#hobonichi classic

[greenbeanmakes]

I am transitioning away from using a bullet journaling this year because I have gotten tired of drawing out my spreads every week. I decided to get some Hobonichi notebooks for 2023. Let’s see how long I can last without crawling back to my bujo.

NOTEBOOKS FOR 2023

Hobonichi Classic - Prayer Journal

Hobonichi Weeks (White) - Memory Keeper

Hobonichi Weeks (Pink) - Planner

Grid Notebook - Daily Log

Currently I am using a Kunisawa for my daily logs, but I honestly do not want to buy another expensive notebook after this one is full. So, I think that I will order a field notes set or get some of the weeks memo pads for when I ran out of space in my non-mega hobonichi weeks.

[lupusmaxima]

2023/12/06

my personal exam period aesthetic 🫡 (thanks to my class schedule i didn’t have time to study for my communist politics exam… so wish me luck)

[tazzx]

Does anybody else feel like their handwriting ruins their journaling experience? Such as I wish to post some of my journal pages, but my hand writing is just not pleasing or straight enough. It is wonky and cursive. it changes shapes throughout the writing process. (Maybe it is cuz I compare myself to other pleasing handwriting and organization)

[bipolarsupernova]

[hiddenworldofmary]

i didn’t expect to have a whatsapp fight with my dad over which hobonichi for next year is the prettiest but somehow here we are

[zhouxiangs]

thank you @hotasfahrenheit @sherrymagic @daouoffroads for tagging me! i'm taking your glasses holder (all those prescription glasses! wish that was me), secret vegan nutella jar (we don't have it here yet), and assorted book collection (the language learning material specifically hehe) respectively 🙂‍↕️

no pressure tagging @clairedaring @le-trash-prince @autisticbokutoenthusiast @gaym3bo1 @sparklyeyedhimbo

[jwinsorart]

Hobonichi users: What are your favorites from the new lineup for next year? I mostly like the classic leather covers but they're too expensive for me. The POTR is neat too, but also out of budget. I kind of like the A5 fabric cover from yuge fabric farm, but again: too expensive. Maybe I'll try the Alettone or Only Is Not Lonely because they are more earthy, neutral colors. I might even get last year's Tomitaro Makino Koshinso cover because I love the botanical vibe. Also eyeing the Unsodo Rainbow HON...

For the weeks I like the Through the Purple Night art, but I don't know the band. Is that allowed? Or maybe the Tanabata Decorations or Harvest Plaid. I can't really decide at all! Wish I could see them in person.

📜 Hobonichi cousin planner

🖊️ Sarasa R Blue Black

Stickers by @designingliefdedgtl on Etsy

[rhysnolastname]

todays (technically tomorrow saturday) hobonichi reveal is many hours early. its called denali in the midnight sun. it’s a beautiful commemoration of a cyanotype of denali done by naoki ishikawa. you can see the sky and clouds and snow. it’s beautiful and blue and i love blue. it’s really bold blue, you can see the brush strokes of where the solution was applied. the classic butterfly closure is a dark dark blue. it looks like they have an a5 and a6 cover, as well as a weeks, and graph notebooks. the have corresponding pencil boards featuring another cyanotype, this time instead of from camp seeing out into the summit, it’s much lower and there’s a bright blue cessna

[temporalhiccup]

Starting Dungeon23 - I AM THE DUNGEON

I didn't think it was going to make it! The holidays rush stalled deliveries so badly. But somehow my weekly planner made it just in time for my #Dungeon23 project, I AM THE DUNGEON.

I don't even play Pokemon y'all, but I had to get the Pokemon hobonichi weekly planner. It's SO cute, the gray screen color is the perfect Gameboy classic shade from my hazy childhood. (And it came with stickers omg!!)

Because this planner starts from November 2022, it felt right to try to use the extra pages before the dungeon proper. I decided to prep for I AM A DUNGEON by drawing tarot cards.

This is The Linestrider Tarot deck, featuring lovely watercolor art that invites your intuition to explore and play.

(Do you see the Queen of Swords? So I called my ttrpg thing Sword Queen Games because I started drawing this card repeatedly when I started designing games on itchio. So there you go! Of course they showed up here!)

Tarot Reading

Energy of the Project: Queen of Swords & Page of Wands - A reminder of who I am and why I (create/write) (games/rituals). An opportunity to play, to bare the heart, to befriend the dragons of the soul.

Focus: Justice - 2023 is a year of renewal: this project is a means to rebuild myself and kill the past, to cut away what holds me back.

