hobonichi weeks

intro

I have a thing for stationery. It makes me feel inspired and creative whenever I see a nice blank notebook and a smooth pen with beautiful inks. I want to fill notebooks with words, plans, emotions, thoughts, and laughs. There’s just something about the physical act of writing something down that feels like a trance. It helps me to focus, to tune out the noise. It’s something I take great joy in, so I look forward to filling up notebooks and choosing the next one. Planners are no different. I love taking my time choosing that one planner that will help me get through a new year.

For the last two years, I have been using the Hobonichi Techo. The A6 size is perfect for me, it lays flat, and the paper is beautiful. I dedicated a post to it here because I like it so much, but now I’m ready for something a bit different. I’m nervous about leaving the Techo, because I love it so much, but I do enjoy a bit of change, so for 2017, I’ll be trying out the Hobonichi Weeks. It has the same great paper, but the size is different and the layout focus is on a weekly view rather than a daily one. I received mine in the mail a while back, so I’d like to do a walk-through of this planner. Prepare for lots of pictures! I’m getting detailed with this one!

difference between Hobonichi a6 Techo and Hobonichi Weeks

the Techo is a6 in size, while the Weeks is a long wallet size. Weeks also comes in a variety of durable, decorative covers, while the Techo is all cream in color and meant to go inside another cover.

First of all, my 2016 Hobonichi a6 is, well, in a6 size. It looks like a small novel and contains a page per day. For all the pages it contains, it still manages to be a thin notebook due to the Tomoe River paper. The cover is a cream color that is meant to go into a more durable cover of your choice (though I often used it naked because that’s the way I like it). There is also a Hobonichi Cousin available, which is basically the Hobonichi Techo A6, but it is bigger and contains a Weekly view in addition to the daily and monthly views.

because the Weeks doesn’t have a page-per-day layout, it is slimmer than the A6 Techo. you can see the Weeks cover is also thicker and seems more durable, not at all saying the A6 isn’t a durable planner, though.

The Hobonichi Weeks, on the other hand, resembles a long wallet. It contains a weekly layout rather than a daily one and it comes in a more variety of decorative covers. You can put it in a separate cover, but there’s not much need. Some people like to use a clear cover, but that depends on how rough you are with it. I was debating between a black Weeks and a linen one, but then I chose the Night Sky version and it is a shimmering, navy blue color that is very pretty in person.

while the Weeks is longer, the A6 is wider and much thicker. what size is best depends on the person and how they use their planners/journals/diaries.

Which one is better depends on how you use a planner.

walk-through

Let’s take a walk through the inside of this new planner.

let’s open it up!

So when you first open it up, you are greeted with some nice endpaper. It’s an off-white color with the word “HOBO” written in it. The paper is a bit textured and feels quite nice.

yearly view

As with most planners, the Hobonichi Weeks contains a yearly view at the beginning. The left page contains the current year (2017) and the right page contains the previous year (2016) and the next year (2018). These will be useful for planning vacation and setting long-term goals.

yearly index.

After the yearly view, is the yearly index. All twelve months run vertical across the two pages, accompanied by the days of each month. The spaces are too small to really use as an index, but with the way the Weeks is set up, I doubt, I would need to use it that way, anyway. Instead, I will probably use it for tracking health problems and my period. Some days are highlighted in red (maybe they’re Japanese holidays?), which I just ignore. At the top is some space for notes or goal-setting for each month.

monthly view.

After the index, we have the monthly view. The monthly view begins in December of 2016, so you can begin making the switch to this planner as early as December. Note that this monthly view has a Monday start. When I lived in Japan, this was pretty typical for planners, though the Japanese version of the A6 Techo had a Sunday start, so this will be an adjustment for me. If you have a job you work Monday-Friday, or if you are a student, you may find it useful to visually see the weekend grouped together at the end of the week. This really depends on the person, though.

There’s a place for weekly notes on the side (or just general notes depending on how you choose to use it). There’s also a place for goals/notes/ideas at the bottom. The right side contains four check boxes that you may find useful for monthly goals. They’re light enough, though, that you could easily ignore the checkboxes if you don’t want to use them.

