I stopped using my Hobonichi Cousin last year about this time. For various reasons, mostly because I didn’t want to bring it to the office and tried to reduce bulk.

But I’m going by car now so bulk isn’t really something I care about.

I just picked it up from the shelf and started to use the calendar pages and daily pages where I left off; not really caring that the dates are all wrong.

It’s been really good for my productivity and mental state to do that again. And I will without a doubt get some kind of paper planner for 2026.

Every time I see some Instagram reel or ad for some custom Apple Pencil tip or screen cover to make it be more “pen and paper like” or whatever is the latest e-ink tablet fad with the same selling point I just: sigh.

There are great things about digital tools and there are great things about analog ones.

Let my stylus be a stylus and let my analog writing tools be analog.

I don’t want my iPad mini to feel like my travelers notebook and I don’t want my travelers notebook to be digital.

I always end up in this place with pens, inks, notebooks etc. Where I have left overs, that never gets used.

Either because I checked something out and didn’t feel like continuing. Or stopped using something before using it all up etc.

I have like half of my notebook storage filled with stuff like that at the moment. And it is time to just use it all up before I restock things.

I have a nice wood pen tray from Studio Neat. The two pen version. I’ve used it for a long time at this point.

It usually has my two current fountain pens in it. And it is stained with fountain pen ink all over. And I love it.

I really like objects like that, where it looks cooler because you can see it has been used for its purpose.

I’ve had this book for a year and a half at this point.

It is a big A5 5 year journal. Always fun when you move past the 1 year point and see what you wrote the year before. Still haven’t done too much with the big blank pages on the right side.

That is something I have to get started on sooner rather than later.

There are a few things I look at to if a bag is good / great or just fine or even terrible.

All of them have to do with flexibility.

If you have used a Tom Bihn bag, you have most likely seen the o-rings they have at various places in their bags. I think they are kind of the perfect example of this.

They make it possible to have a key chain at any place where one of these rings are. And you can pick what kind of keychain you prefer. Plus if you break the chain it’s easy to replace.

Other bags I have have just sown some thin rope or other fabric into the bag at a fixed place. Some of them actually work well with this flaw, mostly because they have good taste for the length and placement of it. While others have ones that are more or less useless.

Sometimes I look at the inks I have and wonder: when did I order ink last?

It’s kind of weird how little ink I have bought over the last year and a half, and how much ink I still have left.

After what I can see from my order history in my e-mail I only have bought some Kaweco cartridges plus two bottles in 2025 and 2024; the purple one Lamy did last year and a bottle of Royal Blue Mont Blanc.

At the moment I have one proper eyedropper pen in use. It is a Pocket 66 from Franklin- Christoph. And me, being me, I always fill it all what way up.

This means that the pen has a ridiculous amounts of ink in it. And I doubt I fill it more than 2 or 3 times a year even though I use it multiple times a week.

Love how ridiculous it is.

I used to keep all of my notebooks for a long time.

For the longest time it took up a huge section of my book shelf. Then they lived in a big box. Then at some point I started to throw shit out.

First all the obviously “why the fuck am I keeping this?” Like todo lists and capture stuff. Slowly just getting rid of more or less everything.

There are one thing I keep and that is my common place journal that I write more or less for keeping.

All the rest goes in the bin when I’m done with them.