Filofax: A Home for Information

Amy Worth Week at Roughhousing

This week I am celebrating the memory of my multi-talented and super-organized sister, Amy Ledogar Worth.

Amy was an artist and design professional. At various times, and sometimes simultaneously she: created textile and wallpaper patterns for companies like Ralph Lauren, designed and produced elaborate costumes for school plays, raised three children, ran an art gallery, ran a framing business, tended a garden, hosted large family gatherings, taught high school art and fashion design, taught masterclasses in plein air painting and collage and produced her own artwork, including paintings, collage, clothing, textiles and knitwear. And she did all of this extremely well.

Amy was very competent, but she was not (by her own admission) what you would call “naturally organized”. For this, she used a Filofax:

“You write everything down in it: your appointments, people’s names, phone numbers, recipes, notes, ideas, and if you lose it you’re f**ked!” This was the 1980’s - I was still a kid and her adult systems were super impressive to me. Her filofax was big - red, I think. Her keys may even have been clipped to it.

Over the years, as computers crept in, she was an early adopter of technology - cellphone, laptop and earbud became digital extensions of the Filofax, but did not replace the kinesthetic joys of pencil-to-paper. The digital and analog were complementary, redundant systems. One was no longer “f**ked” if one lost one’s Filofax - nor if the grid went down.

I continued to watch her methods with admiration. At that time my organizational system consisted of writing appointments down in Sharpie on the back of my hand. If it started to fade, I would re-write it, until the appointment day was reached, when I either noticed it or not. Names and phone numbers I would write down on very small scraps of paper, which I shoved into pockets or added to piles around my apartment. At some point, the refrigerator was added to my system, and magnets would struggle to hold the growing piles of paper beneath them.

The Filofax - or “file of facts” - originated in London in the 1920’s at Norman and Hill Ltd (the company changed its name to Filofax in 1926). Based on a design developed in Philadelphia in 1910 by J.C. Parker, it was a book-sized ring binder, originally intended for professionals such a military, technicians and clergy to carry around important documents. Proof-of-concept was achieved in 1941 when Filofax secretary Grace Scurr, who took home her own Filofax from the office every evening, preserved key company information when the office was destroyed during The Blitz in WWII.

It took me decades to understand the importance of keeping things in dedicated places: homes. When you put something in its home, you know where to find it. Sounds trite, but it is in fact one of the most important key elements in keeping your house tidy, your schedule in order, your information preserved, your research accessible, your mind clear and your emotions calm.

My personal “filofax” system now consists of an extra-large wall calendar, placed on the wall where I have to look at it every day, on which I write all appointments and important information. At the end of each year, I put the calendar away with its other outdated calendar friends, and I put up a new one. I use a personal organizer (cheap-o one from Staples) to schedule my blog and website ideas and deadlines. A small set of paperback notebooks (blank, lined and graph) hold plans and emerging ideas. The organizer and notebooks live on my desk and sometimes travel around with me. Not quite as all-in-one as my sister’s Filofax, but for me, it works.

There is something compelling, though, about a colorful little organizer with a clever snap or magnet that goes “snick!” when you close it, with a place for a nice pen, compartments for cards, coins, currency. Pre-structured pages on which to plan parties, run a household, run a multi-national conglomerate… Sort of a Swiss Army Knife for the workaday world.

It certainly worked for Amy.

Amy Worth, Thinking of Carol and Marcie, oil on board, 6x12”, 2021