The months go from December 2016, all the way through March of 2018, so there’s plenty of room for future planning if you are one who makes plans and appointments several months in advance. I also want to note that all the monthly calendars are groups together before the weekly section. It’s not a case of January’s monthly calendar is followed by January’s weekly views before moving on to February. Personally, I like when all the months are groups together. Your mileage may vary.

weekly view.

So after the monthly view we come to the whole entire reason this planner is called “Hobonichi Weeks”: The weekly view. Instead of the days of the week being divided up between the two pages, we have all seven days on the left and a gridded note page on the right. This helps to solve the problem I see in soooooo many planners. Many planners will divide each page into thirds, giving it enough room to hold six days. How to fit in a seventh day? Squish Saturday and Sunday into one day’s spot. As someone whose schedule does not run Monday-Friday, I often need just as much space on the weekend as I do the weekdays, so I find those types of setups to be annoying.

Here, both Saturday and Sunday each have its own space that is equal to the weekdays’. Now each space looks pretty tiny there, but if you look closely there are “secret lines” on the note page on the right. These lines are slightly darker than the other lines of the grid and allow you to extend each day’s space to the right. Or, you can completely ignore the secret lines and use the right side as a page for weekly notes or lists. It’s pretty brilliant if you ask me, and if you search for #HobonichiWeeks on Instagram, you can see people get creative with how they use these pages and the many ways they use those secret lines as a guide, or completely ignore them. I’m pretty excited to start using it.

So, again, we have a Monday start on the weekly view, so it lines up with the monthly view. Each day has two small dots you can use to divide your day up, or divide your notes, or to just completely ignore. We also can see the moon phases for each day, which I love. The top of each week also contains the week number for reference.

The bottom right corner contains a small monthly view you can use as a reference when you’re planning. The right side also contains a monthly tab printed onto the page. It’s not like having a physical, bookmark tab (though you could certain add them on), but it makes it easier to find the week you’re looking for when flipping through the pages. Each month is printed a little lower on the page from the previous month and they carry over to the side, so when the book is closed, you can look at the side and see where each month’s weekly views are contained in the planner. The weekly view runs through the last week of December 2017 (which contains the first few days of 2018 because they are part of that same week).

you can see where each month’s set of weeks begins and ends from the side of the planner.

There are also quotes at the bottom. Hobonichi loves its quotes. I tend to find them a poor use of space because I generally find the basic quotes found in planners uninspiring. Also, the quotes in the Hobonichi Weeks are in Japanese, so if you can’t read Japanese, then they definitely won’t be much fun for you. I can’t read much Japanese anymore, but once in a while, I find it fun when something in my brain clicks and I’m able to read something. However, in general, I prefer planners that don’t have pre-printed quotes. I’d rather write-in my own quotes from something I’m currently reading to make it relevant to me and to personalize it. In my A6 Techo,  I sometimes paste something over the pre-printed quotes, which I will probably continue to do with the Weeks.

I want to note, though, that where it really counts (Months, days, etc.) the Weeks contains Japanese and English, so this planner is still very usable to English speakers. You may even find yourself picking up a few kanji throughout the year, and if you are studying Japanese, a Japanese planner could be a fun way to help immerse yourself in the language.

notebook table of contents

The Hobonichi Weeks doesn’t end there. After the weekly view, there are note pages you could use for general notes that don’t apply to a specific week, for journaling, for tracking, for lists, for planning, for brainstorming, or whatever your heart desires. Many planners contains a few note pages at the end, but the Weeks contains 72 pages of it. That’s like carrying a notebook with you in addition to a planner. Hobonichi is able to include this without bulking up the planner by using Tomoe River paper, which is very, very thin, but also strong enough to hold inks better than some thicker papers I have used. I love using my fountain pens with this paper–it writes like a dream!

