I ended up with three Hobonichi notebooks for 2024

• A5 Cousin Avec
• A5 Notebook
• A5 5 Year

This is about the first two

The notebook

I use this to track focus and goals, long term, short; plus weekly and monthly.

The planner

In the planner I use it for planning on different degrees of detail in the different pages they have.

• Yearly overview: 6 months over two pages
• Monthly: the month over two pages
• Weekly: the week over two pages
• Day: the day as a single page

Year

On the yearly page I try to plan for things that span multiple months and put down really important things, typically just one per date. Some super high level goals too.

Month

Here I go into more details, but not by a lot. At the most it is doubled.

Week

Here I get into more details. I map put all the different things that happen on each day as I see them at the end of the week before. And keep it updated as I go.

It is a big part of making sure I don’t overcommit in a way that will drain me or similar.

Day

The daily page I split into 4 sections with washing tape. One for events: these involve other people or me going somewhere, one for things that must or really should get done today. One for areas of focus and the last for work.

The areas of focus are ordered and I try to get all the stuff I put in there done or at least some work done on them.

When a day is over I use some stamps I got from JetPens to evaluate how the day went.

The rating system

1. Orange star: great
2. Blue panda: did my best
3. Pink heart: need love

This system works great for me. And helps me think through stuff and set a focus for each day. Some days I focus on one thing. Like today the only thing was to transcribe this blog post and a few others from paper. Other days there are more.

When I saw the layout of this, I just went a head and ordered one of them. I got the A5 5 year journal from Hobonichi.

I use it to journal about my day. Love how I have a few lines to summarize the day on one side, and a whole page for other stuff on the left. Might start putting photos and stuff there alter.

I’ve had this in use a few days at this point, and I really like it this far.

What I like about it is that it is a very wide notebook like the Panopad. But instead of being a huge post it like pad it is spiral bound notebook. Plus it is hardcover. These two details solves the three things about the Panopad that wasn’t ideal for me: hard to have two pages in progress at once, hard to move it between home and the office without messing up pages, and couldn’t write on it on the couch.

Other than that there is one thing I really like about it: the tear off is really great and doesn’t leave any left over paper in the ring. And two things I didn’t like as much: it isn’t as easy as I’d like to flip pages and I’d prefer if I could buy them without the slip case.

The slip case isn’t a big deal, but I just don’t like it when products come with packaging that isn’t necessary that is designed, that I’m just throwing out.

Some history here. When I got back into Hobonichi’s I got the six month July - Dec one for 2022, because I found out I wanted to give it a shot in the middle of the summer. Then when I got towards the end of ’22 I ordered a regular one.

As 2023 progress I kind of wanted to reduce how much paper I drag around, and I decided to get the Avec instead. So instead of one large notebook for the entire year, you get two six month ones.

This far I’m really loving it. My take on it is that most of the year I’d be carrying half the amount of notebook, and I might be back to carrying the old amount for a while as I progress between them in the middle of the year / end of the year.

As everyone should know at this point: my preferred way of filling anything is syringes, because of how easy it is to fill anything all the way with them.

It is very easy to do so with the VAC700R as well. I just unscrew the top of the pen, and then I unscrew the nib unit and fill it all the way, and re-assemble.

A super short review of the A5 Hobonichi Cousin I used as my planner last year.

• In general very happy with it
• But a bit too big; aka too many pages for my taste
• Trying out using the Avec this year.
• Other than that it works great as a tool to plan high level plans and tasks.

I’ve mostly used the two panopads I bought in December by now, and I’ve liked them a lot. Going to give their panobook a shot next. But I might get back to the pads later for a few reasons.

What I’ve ended on for my layout for them is to put up a vertical line at every 11th dot, leaving me with 5 columns of almost identical width columns (the last one has one to spare).

This setup works well for me, enough space for most tasks on a single line, plus wasting very little room on the page.

Another thing I find myself doing a lot is to just take a ruler and ripping off columns as I’ done with them.

When I first planned to write this blog post I had emptied the first bottle a few days before, by the time I got around to writing it, I emptied a second one.

I really enjoy how I’m able to empty them in a bit over a year, without it being the only ink I’m using.

After months of looking at pen trays I finally ordered one. I got the dual one from Studio neat.

It is great. I usually keep it between whatever hit-list notebook I’m using (currently a Panopad) and my keyboard.

It is great to just have a place to put the pen or pens you’re currently using when you move between making notes and doing real work. I like having room for two pens because I often find myself using more than one. Especially nice for pens that could roll off the desk.

Will most likely get another of them to avoid carrying it with me to the office.