For everyone who orders their Hobonichi planners from the 1101.com store are familiar with the multi pen you get with your order.

I’ve usually just thrown them out, because what am I going to do with that. But this year I gave it a spin.

It is some rebranded Uni rollerball multi pen. Not something I’m that excepted about per say. But I just went this would be nice if it was good gel ink refill. And I just fuck, is this what I’m going to start looking into now?!

Nothing wrong with the pen though, and a lot better than all of the multi pens my 3 year old daughter have insisted on getting when in various stores.

For the longest time I had to order everything pen and paper related that I liked from foreign sites. Typically US ones because it always ended up being cheaper or less complicated.

Then at some point Tudos showed up, and I slowly started to order most stuff from there as their offering expanded.

When I fucked up my Hobonichi order last month I discovered Lush Dive. And they have some of the same stuff and a bunch of other things I like. I’ll be checking them out some more moving forward.

Great to have more local ish options available.

I got another stand from IKEA, this time it is the Vivalla.

Funny thing. This is marketed as a tablet stand, and it works as that, but it works way better as a book stand.

I got one for my home desk, originally to put my iPad in, but since that didn’t work that well I have a book or notebook in it. Most of the time it is my Hobonichi or my Bullet Journal.

I’d love to have a version of this that works with a bit thiccer books for the kitchen.

I can see myself getting more of these, and just having a bunch of notebook propped up open.

Right after posting the previous post on this I started to mess around with it some more to see where it is useful.

It worked really well as a stand for my Kindle. Also worked with my iPad Pro, except that I had to remove it from a case for it to fit. Other than that really good for it.

The only thing that makes a bit vary of it is how slippery it is. I get why that is since you have one size groove on one side and another on the other. Still I’d have to find some anti slide stuff to put on them if I’m going to use it.

In this ongoing process of me buying random phone stands at IKEA, I’ve gotten to a weird, old, one. This is the kind that is basically just a block of wood with one groove on each side with different widths. Useful for making phones, and probably other types of screens stand on your desk.

I’ve only tested this one with my iPhone 14 Pro Max. So might work differently with other devices, and I guess this one worked way better back when phones had more space between the edge and the screen.

Anyways. I like the idea of this product, and I would have used it and most likely gotten more of them, if it wasn’t for the fact that the edge of it covers the part of the screen I have to swipe to unlock my iPhone. Might work with my iPad or something else though.

Would love to see a modernized version of it.

I’ve been on and off index cards for years. I use them for a while and then I stop. Usually because I run out and don’t get to buying more of them.

I think they are great for some things, and not so great for others. They are awesome for capturing singular items, and making short todo lists. But I don’t like them once you have stacks of connected cards.

It has been in the back of my mind for a while now to test out using index cards for my hit-list. First and foremost because they are so easy to carry and use in a way where you never have to transfer things over or carry half complete lists.

I just got a plain Hobonichi A5 notebook for the first time.

Weird I haven’t really bought anything from them outside of their planners, after all of these years.

It is a plain A5 softcover square grid notebook. Personally I’d prefer a dot grid, but that’s not really their thing.

The notebook itself is exactly like their planners, except not as many pages as the regular ones, filled with the blank pages you find at the end.

My plan for this notebook is to just use it for goal tracking. I bought a new cover for it. And I’m going to use one of the markers at a page with long term goal tracking and the other at more right now progress against the long term goals.

So far I really like this notebook. It is a very nice soft cover notebook. Might get me to look more at soft cover opens flat notebooks again?

I finally got to ordering next years stuff from 1101 / Hobonichi last week. And I fucked up and forgot one thing, so I had to figure out where to find that somewhere local ish. I forgot to add the regular A5 Hobonichi notebook to the order.

This is all of the stuff I got from both orders

• Cousin A5 Avec
• A5 Notebook
• A new cover
• A clip on ruler
• Plus a couple of bands to have around them

Can’t wait until it all shows up.

I’ve been looking at pen trays for a really long time, because I can never make up my mind about what to get.

Some are not what I want, most are kind of what I want, and some very few are exactly what I want.

What I want is something small where I can put a few pens. This is always 1-5 pens. I don’t want a cup, I want a tray to put them. Not a strong opinion if it is a zig zag thingy or the pens touch.

This far I’ve found two options I’m seriously considering. One is an Amazon Basics “half tray” that is kind of what I want. At least from the utility perspective. And there are a few options on the Ugmonk site that would work for me.

There were also a few other options on Amazon that looked interesting but priced too close to the Ugmonk stuff for me to bother to look closely at them. Hilarious when one option is less than $6 and the others are $69.