So above is where the notebook section begins. On the left are some note-taking ideas so you can write quickly and fit more onto a page. On the right, there is a table of contents. So if you make a list you have to refer to often in the notebook section, you can write down here what page that list is on so you can quickly find it. It’s like a list-maker’s dream come true!

notebook pages

The notebook pages contain no quotes, so you have the entire page to scribble, write, and sketch. If you look closely, you’ll see each page has one of those secret lines to help you divide the pages up in different ways, depending on what you’re doing with it. Again, they’re easily ignored. These pages also contain the 3.55 mm grid that I love and can’t seem to find elsewhere! Fellow people with small handwriting, behold the beauty of tiny grids! Sigh in relief that this planner avoids use of wide rule!

numbered pages

On the bottom outside corner of each page in the notebook section, there is a page number. All of the notebook pages are numbered, so you can make note in the table of contents area where your lists and notes are. Looks pretty useful.

information

After the notebook section, there is a section with random information and references. These are all in Japanese, so again, you may not find this useful if you don’t know Japanese. Some of the information found here include a guide to interacting with cats and dogs, first aide tips, and conversion charts. Conversion charts are convenient when traveling, but again, they are in Japanese. If I could read it better, I’d probably find these pages fun for when I’m waiting somewhere and need a distraction, but my Japanese is terrible (if you don’t use it, you lose it!).

contacts page

After the information and reference pages is a contacts page. It’s in Japanese, but is pretty straight-forward. There’s enough space for 6 contacts. I like to fill these out so when I forget my phone, I have my most important emergency contacts there.

personal information

The last page is for personal information. It’s in Japanese, but again is straight-forward. This is useful so if you lose your planner, there’s a way for someone to contact you or mail it to you. The top box is for your name. The next is your mailing address. Then you can fill out your phone number, fax, and I believe mobile phone (or use them how you like). There’s also spaces for three mail addresses, which I’m guessing is for email addresses, but again my Japanese is terrible. Feel free to correct me in the comments. I would include a way for someone to contact you should you lose your planner, but also be safe with the information you provide here.

other features

Some other things I would like to note about this planner…

bookmarks!

This planner contains two bookmarks built into it. Mine are in two different colors. One is a silvery gray color and the other is a chocolate brown color. My A6 Techo didn’t include bookmarks. I had to make my own or use it with a separate cover that had the bookmarks, so this is pretty exciting for me.

new pen!

This planner includes a new pen to use with it. It’s a Uni Jetstream pen with the multi-color function. The colors included are black, blue, and red. This year, the pen is a nice, soft blue color. Jetstream is one of my favorite types of pens (outside of fountain pens)–anyone who has borrowed one of my Jetstreams has asked me where I got it from. They write so smooth and the ink looks great on paper. It’s a great match with the Tomoe River paper. These pens are refillable, so if you run out of ink, you can order refills and still use the same pen instead of tossing the whole thing away.

pocket

The planner also comes with a pocket and a Japanese railway map. You get to attach the pocket wherever you want it in the planner. You can see here that I haven’t attached mine, yet, but I will probably attach it inside the back cover. The pocket holds the railway map perfectly, but I won’t have much use for the map, so I’ll be holding other things in my pocket.

what will i miss?

• The grid. The note pages have that wonderful 3.55 mm grid that I love, but the weekly side of the weekly view doesn’t have that grid. Not sure why they decided to leave it out here, but I just love using the grids, so I think I’ll miss it. However, the right side of the weekly view that is meant for weekly notes does contain the grid and since the paper is so thin, I can see the grid on the weekly side through the page, so maybe I’ll still be able to use it.
• The lay-flat binding. My Hobonichi A6 techo has that wonderful lay-flat binding that sold me on the planner. No matter what page you are on, it lays open without having to manipulate it or hold it down. I love having my planner open on my desk during the day, so this feature was pretty awesome to me. I’m hoping with the Weeks, if I bend it back enough, it’ll stay open on the right page so I can still have it open on my desk. We’ll see how that works out.
• The colored month tabs. In the Hobonichi A6 Techo, the monthly tabs on the side were a different color for each month, so it was quicker and easier to reference when flipping through the pages. The monthly tabs on the Hobonichi Weeks are all the same color. They’re still useful, but not quite as much so as with the A6.
  

  a6 techo monthly tabs

  

  Weeks monthly tabs.

• The watermark that differentiates other years from the current year. I mentioned earlier that the monthly view begins in December of 2016 and runs through March of 2018. In my A6 Techo, the months that weren’t part of current year contained a light printing of the year on the page so you don’t get confused and think you were looking at the current year when making appointments. I found this useful, but the Weeks doesn’t contain this feature.
  

