Despite being a lifelong stationery lover, Filofax is a brand that I’d somehow never tried until recently. I’d also never tried a ring planner system, but when I bought this refillable notebook from Filofax, my eyes were opened to both the brand and rings!

So I bought one of Filofax’s more budget-friendly personal organisers just to try it out, and I’m happy to report, I’m really loving it! For my Filofax experiment I bought this cute pastel spot personal-size organiser from the Patterns line, and got it for £20 – a very reasonable price in my opinion! 

I’m not 100% sure what material the cover is made from, as it has a smooth, slightly plasticy feel to it, but it isn’t unpleasant, and the spot-pattern design is very me! The inside has more of a faux leather feel to it and is a lovely pastel pink colour, with a variety of card pockets in the front, and one large pocket in the back, where I keep my dot stickers. 

The organiser came with a 2025 weekly planner insert, and a range of other pages including blank, dotted, ruled, grid, colour ruled pages and to-do lists. It also came complete with a Filofax ruler/bookmark, 6 dividers and a pocket insert that I’ve used at the front as a decorative cover.

There’s also a stretchy pen loop on the inside, just inside the closure, which comfortably fits my Uniball One gel pen. The organiser has a popper used to close it, and I quite like how the outer part of the popper is hidden inside the closure strap, as it makes it look a lot more sleek!

I’ve had this Filofax organiser for 6 weeks now, and have primarily been using it as a habit tracker. My health and wellbeing is something I really want to focus on at the minute, and so I’ve been tracking various things to do with my health and hobbies (hobbies are something that I find extremely important to my mental health). 

Here’s an example of a week in my weekly planner insert: 

Rather than planning I’ve been using dot stickers to track things like water intake, what exercise I did and when I’ve taken my vitamins, as well as days when I read, gamed, journaled, wrote or blogged, and worked on an art or craft project. I also mark days when I had takeaway food with a star, as that’s something I’m trying to cut down on. 

The rest of my Filofax set-up is something I still want to work on, as it so far just contains some journal entries related to my hobbies, to-do lists of things I want to learn as part of my hobbies and interests, as well as various wish lists of things I’d like to buy at some point. 

I love the flexibility of the ring system though, and the fact that I’m able to move around all these sections or remove them entirely as I refine my system. If I were more of a minimalist when it came to stationery (and I often wish that I was!) I could see this being a good ‘everything’ book, as you can easily section things off. Although the personal size is quite compact, so would possibly be a little on the small size for things like journaling and common placing. 

I only really have two criticisms of this organiser, the first being the cover. I like the smooth plastic feeling of it, but I do wonder how it’ll hold up over time, as it does feel a little cheap and flimsy (likely because it’s one of Filofax’s cheaper organisers!). This one will probably last quite a while, as it doesn’t leave my desk, but as Filofax organisers are generally meant to be more of a ‘throw in your bag and take around with you’ kind of planner, I’m not sure how this one would hold up. I’d definitely be curious to see one of the leather Filofax organisers in person, just to compare their more premium planners in regards to quality. 

I also had one slight annoyance in the diary insert: the QR codes. I think the idea of being able to sync your planner with your phone is actually really cool! But it’s not something I plan to do, as the whole point of a physical planner for me is the analog experience. And if they’re something you aren’t planning to use, the QR codes on every date entry are just a bit ugly. 

But overall I’m so happy with this cute planner! I can’t believe it took me this long to try a Filofax, but I can see why they are so popular, and have been around for so long. 

So are you a Filofax fan? What do you use yours for? Are there any other ring-bound planner/notebook systems that you’ve tried and would recommend?