Avoid: The Empress - The project is a wild expression: resist the urge to treat it like a child or over tend to it, do not slip into old habits.

Beginning: The Wheel of Fortune - Embrace the flow and "randomness" of intuition, invite love and be loved, let die a peaceful death.

Middle: Knight of Cups - Keep the pace steady by attuning - again and again - to genuine emotion. Court who you love through words and poetry. Love them honestly.

End: Five of Cups - Resist the urge to fixate on what was lost. None of it is real. Choice and sacrifice lead you to victory and fulfillment.

Overall the reading is balanced between the major and minor arcana. This communicates that the project itself will be fairly balanced.

Most of the minor arcana are represented; tellingly the pentacles suit is missing. This means resisting the urge to make this feel like work or obligation. Instead the cards have doubled up on cups: lean more into intuition, as well as the ritual and lyrical aspect of this project.

There are three court cards in the reading, this communicates two things:

Three aspects of the self: queen, page, and knight. The king aspect of yourself is needed elsewhere.

There are three people in particular to draw inspiration from, who will be engaging with Dungeon23. Approach them when you need help.

The Linestrider tarot was chosen for this reading, which serves as a reminder: be messy, vulnerable. This is an endeavor to kill the god of perfection within. Be ready for new beginnings that will yield great rewards!

I'm really glad @ostrichmonkey-games convinced me to get the smol weekly planner, it's a great way to constrain the writing and focus on what's really important.

I started using fountain pens a few days ago, and I wish I had gotten into them sooner. The act of writing is so much easier on the hand, and it's really just a more fun way to write.

I still have a few more blank pages before January 1 but I'm not sure what to fill them with. I have some ideas. We'll see!

How's everyone preparing for their Dungeon23?

[tabrownwv]

Bambi Theme | Hobonichi Weeks | Happy Planner stickers

Next week’s planner spread in my hobonichi weeks using the new Bambi sticker book from the happy planner. I linked the book below if you want to check it out. Not affiliated or sponsored. Bambi Springtime classic sticker book

[greenbeanmakes]

February 6th, in my Hobonichi.

[lupusmaxima]

2024/10/07

i’m sick today, but today’s hobonichi delivery made my day infinitely better!

[tazzx]

Went just for the sailor moon and ended up buying records again and this cute Altoids ouija.

[caermorrighan]

A belated mid-year(ish) techo kaigi

As this tumblr is new, I thought it would be good to start with the classic conversation about my journals - the techno kaigi. It's an incredibly useful part of a journaling practice. I'll walk you through mine and you'll get a feel for how much it helped me develop things this year.

What is a techo kaigi?

A techo kaigi is a conversation (normally with yourself, or in this case, with the internet) about your journals. Its a review of where you are now. Typically you see these at mid-year and end-of year. At the mid-year its done just before the new journal announcements happen. Its your baseline to make decisions for next year. At the end of the year its more of a New Year's style review - how did it go, what are my goals for next year.

How has 2024 been treating me?

It's been a more difficult year than 2023. In 2023 my journals made it all the way through the year. I may have tweaked the layouts a bit, but I was using the same books at the end of the year, with the exception the A6 Hobonichi I brought for work (A6 doesn't work for me).

Enter 2024 and I had a plan. The plan looked a bit like this:

My journal would be a Hobonichi Cousin

My writing journal would be an A5 Hobonichi Hon

My project/commonplace would be an A5 Sterling Ink Common Planner (2 book system)

My everyday carry would be a separate A5 Sterling Ink Common Planner (2 book system)

My work journal would continue to be the undated A5 Sterling Ink Common Planner I had landed on after abandoning the A5

My health journal would be an N2 (Weeks) Sterling Ink Common Planner

A learning journal in an A5 Sterling Ink notebook

An overflow journal in an A5 Midori Codex (carried over from last year)

Did this plan survive the year? It did not. Did it survive January? It did not. I had the wrong books, was my first thought, so I rotated them round a bit. The Hon became the everyday carry (the Common Planner was too floppy for an everyday carry). The Common Planner became the work journal. The undated Common Planner went into storage and the N2 got replaced with an A6 because the columns were too small for me to write the detail I needed into the vertical weeklies. To keep track, at this point I am down to 7 journals.

And I tried to carry on that way for a while. But gradually, things continued to evolve. It turns out A5 is also too big for an everyday carry, so I didn't have one for a while and the Hon became more of a desk planner. At the end of March I went to Japan and added an A5 Plotter which sort of became my EDC. This takes me back up to 8.