  A6 Techo, clearly marking that this calendar is for March of 2017, not the current year, March 2016.

hobonichi weeks March 2018 calendar could easily be mistaken for March of 2017 if you’re marking down appointments in a hurry.

• The Monday starts. The Monday start was useful for me when I was working Monday-Friday, but that’s not what my schedule is like anymore. It’s a lot more varied, so I’m not sure that I will get much benefit from a Monday start and it could prove confusing as I try scheduling goals and deadlines week-by-week, but I’m hoping it’s something that just takes a little adjustment and then it’s all good.

Although I may miss some of these features when I move to the Hobonichi Weeks, I don’t think they’ll make the experience an unpleasant one. They were extra features that I just found nice, but not essential (with the exception of the lay-flat binding–if I can’t get the notebook to lay open, it may make me hate it).

changes i’m looking forward to

• The week-at-a-glance. I loved the daily view of the A6 Techo, but there were times I was longing for a weekly view and the A6 Techo just does not contain one at all. I’m looking forward to having my week laid out in front of me where I can easily see ahead to the next few days.
• The weekly notes. With my A6 Techo, I make a space for daily notes. This is quite useful for me, but I’m really looking forward to experimenting with having notes for each week instead of each day. It may make it easier to find what I’m looking for later and for days when I don’t need to take too many notes, I don’t have to worry about too much waste of space.
• The size. I love the size of the A6 Techo. It feels really good in the hands and it feels really good to write in. It also fits in my bag. However, I find I don’t like placing it in my bag too much because everything in my bag gets beat up because I have a five-year-old and we like to play pretty hard.  The thicker size takes up a lot of room in my tiny bag and if I’m using it with a more durable cover, it doesn’t fit well in my bag at all. The Weeks, however, is slimmer, making it something I can easily slide into my bag and take with me. As a result, I’m looking forward to my planner being something I not only have open on my desk, but I take with my everyday, not just occasionally.
• The notebook section. Not only will I make this an everyday carry item, but it doubles as a notebook, which means I don’t have to carry a planner plus a separate notebook in my bag. They will be together.

the cost

This will be my last year with the Hobonichi planners, so I’m excited to try something different from them. The reason it will be my last year is because of the price. The planner itself is reasonably priced, but by the time I ship it from Japan, it becomes quite expensive. When I started using the Hobonichi planners, a friend and I ordered ours together so shipping wasn’t quite so bad. But now it’s just me and I found that while I very much enjoy these planners, I just can’t afford to ship them from Japan anymore.

For those who are curious, the planner itself was a little over $17. Not bad for the quality and all you get with it. Plus that marvelous Tomoe River Paper! However, at around $18, the shipping and handling costs are more than the planner itself! It’s very fast shipping in a very nice box and everything you order is crisp and neat, so I’m not trying to say the cost isn’t worth it…but $35 for a planner is getting quite expensive for my budget. I know many U.S. planners of lesser quality can cost about the same or more, but I just don’t see it work in my budget next year.

 

conclusion

The Hobonichi Weeks is a very well-thought-out planner and my first impression of it is that I will find it a dream to use. I love the little details, and though there are some things I would do differently, I do think I’m going to enjoy using this planner. It has so many ways for me to reevaluate how I plan and so many different ways to look at my goals and track what is important to me. Overall, I like change, so I’m looking forward to using a different planner. Because of the shipping costs, this will more than likely be my last year using the Hobonichi planners for a while, so I plan to make my last year with the Hobonichi a very memorable one.

So if you’ll excuse me, my new planner actually allows me to start using it next week, so I have some setting up to do. Also, there’s some new Gilmore Girls out and I need a break from some heavy drama that’s been going on in real-life. I really could use some fictional drama to immerse myself in.

your turn

Are you into planners? Do you enjoy choosing a new planner for the year? What kinds of things do you look for in a new planner? Leave me your planning thoughts below.

falling for medea, or why i love sarah mccarry’s about a girl

In college I read Euripides’ play, Medea. It’s the story of a girl. She falls for a man, Jason, who marries her. She follows him, in love, leaving a trail of blood behind her. Medea has kids with Jason, then she is shoved aside as Jason decides to marry another girl for a crown, leaving Medea and their two children exiled. Medea is betrayed. She decides to get revenge for her and her children, and Medea is fierce. She’s found her courage and she’s found her determination. She wants Jason to pay. She wants him to feel an ounce of the betrayal she feels–and for all the claims that she’s just an emotional woman, Medea puts aside her love and erupts with vengeance, killing Jason’s new bride and her father. Then, deciding it is better she kill them than someone who doesn’t love them, Medea slays her own children, which becomes the ultimate revenge against Jason, their father.

