Hello, this is Asato and I recently call myself “a life coach with a journal”. Thank you very much for visiting my website “minimalish life”. I write about anything related to planning, journaling and stationery.
I have played a lot with planners, journals and notebooks this year. Since this is the very last post of 2024, I want to list up all the things that I learnt through my hobby this year. The list is quite long so grab your coffee mug and let’s get started.
1. Ring planner is super fun
The biggest discovery for me is the ring planner!
For the past 15+ years of planning life, I have used multiple notebooks and planners but I have never touched a ring planner. I started my early years of planning in a simple monthly planner. Then my first expensive-adult planner was Moleskine Daily. Then I discovered Hobonichi planners.
But this year, after a serious planar chaos, I started embarking on ring life with my beloved Filofax Nappa Personal size. There were a little bit of hick-ups to get used to the new item, but it has been such a fun journey.
I really love the flexibility of adding and deleting any sections I like, fully supported by many great freebies out there to simply print and put in the planner. Also, how I can test things out is chef’s kiss. The ability to get rid of them if I didn’t like it! This allowed me to experiment with multiple fun projects inside my planner.
2. Rapid log style is easy
This year, I used the Hobonichi Techo A6 size for daily memory keeping. This planner is one-page-a-day style so I had a whole page to fill up every day.
I haven’t used this book for more than 5 years so it was my return to Hobonichi one-page-a-day and I really enjoyed it. Of course, I didn’t fill them up every day, but I’d say 80% of planner pages are filled up by now!
To make things simple and manageable, I decided to use the page as my rapid logging space. I have a simple black pen, and jot down one sentence of what I ate, what I did, how I felt etc. Not so much long-form journaling but 10 or so lines per day. This was a simple way that reduced the mental pressure off.
3. One page per day is refreshing
Just as I started using Hobonichi planner for my daily log, I quickly discovered how refreshing it is to have a fresh new page in the morning. And this led me to use a daily planner in my Filofax ring planner, too.
I noticed there is something so rewarding to have a clean page in front of me every day. Now I cannot imagine a life without a daily planner. Life can be hectic but at least I get a plain piece of paper in front of me to start with every day.
4. Horizontal weekly is my preference
I had experimented and struggled a lot to find the best weekly spread. Horizontal version? Vertical? Interesting looking ones, etc.
As much as I love the daily planner, I do need to see the week in advance and to capture the weekly tasks. This was a lesson learnt from last year. When I only use a planner with monthly and daily spreads, I tend to focus on the urgent matters, and forget the important-but-not-urgent tasks.
Therefore, I do need a weekly format. After all the experiments in my Filofax ring planner, I noticed Hobonichi week’s style, meaning horizontal weekly, works for me.
Yes, I’ve used Hobonichi weeks for the past 7 years. So the answer was very simple. I shouldn’t have stepped outside of the comfort zone, when it comes to the weekly format.
5. Benefit of non-dated journal
This year, as much as I enjoyed Hobonichi daily pages for my memory keeping, introducing Traveler’s notebook as my non-dated simple journaling book was a game changer.
I love the fact that I can open whenever I want and there are no blank pages in between. The power of dated pages keeps me accountable to bring back daily journaling a habit. But on the other hand, non-dated notebooks fill up with less pressure.
I really enjoyed having the combination of a Hobonichi planner and simple notebook for my journaling. I noticed that in a printed daily page, I tend to write more about that day specifically. What I did and how I felt. And on the simple notebook, I can go deeper if I want since there is no space limit. Or I just write because I want to.
6. Coil bound & Bullet journal is not for me
There are things that didn’t work in 2024.
I started the year with PlumPaper daily planner which is in a coil bound book. It’s such a gorgeous and fun book as there are many inserts to choose from and you get to customize to your liking. Plus, coil bound planners are not so popular in Japan.
The idea of getting the book from the States was also exciting. But the size didn’t quite work for me. It can only stay at my office desk, and I decided to switch to something smaller.
Also, I tried bullet journaling in a simple A5 notebook early-2024. Hoping it would substitute the coil planner. But I quickly noticed that I am spoiled by various gorgeous printed planners. I didn’t like how it looked when it was me drawing the lines and writing the headings. It just looked not-so-neat and I never actually used the bullet journal, after setting up.
7. Solid archive for memory keeping
One hard lesson learnt is that I love the ring planner life, but I do not like to keep the old pages.
Having used bound book planners in the past, for me, it was so normal to keep the old planners as part of my memories. Since this was my first year of ring planner life, I didn’t know what to expect. As much as I loved how it looked in the planner, I didn’t really like how it looked in storage.
I had a simple binder to capture all the written pages to store, but for me, it didn’t look like something solid and precious, but just dirty old papers unfortunately. So now I’m trying to shift gears to use the ring planner simply for planning knowing that I’m discarding the pages once they are ready.
8. More memory keeping than planning
I love planning and journaling. This is why I juggle so many, or even too many, notebooks. But after a lot of playing around with various books, I noticed that I focus a lot on the memory keeping aspect of this hobby.
Planning is important to keep me somehow up-to-date on the things that I need to do. Planners help me to function as an adult and a mama. But those can be written in a messy form.
What I prefer to store on my shelf at the end of the year is to write about the small but funny stories that happened in my day. Small but mighty happy moment of my busy life. Therefore, I want to slowly switch gears to more memory keeping aspects of this hobby. This is also why I’m committed to using planner in simple form as mentioned above.
9. Planner and journal is my main hobby
Writing about my journaling experience here and talking about my planner addiction on Youtube made me really realize that this is my hobby.
I truly like testing out new planners or formats. I really enjoy experimenting with new notebooks and pens. Some people might find it too obsessive that I have 2,3 planners in my bag.
I actually laughed at myself when I found myself carrying “my comfort planner” when the day job was super stressful. I would just carry it around, though I didn’t have the time at all to write in it. It was just my security blanket to survive the tough moment.
Anyways, this is my biggest hobby aside from writing online. Therefore, I’ll pour my limited hobby time, all my energy and a bit of money into this hobby. Because this brings me a lot of joy!
>> Because journaling is a big part of my life, I even host journaling workshops!
10. There is no perfect planner
The biggest lesson learnt from this year!! After 1.5 years of planar chaos where I was completely lost with what book works for me, I noticed that there is no perfect planner.
No, there is not! There are hundreds of planners out there, but there is no perfect planner that fits me throughout 12 months.
This is because my workload is different month by month. My focus is different in each season. Kids’ calendars also affect what needs to be planned ahead of time.
Therefore, there is no planner that can capture everything perfectly throughout the year. It is more of me adjusting what to be kept, navigating how to write in the limited space, and prioritizing what to be written.
After a lot of sleepless nights thinking about planners (see, I am addicted but this is my hobby), all I had to do is to continue using whatever is at my hand, rather than ditching it and moving to the next option. So the challenge for 2025 is to simply stick with what I decided to use for the year, and play around within the line-up.
*****
Wow the list is so long! Thank you so much for reading this, if you made it this far.
2024 was my experiment year in terms of notebooks and planner. I have expanded the line-ups and tried on different items. After all, planning and journaling is my biggest hobby and I genuinely enjoy playing with pens and notebooks.
I am grateful for the adventure I had gone through in 2024, especially entering into a ring-planner life. And I am also excited to start the next year with fresh new planners. I’ll share my 2025 planner line-up in the coming article!