And then, the mid-year approached and I sat down and really thought about what I wanted.

And the journals started to fall.

First to go was the learning journal. Because I don't like Midori paper, I made that book my overflow journal instead. This was really useful when I started prototyping later in the year. (That's down to 7).

Then the separate health journal went. I incorporated that into my planners (now 6).

I stopped using the Plotter, and then I put the overflow journal away because I now had overflow space in my existing journals (we're down to 4). I then go excited about the idea of 'companion' journals for specific subjects because I do not learn (back up to 6). I cut those again pretty quickly, though the companion concept is going to remain.

This left me with the following 4 journals:

The Hobonichi journal

An A5 Hon as a daily planner

An A5 Common Planner as a project planner/health journal

An A5 Common Planner for work

And no everyday carry. So I replaced my Hon with a Traveller's Notebook with blank booklets to create what I am calling my three (plus one) system.

Three (plus one)?

The three parts of this system are as follows:

Plan - an everyday carry/forward planner

Progress - a working book

Ponder - a tracker/journal

+1. A work journal, kept separately, to be discarded later.

This evolved out of the discovery that I don't like to be doing the same thing in multiple journals. If I'm going to be managing a to do list, I want one to do list. I can't fit what I am doing in a single book, and so I focused on the purposes of the books and let that guide my choices.

This came out of my reflections in preparation for 2025, and that is really what a mid-year techo kaigi has become. It's why I included reflecting on what was and was not working in my 10 steps to choosing a planner for 2025. Planner season is so early in the year, that what you are feeling at the mid-point will heavily influence what you decide to go with next year. But its also a chance to experiment. I implemented this new approach pretty much immediately (using things I already had for the most part) and that has let me evolve it a bit before making my final 2025 purchase decisions.

If you've never done a techo kaigi, I encourage everyone to pick this up as a key part of their practice. Making changes is hard, but its a key part of finding something that really works for you, rather than carrying on because you brought the planner and now you're stuck with it. Every time I put a journal away it was hard, but also freeing. I now feel excited to use my journals. Which is how it should be.

[hisui-cotton]

You ever had a diary? I think I always liked the idea of having a diary, journal, or burn book, something that just gives a place for freedom of thought and reflection. But I could never actually find a way that felt good to me to do that. What if I just don’t have anything to write about? What if I have too much to write about? And at that what should I write about to being with, just my feelings or what happened in the day? It was too much for me when I was growing up to fell comfortable doing, especially when I know that I like to take time to make my thoughts come to fruition. But in the last five years I’ve enjoyed it more and come to the conclusion that it didn’t actually matter that I had no thoughts in particular, but that I took to the page when I did. That I had somewhere to personally discuss my interests or show them. Plus as someone who like art tools, I feel theres something to be valued in those too. So I wanna talk about some of the tools I use and what I usually put into my journals, picture references and some of the artists I buy stickers from (but no personal stuff like full entries or personal pictures)!

My journal of choice: Hobonichi Techo Cousin, A5 (5.8"× 8.3"× 0.7")

Hobonichi is probably the most popular choice due to it’s quality and variety in size, I myself have used two different sizes in the past. The Techo Classic and Cousin. I eneded up preferring the options that the Cousin provides being a bigger size and having several options for noting events on a day, etc. To see all the features of the cousin you can see it here: https://www.1101.com/store/techo/2016/planner/all_about/cousin/ What I really preferred was the size difference. The Techo classic wasn’t bad if I didn’t have a lot but it was a problem if I had a big event in my life I wanted to scrapbook or had a lot I wanted to talk about. You may say “What about the opposite then? What if nothing happened?” Well as an artist that leaves me with some more places to draw when I’d like to. Or a page for general scrapbooking. I can figure out more of what to do with a blank page, than a full page. Even then in the Cousin size I have had times I use both pages for a single day or thoughts. The river paper is also well fit for a lot of the pens and markers I use too, I never get leaks through the page and even if I can lightly see through the page it’s not harsh enough that it distracts of makes the new page hard to write or work on. It takes fairly well to tape too, Due to how thin it is though it can tear a bit easier if I’m not careful with my placement. It’s definitely in high demand and if you’re looking for a journal, planner or diary you’ll definitely see it recommended a lot.