 

She’s a “monster” Jason says.
The class discussion of Euripides’ play erupted when I claimed that I loved Medea, not just the play–I loved her. I like that she carries fire in her hands and isn’t afraid to destroy those around her. Of course, I’m not one who is okay with people killing other people, and I certainly would never celebrate someone who kills their own children as revenge against their spouse in real life. But as a work of fiction and for what she stood for to me in those lines, bold and unforgiving, I loved the character of Medea.

 

painting: “Jason and Medea – John William Waterhouse” by John William Waterhouse – http://www.jwwaterhouse.com. Licensed under Public Domain 

The only encounters I really had to feminism at this point, were pastors telling me it was dirty and sinful and gross and that was pretty much what I believed at that point, but even then, I remember commenting during that class discussion, of all the plays I’ve read up to that point, I’ve never seen a female character like this. I know I’m not supposed to like Medea. I know I’m supposed to be repulsed. But there was something in her I couldn’t quite explain or make anyone understand.

 

And I wanted to be her so bad and I became her any chance I got–any acting scene I could do as Medea, I would. I always hoped I’d come across a casting call for a production of Medea so I could have a chance to be her for a full production. I wanted (and still do!) a chance to own that character. For once in my life, I wanted to be the woman who didn’t give a shit about everyone else before myself–to constantly have to be thinking of every dude’s sad story and how it justified the pain and betrayal I carried deep inside. I wanted the pain on the outside and I wanted everyone to feel its fire.
I was alone in this, apparently. Even my closest friends turned to me in disgust upon my announcement that I was in love with Medea. “She kills her own children. How can you like a woman who is a mother who kills her children?”

painting: Medea (about to murder her children)  by Eugène Delacroix. Licensed under Public Domain

Now, again, I don’t like people who kill children. Not. At. All. It’s difficult to explain how you can love a character who does something you hate. I still don’t know how to explain it. Luckily, there are people out there with words that are better than my own, so when I came across Seven Ways of Thinking About Medea by Sarah McCarry (via The Book Smugglers), I knew I found someone who understood Medea in the way that I loved her.

 

My third book is, like the first two, and like all the books I love best, about love and sex and death and growing up. It is also about Medea: Medea, as she might be now, kind of punk and wicked witchy, kissing girls, still slitting throats. Medea, a girl who doesn’t apologize, not even once she’s learned her lessons the hard way, not even once she’s had to learn them again. Looking death in the face, looking for vengeance, cutting her own bloody path. What girl’s gotten to do that since? We’ll cry for Hamlet (from this time forth, my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth), despite his swath of collateral damage, but Medea’s everybody’s worst nightmare: a girl without fear or remorse, a girl with power, a girl whose fury is big enough to swallow the world. Medea (sailing serpent wings) her own kind of warrior, her own kind of witch (she can quench the hot blast of unwearying fire / halt rivers dead when they’re roaring down in spate / control the stars and the Moon’s own sacred orbits). Medea, who knows exactly what she is: My very spells have torn the throats of serpents. — Sarah McCarry, Seven Ways of Thinking About Medea

 

Later, I would tweet something, which was probably about Dirty Wings and I don’t even remember what it was, but Sarah McCarry was tagged in it and she responded to me that I would love the final installment of her young adult series because it was full of astronomy. That final book of the Metamorphoses series, About A Girl, would turn out to be my favorite of the trilogy.

 

Medea. Astronomy. Mythology. Music. Magical realism. Girls kissing girls. Girls who are monsters. Girls going on quests. Girls falling in love with Medea.

