendwen, der die Posts gerne auch auf Deutsch hätte? Sonst spare ich mir die deutschen Versionen.

My First: A Love Story / Mein Erster: Eine Liebesgeschichte

My first Filofax was/is an A5 Domino in Ultra Violet. I ultimately opted for this model and size out of a number of reasons:
1. affordability. It was my first and I wasn't so sure whether I'd be infected by the Filo-fever, so I looked for a Filofax on the lower prize-range.
2. I knew what it looked like as my colleague also owns a (quite battered) A5 Domino. So I knew beforehand that I'd like it.
3. Size does matter. I needed an A5 model because most of the loose paper I carry around with me is A4 size. Which, as we all know, folds nicely into A5. I was also sure that I needed the extra space the A5 paper gave me to write down all my every-day-stuff like lesson planning, appointments, lists (I seriously wouldn't be able to survive without my lists), etc. I actually took an A5 paper and drew a Personal sized paper onto it for comparison.

Altogether I must say I'm quite happy with my decision. I ordered online and I couldn't wait for the package to arrive. When I first opened it I was a tad disappointed by the fact that the Domino didn't come in one of those beautiful black Filofax-boxes, but I figured it wasn't worth is from Filofax' point of view as it was a rather cheap filo.
I was also kind of surprised by the smell of the Domino. I didn't expect it to smell like leather (as it isn't leather), but I did also not expect it to smell this artificial. So I left it lying around openly for a night or two and the smell disappeared (thank goodness!).

Talking of lying: It lay flat from the very beginning. Like right out of that box it didn't come in. I did not appreciate that quality until I started using (and writing in!) my Finchley recently.

I love my Domino so much I even made my own set of dividers to match it, but I'm going to tell you about that some other time!



Mein erster Filo war/ist ein A5 Domino in Ultra Violet. Ich habe mich damals aus verschiedenen Gründen für diese Größe und dieses Modell entschieden:
1. Er musste erschwinglich sein. Ich wusste ja nicht, ob ich ihn wirklich auf Dauer nutzen würde und ich wollte keinen 150€ teuren Regalhüter haben. 
2. Ich wusste, wie er aussieht. Eine Kollegin hat einen Domino (der in seinem Leben schon viel gelitten hat) und er gefiel mir.
3. Die Größe spielt eben doch eine Rolle. Ich brauchte mindestens eine A5-Größe, weil alles Papier, was ich so lose mit mir rumtrage A4 groß ist und sich daher gut in A5 falten lässt. Außerdem war ich mir sicher, dass ich den Extraplatz, den A5 über Personal bietet, gut gebrauchen konnte mit meinen ganzen Unterrichtsplanungen, Listen (ohne die ich nicht leben könnte), Terminen, etc. Ich hab mir sogar die Umrisse eines Personalblattes auf ein A5 gemalt, um vergleichen zu können.


Insgesamt bin ich mit meiner Entscheidung sehr glücklich. Der Domino brauchte ein paar Tage, bis er bei mir war (Online-Bestellung) und ich war nur ein bisschen enttäuscht, dass er nicht in einer dieser hübschen schwarzen Filofax-Boxen geliefert wurde. Naja, ist halt das Einsteigermodell. Allerdings hat mich der Geruch des Filo (sehr künstlich!) doch am Anfang etwas irritiert, bis er nach ein oder zwei Nächten des Auslüftens verflogen war.


Übrigens lag der Domino von Beginn an flach wie eine Flunder. Dass das eine wirklich gute Eigenschaft des Filo ist wurde mir aber erst klar, als ich anfing, meinen Finchley zu benutzen! 


Vor kurzem habe ich meinem Domino sogar selbstgemachte Divider spendiert, aber davon erzähle ich euch ein anderes Mal!

How it all started... / Wie alles begann...

It all began with me looking for the perfect calendar (once again). I embark on this journey at least twice a year: somewhen at the end of the year and at the end of the academic year. I was also looking for a better time-management-system as I am prone to procrastinating. Big time! (Isn't writing a blog another way of procrastination?)

Anyways, I did some research and found out about GTD (Getting Things Done). I decided to download the book to my Kindle and had a look at some pretty cool calendar templates. And from there I found a couple of blogs about Filofax and then I went to have a look at the filofax.de website. Big mistake.

I spent the next 3-5 days (I don't remember exactly, it all seems so far away already) searching for an affordable Filofax that I thought I'd actually use longer than just a couple of days. I found the Domino A5. I bought it. I used it. I bought a couple of great additions to it. I fell in love.

By now, about 8 weeks after my initial purchase, I am the proud owner of 9 filofaxes. And yes, this pretty much defines me. I go after stuff I like and sometimes I go a little crazy over it.



Es begann damit, dass ich (mal wieder) nach einem neuen Kalender gesucht habe. Das passiert mir mindestens zweimal im Jahr: So gegen Ende November, Anfang Dezember und ungefähr im Juli, wenn das Schuljahr sich dem Ende zuneigt. 
Außer einem neuen Kalender musste ein neues Zeitmanagement-System her. Ich neige zur Prokrastination. Big time! 
Jedenfalls surfte ich durch das Netz und fand "Getting Things Done" (GTD), ein Buch, welches ich mir sofort auf mein Kindle lud. Passenderweise fand ich GTD-Kalendervorlagen zum Selberdrucken. Und ein Blog über Filofax. Das wollte recherchiert werden und so fand ich mich die nächsten 3-5 Tage in einem Filo-Nebel, aus dem ich herausfand, als ich mich für einen erschwinglichen Filo (den Domino A5) entschieden hatte. Ich kaufte ihn. Und ein paar zusätzliche Einlagen. Es war Liebe auf den ersten Blick.

Seit ca. 8 Wochen nutze ich also täglich einen meiner inzwischen 9 Filos. Ja, das ist etwas verrückt. Aber so bin ich nunmal.