For the coming Year I got some special accessories for it and decorated it in a specific way to make up for the fact that I couldn’t see the cover this time around. If you’re someone who wants to have a decorated cover, inner pages, or back cover there’s a lot of accessories made for them as well. The current clear cover I use is actually one I got on Etsy because of it’s affordability and the size. For this next year though I’ve got a special cover from Hobo’s collab with One Piece as well as a pencil Board! I’ll show what the cover looks like, how it fits and such too just to show what I mean about decorating it too.

So both here have covers, my current has a jelly cover so that I can see the stickers, the next year’s has the one piece fabic cover. For this year I decorated the front cover very lightly as I hadn’t known I was gonna do and ended up adding stickers a bit half-planned, but the back is very decorated with purpose! I had gotten some stickers of one of my favorite manga and other various deco stickers, so made something in a vibe that I liked together. Because I did this directly on the cover I wanted to be sure the jelly cover was thick still.

I don’t have anything on the cover of next year’s for this reason, It’s a non-transparent cover that tucks around the cover page like a book sleeve and can’t be easily taken off, but I have decorated the first inner page to make up for that, personally. It allows me to have a bit of a ease into using it for any personal usage but also allows me to be a bit non-precious with it. This is something I learned with sketchbooks, where the easeiet thing to do is draw something or just throw down a rough work on the first page so that you don’t try to hold the sketchbook to too high of a standard to the point you don’t ever use it. So I used the same logic and busted out my washi tape to cover the first few pages and give myself that little bit of freedom with the rest of it. Speaking of Washi, let’s go over some of the material I’ve used in my journal for a variety of things and some of the washi/sticker groups I’ve got stuff from!

Basics (Pens, Pencils, Erasers)

Overall I’m pretty basic with my usual pens, I use Bic standard ball point. I have one in Black and Blue, and usually keep the black one in my pencil case. If I am feeling more colorful I have some One Piece gel pens that I use (I seem obsessed with One Piece but it’s purely coincidence here I promise). Because I draw and such, I naturally have a set of art pencils that I also use in the journal on occasion. It’s not very often but they’re still handy to have on hand. The pencil set also came with an eraser; Faber Castell’s dust-free vinyl material eraser.

Markers, Faber Castell, 25 Pack

The Faber Castell marker pack is one I’ve had for about 10 years now, It’s not something I get out frequently but even still it’s surprising none of the markers haven’t dried out or lot of saturation. These markers I feel work especially well on Hobonichi’s river paper, where theres no bleed and the colors are still really vivid. The downside to that is I frequently find that when i use them on standard sketchbook paper they absorb into the paper really fast, which is nice, but on the river paper they set a little slower. I believe it has something to with the way they don’t bleed through, but I’m not sure. It’s not a problem if I let it dry for a minute but if I make something more involved because I want to dress it up I have to let larger portions of the color sit for a minute so I don’t smudge it on my hand. Usually too I use it in combo with some stickers I have. Usually as well I use it to fill double pages that I just didn’t get to or to mark general events in a busy two-day schedule. Likewise with stickers I tend to use them in a similar way where I use them to fill a larger portion of the page first or compose the major portions of it before writing anything down. It lets me be sure that I’ll have enough room for little thoughts but also the art or such I place down.

Sticky Notes, Washis and Stickers

For These I usually get my washis, stickers and sticky note tabs from fanzines. Previously I got the Demon Slayer Planner, Persona 5 Planners and other various fan projects that usually include sticker sheets, stationary etc. This year as well I’ve joined several “Sticker Clubs” at the end of this year via patreon. Currently I’m in the patreons for: Boxerbun’s Fight Club, Bryson McBee, Janet Sung, Mogumu, Ocean Club and previously Trungle’s. Not many of them are Washi based, most of my current washis are from fanzines I mentioned, except 1 from uchuu summer, which I received more recently. A lot of Washi tough tend not to be sticky enough to totally tape down objects or papers, they’re better for decoration and stuff like that.

Camera / FujiFilm

I do supplement my journal or more diary style entries with actual photos! I find that I don’t take a lot of photos in my life but know that it can be important for personal confidence in a lot of ways. I was never really comfortable getting my picture taken or even being in pictures but because of that I also feel like I didn’t get to properly preserve an idea of what I look like. This is something I especially noted in the last two years because of the passing of several family members, who I have few pictures with because of my aversion to taking them. I don’t really want to lose that time together going forward so I have pushed myself by doing physical photo stuff and doing atleast one selfie every 3-4 months. To do this I decided a Fujimax (FujiFilm Instax) would be nice to have, they’re both convenient and the film is easy to use. Learning how to use it was nice and easy but also gave me a really nice and easy “gift” if I was hanging out with someone for a special occasion. I literally did a photo exchange with some of my friends who also had a Fujimax (by total coincidence) where we both took pictures together and then exchanged them. It was really nice and gave an extra sense of sentimental value for something so nice and simple.