 

How could this book possibly exist? I preordered it. It was the first book I had ever preordered. I had to have it and I was partly ashamed that I asked for it to be autographed because I’m not usually one who feels the need to have an autograph, but before I even read this book I knew my heart was in there somewhere. The heart that got buried during that time I was that goth chic who was part hippie, aspiring astronomer, lover of words, lover of theater, lover of girls. The girl who felt too damn much. But so much of it was buried because I had to get through and because I never trusted myself. But I wanted the quest. I wanted to break out of that “good girl” persona so desperately that it practically leaked out of my pores, but there would be time for that later, just get through this here, get through this right now and then leave it all fucking behind.
Tally is who I wish I would have been had I trusted myself.

 

Tally. She is destined to be an astronomer, to study the mysteries of how the universe began when she goes on a quest to find out if a legendary musician is her father. During the quest, Tally finds the world around her is so much more magical than she realized–but this isn’t necessarily a “scientist learns science is just numbers, unemotional and wrong,” type of story. It’s the story about a girl who learns to approach the questions of the universe from multiple stand points. Most of all, it’s the story about a girl who finds herself in a world of magic looking for answers, but having the strength to return back to the world she knew–not unchanged, of course–but still allowed to love science while simultaneously falling in love with mythical monsters.

 

 

climbing vines background by webtreats

Tally runs away from home in search of answers, but also to run away from the emotional confusion she is feeling about, among many things, a boy she loves. And while running from one love, Tally runs right into another. Tally meets Medea and falls hard and begins to forget everything else. But one love doesn’t cancel out the other– sometimes you love two people at the same time. And this is, indeed, at its core, a love story.

 

 

I love Tally. And I love her family just as much. Each character feels so real, honest, alive, yet magical in their love. And it’s that love–that stability, those phone calls home–that anchor Tally when she is in danger of losing herself to loss and to darkness. Yes, this is a love story, but as the first book in the Metamorphoses series points out, “…not the kind of love you think. You’ll see…” (p. 2, Sarah McCarry, All Our Pretty Songs).

 

book jacket design by Elsie Lyons. photo of girls on book by Sandy Honig.

 

This final book in the series (About a Girl), like the other two books (All Our Pretty Songs, Dirty Wings) is a standalone, and is beautiful all on its own. In relation to the other two books, though, we see that time isn’t linear. The second book takes place before the first book. The third book takes place after the first book. (But read them in order! Your heart will thank you!) Stories repeat themselves, each book loosely based on mythology from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Stories repeat themselves, and yet each girl in each of the books owns her story all on her own. The stories are timeless, and time itself feels like it is fluid, bouncing around from one generation to a previous generation, to a later generation, all of them connected to ancient mythology, all of them flowing–time moving, not forward, but all around and everywhere.

 

climbing vines background by webtreats

 

In About A Girl, myths become reality. The Stars guide you home. But in the end, we do have power in our destiny. We meet monsters. Make love to monsters. Fall in love. Fall under spells. Walk the dark paths into and beyond the ocean, venture into the past and find our way back into the present–and what makes all the difference between becoming lost in it all and drowning, and from finding the strength to walk on water, and to swim when you can’t walk on water, and to flail your way through when you can’t swim–is that love and stability that you know awaits somewhere in this world full of scientific wonder and magic.

 

 

This book is for those of us who are lovers to monsters. Those of us who want to be part monster. Those of us gazing up. Those of us who carry equations in our heads, yet see magic all around us. Those of us who look up into the night sky and see the wonders of the universe and know that the stars will guide us home.

 

 

If you haven’t figured it out, yet, yes, I (a million times yes!) recommend you read Sarah McCarry’s About A Girl.

 

related links

buy about a girl by sarah mccarry, here

follow sarah mccarry’s blog, here

hobonichi techo

I’m a paper person who loves planners and notebooks. Something about a notebook with a lot of pages that lay flat makes my fingers twitch with the urge to write something. Crisp, clean paper, ready for dirtying. Dirty that paper! Dirty it!

ignore the bad handwriting. admire the starry nail polish.

I was making my own planner for a few years in order to make one that worked best with my “system.” My spouse is as addicted to stationery as I am–actually more so. He follows the blogs and such. I just go, “Oooh…ahhh…” at stores and collect notebooks. My spouse, however, tends to like pens and inks, whereas I like paper and notebooks. Together we dirty so many pages. I’m referring to stationery.

