It’s the start of a new year, so I’m kicking off a new round of planning. I’ve also switched up my system from last year, so I’ll discuss what changes I’ve made and why. Not everything changed, though, so that’s as good a place to start as any.
Weekly Planner 2025 + 2026: Hobonichi Weeks
I kept this system for a variety of reasons, from the aesthetic to the practical. As far as the aesthetics are concerned, purple is my favorite color. That made the “Peony Purple” colorway an easy choice. I also almost bought the Tragen cover to go with it (to act as a wallet replacement). I didn’t end up going that route, mostly because of the cost of the cover ($65). I don’t regret this, mostly because I found a dupe of the A5 Hobonichi Tragen (not an affiliate link) on Amazon for half the price ($32). The find has slaked me need for a Tragen cover, even if I don’t use it as a wallet replacement.
My practical reason for picking this notebook was that it saved me a lot of work in customizing my own planners. I already draw up a daily “to-do list” (which I will discuss later), and the idea of doing that AND a weekly planner sounded annoying. Also, though some of the features of the Hobonichi aren’t useful to me, I can’t deny that they have a certain charm. As such, by keeping a Hobonichi product in my planning life, I could get the charm without having it in multiple notebooks. I also kept it because I find it useful for a broad overview of my docket for a given day as well as for habit tracking (on the graph page on the right side of the notebook).
2025 Diary: A5 Hobonichi Techo Daily
2026 Diary: B6 Nanami Paper Cafe Note
Remember how I said Hobonichis could be a bit much, and how I didn’t really use all of their features? That’s why I dropped the A5 Daily Techo as my daily diary. I was already thinking about switching to a smaller notebook size towards the tail-end of 2025. When the price increases across the Hobonichi line were cemented, the choice was clear: Hobonichi would no longer be my product of choice for my daily journal.
To replace it, I selected the B6 “Cafe Note” from Nanami Paper. It’s been in my stash for years at this point, so I was eager to use it. Plus, its page count, fountain pen friendliness, and reduced footprint meant it was an ideal candidate for my daily journal (where I write a quote, the day’s happenings, and three things I’m grateful for).
Happily, the reduced size has not been a problem for me. The only barrier has been that I’ve occasionally had to shrink my handwriting when noting what I’m grateful for. I’ve always had enough room to give a summary of my day, though. Really, the only major downside to the change was that I needed to write in the dates myself. I’ve managed it by taking it one day at a time; I’m quite confident I’d get frustrated if I tried to do the full year in a single sitting (or even a full quarter). As it stands, though, it’s just another part of my journaling habit.
2025 To-Do List: Pocket-size Notebook
2026 To-Do List: Kokuyo Campus USA Spiral
I started 2025 using a Pocket Notebook (from TarokoShop, FWIW) as my daily to-do list. This was good enough for a time, but I quickly outgrew it as I wanted more and more space for to-dos and other tracking (e.g. calorie counting, which was previously housed in my daily diary). With that said, I use my “to-do lists” to track key professional / work and key personal tasks I want to complete on a given day. I also do my best to limit each list to the four most important items as a way to prioritize.
I then roll incomplete tasks into a weekly wrap, and follow up on them as my time and energy allows. This has generally kept me on task with regards to the various personal and professional projects I juggle. It’s also a good way to use up notebooks I bought on a whim and didn’t have explicit plans for. (I chose the Kokuyo Campus USA for this reason. Its paper’s glossy texture means it’s only OK for fountain pens, and while the cover colors pop, I see these as among the most “disposable” of the notebooks I regularly use.)
The main features I’m adding in 2026 are “day-at-a-glance” features to my monthly summary pages. Said summary pages already contain my primary goals for the month, so having the “day-at-a-glance” laid out will help me schedule time to make said goals happen. With all of that said, I’ll likely switch to another notebook from my stash once I use all of my Kokuyo Campus USA notebooks (they came in a three pack). I’m not sure about the specifics of what I’ll use next, but I have plenty of notebooks to choose from. Years of collecting with bouts of panic buying when favorite paper types were discontinued (I’m looking at you, Tomoegawa Tomoe River) mean I have enough paper to last a decade or more. Fun.
My 2025 + 2026 Journals: It’s Changed a Lot
You might be wondering: what’s the difference between a diary and a journal? In my mind, the difference is that the diary is for a recounting of the day, plus extras like tracking things I’m grateful for. A journal, by contrast, is for “brain dumping” or, to put it more elegantly, thinking on paper. I typically fill around 20 A5 pages a week as a minimum, though the weeks I’m really going through it I’ve filled as many as 60 pages.
As you might imagine, I’ve used a variety of notebooks for this task. I also tend to jump back and forth between Tomoe River (Sanzen and Tomoegawa) and other specialty papers for handwriting (Cosmo Air Light, Iroful, b7 Tranext, etc). I’m generally brand agnostic with regards to my journals; the paper is the star of the show for me. To that end, I used A5 notebooks from a variety of manufacturers in 2025. A few examples include:
- Tomoe River Sanzen Paper Mind Notebook
- Musubi Tomoe River (Probably Sanzen, but I’m not 100% sure if I’m honest) Notebook
- GLP Creations A5 Slim w/ 68 GSM Tomoe River
- Pencil Revolution Press w/ Kokuyo “Business” Paper
- Franklin Christoph Greybook
My 2026 Creative Work (Mostly Creative Writing)
I’ve been using A5 binders and loose leaf paper for this purpose a lot more this year. I really appreciate the flexibility that binders provide, and being able to use high quality paper is the icing on the cake. (Also, it’s much easier to organize my notes and musings with a binder; I’ve never been able to bring myself to cut up a notebook. ALSO, I find it much easier to “commit” to trying new papers 10-20 pages at a time than for a full 200+ page notebook.)
My only qualm about A5 binders is that I have yet to find one that meets all my wants and needs. The needs include high quality materials (including the hardware) and reasonably sized rings. A few obvious examples pop up here, like Plotter and MeePlus. By comparison, the wants are where I’ve run into trouble: covers that won’t show obvious signs of wear as they’re used (this eliminates most leather covers, as they form to rings over time … a fact that drives me up the wall), covers that are stiff enough to write on (like a hard cover notebook), and colors other than black and light brown / craft paper. (I was very tempted by the Pueblo Purple offered by MeePlus, but I ultimately passed because I knew I would be too bothered by the wear.)
So far, I’ve selected binders that meet all criteria except being stiff enough to write on. It’s been a relatively easy trade off, mostly because when I sit down to work on fiction / creative writing, 95% of the time I’m near a table, desk, or other flat surface. I’ll keep looking, though, if only because I can be a bit obsessive about my stationery. You’re positively shocked by this, reader, I’m sure.
Wrap Up
That’s my planning set-up for 2026. I’m confident that it will last through the year, mostly because I’ve been using similar systems for years and the main change has been one of brand. Instead, my main goal is to never get more than a day or two behind my planning (and especially on my Weeks and diary). I did more guess-timation than I would’ve liked in both of those in 2025, and that’s a habit I want to stamp out in 2026. Wish me luck, and happy planning to us all.
