My History with Personal Organizers

In 1985 I lived in Houston. One morning in January of 1985 my clock radio woke me up with a commercial from British Caledonian Airways announcing a Houston to London round trip airfare of $199. I didn’t even get out of bed I just started dialing the phone and within ten minutes I had a ticket to London. The previous day I had read an article in the Wall Street Journal that described London as a shopper’s paradise because the exchange rate was running at $1.05 US per British pound. It went on to list many of the bargains to be found in London. That was my motivation for grabbing the cheap airfare. I made a reservation for the Selfridge Hotel which is in the middle of the Selfridge department store on Oxford Street.

I came back from the trip loaded with goodies including a Burberry raincoat, Pringle cashmere sweaters, Ferragamo shoes, a Gucci handbag, Laura Ashley merchandise and a Filofax organizer that I purchased at Harrods. I saved enough over U.S. prices on my purchases to pay for the trip. I was not too familiar with Filofax organizers when I purchased mine but had been drawn to it because of its mention in the Wall Street Journal article. The Filofax organizers come in a variety of fabrics and exotic leathers and are were very popular with celebrities and the British upper crust. I bought a basic calfskin model which contained a starter set of inserts. I also got a catalog that listed the range of inserts and accessories for the Filofax. In addition to basic organizer inserts such a calendar, address book, to do lists, there was an unbelievable assortment of inserts for specialized fields such as medical and legal. There were inserts with food calories, city maps, British train maps, change holders, checkbook holders, credit card holders and special hole punches. All of these items had the proprietary six-ring holes in them that allowed them to fit in the Filofax. Also all of these items were extremely pricey.

After I got home I put all of my contact information in the Filofax. Nieman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue were the only places in Houston that carried Filofax inserts. Each year a new calendar/diary had to be purchased. I found that it was cheaper to buy via mail order from Harrods in London than to purchase the inserts in the U.S. Between 1985 and 1999 I made at least ten trips to London. More inserts and Filofax organizers were always on my shopping list. In the early 1990’s Lotus, the same company that popularized PC spreadsheets, introduced a personal organizer program, Lotus Organizer, that ran under Microsoft Windows 3.1. I was attracted to this program because the graphic representation of the organizer looked just like my Filofax. I could change the color of the on-screen version to match my personal Filofax. For an organizer to be useful it should be small and portable so it can be kept close at hand. This was the shortcoming of Lotus Organizer and other PC organizer programs. The Filofax always needed additional inserts and the address book could not be sorted or alphabetized other than by the first letter of name. Over the years the address book became cluttered with outdated names and addresses. It was an impossible chore to keep copying the information to new insert pages.

Finally in 1996 the problem was solved when Palm introduced the first Palm Pilot organizer. This was a small device that could fit in a pocket or purse and cold be synchronized with information on the PC. I did not purchase my first Palm organizer until 1999. Now I am using my third personal digital assistant. Tomorrow I will continue with the story of how I now use my PDA.