DIYFish Review

Hey Everyone! 

Warning!! This may be a long post so you may want to get a cup of tea or coffee before you sit down to read this one! In today's post I am going to tell you about how I ended up choosing my inserts, and do a review of the two styles I tried! 

I recently decided to purchase a new Filofax and I realized I didn't have any calendar inserts to use. As some of you may know I was using inserts from Piaric last year. If you are thinking about purchasing from her I highly recommend those inserts! I have a full review of them which you can read here. I really loved my inserts, but at the time I planned to purchase new inserts this year, Piaric was closed for a week. In case you didn't know I'm a very impatient and somewhat indecisive person. So of course I couldn't wait to purchase inserts... which is silly considering my new Filofax hadn't even arrived yet!  I also figured maybe something new would help me find my planner peace. So I began to search etsy, blogs, and YouTube for Filofax insert reviews. 

The most popular reviews seemed to be about DYIFish on etsy. Everyone seems to be raving about her inserts. I watched a ton of videos and looked at every personal sized insert on her site. I finally narrowed it down to her DO2P (which you can find here) and her WO2P (which you can find here). I tried a sample of the DO2P (day on 2 page) and found I didn't need that much space so I bought the full year of the WO2P (week on 2 page). 

Personally I found the setup of the day on 2 page didn't work for my lifestyle. There was just too much space and I like seeing my week all at once (especially with University due dates and stuff).

As you will see in the photo below there is a section where you can write anything you want (above this there is a place to track your mood and the weather for that day). 

This is a great place to write a quote or something, but I found I wasn't making use of it. The only time I wrote there was if I had a test or assignment due for University. Most times it was wasted space. 

In the photo below you can see that there is a space provided to track water consumption or even coffee/tea consumption. I found this useful since I am really bad about drinking enough water and I am trying to track it! So I made use of this feature. Below the water tracker there is your to do section. Again this section was extremely useful and I made good use out of it! Next to the To Do section there is a long column, this is for tracking your appointments. This is excellent for someone who schedules a lot of meetings and appointments. However for me this was more wasted space. If I had a doctors appointment or a class I would write it in but it became very repetitive and useless to me. 

Lastly, you can see there is a full page for notes. I originally bought this insert because I thought I could make good use of this section, but again I found myself looking for things to write there. It always ended up being full of unimportant useless notes or it ended up blank. 

Because I didn't care for this setup doesn't mean I am saying it is no good! I think this setup is wonderful for someone who needs a lot of space to write and still wants to use a personal size planner! Personally, I think DIYFish is a genius for coming up with this concept! Its so creative and there is a style to meet almost everyones needs! Also keep in mind you can purchase trial sets which is how I tried this one. 

After trying this for a week and deciding it wasn't for me I choose to take a risk and just buy her LMI V3 S1 inserts. I am so thrilled that I made this choice because I have fallen in love. I don't think I am going to ever buy any other type of insert! 

I will show you some photos and go over how it is laid out, but I will not be showing how I use them at the moment (that will be for another post and I will also do one about how to cut and print them!). 

The LMI S1V3 comes with some extra pages that my trial version of the DO2P did not. With the V3 you receive a month view, along with a monthly chart, and some other space to track things. At first this seemed confusing to me but once I watched some videos and tried them myself it makes perfect sense. 

Below is the first page for the month. This folds out to show a monthly chart as seen in the second photo. 

The monthly chart can be used to track just about anything you would like. You just write in the item you'd like to track and shade in the box for the days you do (or don't) do the item. This can be personalized in many ways. You'll see in the next photo if you flip this over there is a monthly calendar and more tracking space.

Here you can see your monthly calendar and you have space to write anything you'd like, plus a space to track To Dos for the month that have no specific date. The nice thing about this set up is that if you fold this out no matter what week you are on you can still see your monthly calendar. This reduces the amount of page flipping you have to do. As you can see in the second photo the weekly pages do not cover your monthly calendar. 

This is what the pages look like spread out before you open the WO2P view.

This is what the pages look like spread out with the WO2P open. 

Last but not least, the weekly calendar. I love the set up of this because all your days, including weekends, are the same size plus you have a space for tracking weekly tasks. I love that this allows you to see everything you need for the month and week as well as track things that need to be done that week that have no specific date or time. 

To sum up everything I said in this post. I love DIYFish inserts and I think they are so creative and genius! Everyone should try out some version of them. Just keep in mind that you will have to print, cut, fold, and hole punch the inserts yourself (which is not too hard). DYIFish provides print instructions. I am also going to do a post about how I print them from my Mac. I should also mention the LMI V3 set have, I believe, four different style of WO2P however this is my favourite! 

Thank you all so much for reading, if you liked this post please share with a friend and follow for updates. I will be uploading every Sunday (as long as there are no technical issues). 

Stephanie xo

**Note: I am not sponsored by DIYFish. I bought all this with my own money and these are my honest opinions!**