The size of the photos too, in combination with my A5 makes for a good amount of space left to write, even with multiple pictures. Also due to the size of the pictures and the writing space at the bottom, I can tape them in in unique ways that let me open them like a pop-up book or write under them too! Similar to the Hobonichi, these cameras also have a lot of accessories that you can buy from both amazon and handcraft sites like etsy. Often as well I find that theres a lot of nice deco stickers made for this size, or around this size, due to kpop fan creations like Custom Photocards, Anime merch of arcylic cases and things of that nature that encourage adding your own stickers and then an acrylic or sleeve card to protect it.

And that is about it! I really eased out of using general planners for taking notes and stuff to actually doing all sorts of things that just are nice little stationary works for myself or journals about life. It’s like scrapbooking but a bit more personal or varied. It’s not necessarily about a specific event but about anything and everything from events, to notes, to drawings and thoughts. When I let myself be really free form with it I had a lot more fun overall and feel like I’ve let myself understand and reflect on things a bit more than before. It’s been really nice and is actually a part of what got me into the idea of doing more text blogging to begin with. While I don’t think I have some of the decorem or informative sides that most other blogs have, that was never really the goal. I have a lot of thoughts, so many that I decided to start making a place for them in my personal life, so to be able to share a little peek into that and get out all the little thoughts I have about the activity or even some of my general knowledge about it is fun.

[survive-the-academy]

Work, productivity, and self-care

After a month's sick leave, I'm back to work this week. I'm being thrown straight back in to the final lap of my PhD: this is crunch time, when me at my most perfectionist and unhealthy could absolutely run myself into the ground with over-work. Equally, this is when me at my most avoidant and unhealthy could hide under my duvet, panic and procrastinate, and miss very important deadlines.

So. How do you successfully juggle the required challenging work that needs to get done, and minding yourself? My plan is a work in progress, changing constantly, but this is my current blueprint:

Having a cosy morning routine that works for me, and is flexible. Some mornings I go to the gym, some days I work from home, and some I need to be in the office, so my morning routine needs to be adaptable or it won't stick. I have a list of four things, including movement (whether that's a quick little dance party with my headphones on or a yoga-in-bed session), meditation, reading (a nice calming book, and often with my morning coffee), and checking in with myself (whether that's just sitting and seeing how I feel, journalling a bit, or writing down a few to-dos that are clouding my brain). I try to do two of these each morning, picked from the list depending on the day.

My two to-do lists (courtesy of Struthless on YouTube): one "bare minimum" list that has some really necessary I-won't-eat-dinner-if-I-don't-buy-food type items, and one "ideal" list which has other items on it, that if I'm feeling good and motivated, I can tackle. Because I've been off work, these two lists have so far been home and care tasks, like doing my laundry, cooking meals, paying bills etc., but I'm going to try to adapt this to suit work as well... maybe by creating an equivalent two lists for work tasks, to help me avoid overwhelm.

Living by my bible "How to keep house while drowning" by KC Davis. This gentle, loving hug of a book is the principle by which I'm guiding my days. Keeping my space healthy and clean is one of the key things that helps me stay grounded and not topple over the cliff of overwhelm. I highly, highly recommend picking it up if you like the sound of its blurb - it does exactly what it says on the tin.

Taking productivity literature, absorbing the bits that seem useful, scanning it through a lens of toxic-productivity-culture-recognition, and evaluating whether I can implement it in a healthy, useful way that doesn't trigger my susceptibility to chronic overwork and ableist perfectionism. I recently read Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman and was floored by how consistently I felt completely seen by many of his anecdotes. I essentially am trying to take the mindset of Laziness Does Not Exist by Dr Devon Price (again, so well worth a read) and applying the lessons and lens of that book to techniques like those presented in books like Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey, and picking and choosing what parts serve me.

Of course, my classic procrastination trick of wanting to deeply research a whole pile of different organisation techniques is desperately pulling me to reevaluate whether I should continue using my Hobonichi-inspired Filofax print-outs, or whether I should switch to another system (that I have previously used and subsequently abandoned), like Trello Boards, Notion, Obsidian, etc...

I'm sure once I actually start back to work, my ideas and plans will change, and in practise I will find other techniques or tools that serve me better.