2023 with Hobonichi

2024-01-10

2023 was my 3rd year with Hobonichi. I changed up what I did a lot and there was a lot of trial and error. This year I had five books:

• Weeks Mega for all my planning needs
• Weeks for work
• A5 Cousin Avec for notes/journaling
• A6 5 Year Techo for memory keeping (this year was year 3 out of 5)
• A6 HON was originally for generic journaling but turned into a reading journal

Weeks Mega

This was my second year with the Weeks. I use it for planning, despite not always following my plans. I just love the form factor of the Weeks. It's compact and easy to bring with me places. I spent the most time in it.

Yearly Index

I used these two pages for tracking my mood and my weight. I steadily lost weight at around 2lb per month. I did loose a bunch of weight in the beginning of December due to being sick. I managed to gain it all back by the end of the year, though. My goal weight is 105lb and my vanity goal weight is 100lb. I am 5' (I think, I don't really know) so being a low weight is still healthy for me. There was a moment in July and August where I didn't track my weight and that was because I was in Japan and the Philippines during this time. I also stopped with mood tracking near the end of the year. I wasn't sure how helpful this was for me and I haven't done it at all this year (2024) either.

Monthly Pages

I have the hardest time utilizing monthly pages in any planner. I find it usually contains duplicate information and I hardly ever look at them. That being said, this was my favourite monthly spread. Deadlines. Tasks. Events. Very fun to make but not very useful.

Weekly Pages

The meat of the book. My layouts varied a lot. The usefulness also varied a lot. I always find that I am good at keeping up with it at the beginning of the week but as the week goes on, my resolve diminishes. Here are some of my favourite spreads from the year.

Cat sticker is from kisse.cat. Washi is a WonderPens and TheCoffeeMonsterzCo collab.

I literally don't remember where half of these stickers and washi come from lol.

Vanilla but functional.

Not every week has to be serious. This was a seriously SHINee (one of my favourite K-pop groups) week.

I enjoyed making these bar graphs but they were blank all week until I had all the numbers. Kinda bothered me.

I bought a portable printer in the latter half of the year and started printing out inspiration photos for myself. I don't know if they helped any but it certainly made things look prettier.

Notes Pages

I get a Mega because 80 pages of note pages is not enough for me. But 200 pages is too much. I end up using the extra for random things even when the year is over.

I tried to make an index of all my pages. I don't think it was too helpful. There were some pages that I did look at the index for (mostly the astrology page) but maybe I could have just added a page marker so I could have easily referenced it.

The first half of the year I really tried to keep track of my reading. But after my Japan/Philippines trip I really lost my resolve...

I also tried to keep track of exercising. It was not fruitful because I didn't exercise that much.

I kept track of reading progress. This was really fun to do and I kept up with it fairly well. It kinda sucked when I gave up on certain books but eh. Not every book is a keeper.

A sample of a "daily" page. I like to plan out my day with an hourly schedule.

I don't use a lot of stickers or washi at all so all my notebooks stay pretty slim by the end of the year. But I do like seeing the contrast between the used pages vs the untouched pages with my Weeks.

Weeks (Regular)

I didn't take any pictures of this because my Weeks for work was a mess. Literally. I just used the multi-pen that comes with Hobonichi orders. I scribbled notes hastily during meetings. No pretty spreads. Terrible handwriting. I don't know if it worked for me. I think I will try to be a little bit more mindful in 2024.

A5 Cousin Avec

I have no idea why I bought the Avec Cousin this year. The Avec is split into two books, January to June in one book and July to December in the other book. I know my reasoning at the time was that I went back to school last year and I wanted to split it between "before school starts" and "after school starts." But honestly, it could have all just gone into one book. This year I stuck with the regular Cousin.

Weekly Pages

These stayed largely unused. I tried a lot of different things. Putting my tarot card pulls here. Actually scheduling things in. Using it as a memory keeper. But I just kept forgetting this section existed. I think I would use it a lot more if the weeks pages were spread throughout the journal instead of being it's own dedicated section.

Monthly Pages

Again, I am so bad at using monthly pages. I think the below picture is the only time I actually used it.

Daily Pages

The first half of the year, I used it for note keeping. Which wasn't the greatest idea because it kinda defeated the purpose of dated pages since some days went over one page. And I wasn't even starting school yet so why did I use it for notes?? I know better now.

In the second half of the year I tried to use it for more traditional journalling. That didn't really pan out either. Towards the end of the year I used it more for tarot card pulls, astrological transits, and affirmations.

Astrology notes from when I was in a astrolgy book club on Discord.

Notes about The Great Gatsby.

One of my more aesthetic pages.

Some planning for my Japan trip. I was learning Japanese too (I didn't use a lick of it other than "thank you" and "sorry" and "excuse me").

I used this layout quite a lot. Time blocking. Astro transits. Gratitude. Tarot card pull. Random notes.

Maybe it's just the Capricorn in me but this was my favourite spread. Simple. Bold. Black and white. I meditated on affirmations a little bit more seriously.

A6 5 Year Techo

I really regret not getting a 5 Year Techo in 2020. It would have been great in hindsight. But I got one for 2021 instead. It's very personal so I didn't take any pictures of it. I get pretty granular with it, despite it being so small. I try to write as much about my day as possible. Very little reflection is done in here. On the right pages I write down my top 5 most listened to songs. I'm not always consistent with it. Turns out, June, July, and October are the months where I do the least journalling (Cancer, Leo, and Virgo season? I wonder if there is an astrological reason).

A6 HON

I bought this on a whim because it was shiny and new. I have no idea how it compared to the A6 Hobonichi Original but it feels like the same? Except for the cover maybe?

Early on in the year I tried to use it for journalling. But it kinda felt like I was duplicating what I was writing in my 5 Year. I am very wary about writing down my feelings in a book due to trauma over my parents reading my journals. So I transitioned from journalling to doing what I am now doing in my cousin, AKA tracking transits and card pulls. But September onwards I used it as a book journal. I would write down what books I read, how many pages, and what I thought about the book. If there was a day I didn't read anything, I would write a review of a book I had already read. It was fun and I'm keeping it up in 2024.

Yearly Calendar

Used it to keep track of when I read. I was able to extrapolate pre-September dates by looking at my 5 year entries. Not super accurate as I may have missed a date. I also made a mistake. All the x's are wrong. The source of truth are the highlighted dates.

Yearly Index

I recorded my tarot card pulls here. But starting in October (as you will see in the next picture), I transitioned to keeping track of how many pages I read.

I read A LOT of manga/graphic novels so I separated the pages between regular books and manga/graphic novels.

Monthly Pages

Okay, I actually liked what I did here. I wrote down what book I read each day. If I didn't read, I just covered it with washi. A good excuse to use washi!

Daily Pages

An example of some journalling pages. Very boring with a splash of washi.

One of my favourite pages. It's a little thick so sometimes it would just open automatically to this page. Very little written on it but it's so pretty.

An example of two book review pages. I didn't write too much.

Example of how some of my daily reading pages. Can range from huge text block to just one sentence.

TL;DR

Most of this post is just me showing off pictures. Yes, they're a little hard to read but it's on purpose. I experimented a lot this year. I think I will continue to experiment again this year. I'm never really fully satisfied with one way of doing things and there is always something that could be improved. In another post I'll detail how I'll use my books in 2024.