So a few years ago, my spouse came across some articles and blogs dedicated to the Hobonichi planner and thought they were just my thing. He showed me how people use it to plan novels, design furniture, or as an art journal. I ordered one last year, and let me tell you, the Hobonichi is my dream planner. No, seriously, I’ve been through a lot of planners over the years, and this planner is IT. I already ordered and received the 2016 version.

my order: a pack of three notebooks, hobonichi planner, a black cover (comes with a plastic cover for the cover), Jetstream pen, and tissue holder. it all shipped in a nice box.

Size does matter to me and I love how nicely it sits in my hand. Get your heads out of the gutter, people, I’m still discussing my planner. It’s sexy, though, isn’t it? I don’t know if other people feel this way–but I love books, notebooks, journals, etc. that just have that magical size that feels good in the hand. Japanese novels tend to be that magical size, and this planner is also that size.

It lays flat. I tend to lean towards spiral notebooks because they lay so flat and nice when they’re open. Well, this planner lays flat without the spiral and that alone could make me fall in love.

look at how it lays flat and just calls for you to write in it!

While being a good size, there’s still a page dedicated to each day. This is thanks to the Tomoe River paper, which is thin, but sturdy. Until 2015, I didn’t realize I liked fountain pens because I had never used one on good paper, and well, I love using my fountain pen in this journal. It writes smooth and the color is vibrant with minimal bleeding to the back side of the paper. I love the paper so much, with my planner order this year, I ordered some notebooks with the same paper. I seriously like running my fingers along this paper because it feels so nice. I like caressing paper. I’m that kind of weird.

in the cover. so nice in my hand. and notice the book mark danglings.

Speaking of pens, the planner comes with a Jetstream pen. I keep Jetstream pens all over the place and I often give them away to people who borrow one and get all excited about how nice they write. The pen that comes with the planner is a multicolored pen, which is fun for color coding your planner. (Note: I believe that only the Japanese version of the planner comes with the pen. The Japanese version also comes with a tissue holder.)

Last year, I ordered the planner alone and I love it bare. This year, I ordered a cover for it to protect it a bit and see how I like using a cover. Plus, the covers have so many pockets. And pockets, I like. I ordered the cheapest cover available, but even the cheapest one feels and looks so classy. I’m very excited to utilize it.

back of cover has a pocket perfect for slipping in my new notebooks. also, feel free to compliment my pretty nail polish.

The planner contains monthly calendars for jotting down appointments (with room on the sides for additional notes). There’s plenty of room for me to make my lists (I make lists to clear my head) while also leaving the daily pages for me to be creative. The back has a place for notes, anniversaries, a time table, and a place to keep track of books/movies/music/etc. you experienced that year (I use it to keep track of books I read).

monthly calendar and more views of my pretty nail polish.

My favorite thing about this planner–I am actually journaling now. As much as I love journals themselves, I’ve never been into journaling itself. Writing down what I did that day seemed boring to me and I never kept up with it. Now I’ve discovered that journaling can be so much more than that. Sometimes I just jot down lyrics that speak to me, quotes from a book I’m reading, or random thoughts about what it means to grow up or whatever is on my mind. Since I’m now beginning to enjoy fountain pens, I’m starting to also do handwriting exercises to see if I can improve how I write.

inside, the cover has lots of pockets, too. i’ve already inserted my post-it notes.

I guess what I’m saying is that the Hobonichi inspires me to use it for more than a planner. It helps me clear my head. It helps me unravel what’s happening in my brain, and it’s become a way for me to take apart the chaos of my life and put it back together each day. This planner is pretty much magic.

why thank you, back cover pocket.

Do you use a planner? What’s your favorite thing about it? Do you enjoy journaling? Stationery? I’d love to hear whatever paper and pen related thoughts you are having below!

Links:

Hobonichi Love: This tumblr is dedicated to all things Hobonichi. People submit photos of how they use the planner and it gets posted here. I love seeing how other people journal and the many different ways one can go about using their Hobonichi.

Hobonichi Techo 2016: Learn more about this planner and/or buy one for yourself. Feel free to buy me all the accessories. Thanks.

The Pen Addict: Here’s a good review of it with lots of details and pictures of the pages. Also, there’s pictures of how people have used the planner. A good thorough review to check out if you’re interested.