I’ve been caught up in the Hobonichi madness this year, and after seeing everyone’s haul videos and posts, I thought I’d share my humble haul here.
First, though, let me back up a bit.
I got into journaling sometime during the pandemic. I had time hanging heavy, and I saw some videos of bloggers talking about Alicia Souza’s planners. I gave it a shot and enjoyed a couple of years of buying into her whole planner and stationery ecosystem (which I love). But somewhere along the way last year, I found myself wanting a little more space to be able to do more than daily planning.
And then I stumbled on Hobonichi videos and thought I’d give one of them a try – and straight away went for their largest option – the Cousin. This book has a daily, weekly, and monthly planner that gave me a lot of space to write.
I ordered from Amazon Japan, and it was here within a week. I immediately understood what everyone was raving about. The planner paper was so smooth, and it’s blank pages offered so much opportunity for creativity.
However, unlike my Alicia Souza planner, which was highly templatized, it took me some time to understand and use the Cousin the way I wanted. I’m not very creative, so I knew I would use my planner mainly as a journal, with some health, financial, and work tracking built in. And it’s worked beautifully for me. I have taken it everywhere I go and have enjoyed experimenting with pens and stationery and even trying my hand at doodling and some art.
Here are some photos of their layouts and how I use them. I haven’t shared pics from my actual Hobonichi because my handwriting is so shitty. Although, I have to say it has improved over the year, and I have learnt to start writing smaller, slower, and much more neater. Another way this planner has helped me – improving my rubbish scrawl.
I mainly use my monthly layout to track my spending – noting how much I spend each day. It’s been ok, not the best use of the layout honestly, but I can’t think of anything else for it.
I use the yearly calendar mainly to mark off holidays. All our holidays are color-coded, which makes it easy to scan and see what holidays are coming up.
The daily pages are a beast. I have used them to track food, and medicine usage, moods, investments, things I did that day, and general memory keeping. I was initially intimidated and sure I would be unable to fill the pages, but now I wish I had even more space!
I have used this top 100 page to list shows I’ve watched, books I have read, things I bought, experiences, and more. it’s great to look back at a full 100 list of things I did that sparked joy.
The weekly pages are the ones I have struggled with the most. I felt I had logged everything I wanted in the daily pages, and for the first few months of 2024, these weekly layouts remained blank. It just seemed like such a repetition.
However, I have found it useful to keep track of what I actually did vs planned to do, log my running and yoga slots (to make sure I stick to my exercise plan).
This has to be my favorite and most useful part of my planner, and it has been instrumental in ensuring I stick to my habit tracking. Every month, I list 6 or 7 good habits I want to stick to and then tick them off each day I keep to the habit.
So, having deep-dived into how I love and use my Cousin, we come to the madness of September 1, 2024. This was the day Hobonichi launched the 2025 planners. I knew I wanted a Cousin again, but I had no idea there would be so much hype during the sale. All August, Hobonichi teased one cover/collaboration after another, and I was quite confused. What did I want? especially since I would not see any of the stationery or covers in person.
Come September 1, I was still confused. I loved some of the A5 Hon options (which is just a hard-cover Cousin). I liked both these Hon options, especially my son pushing me towards the black Slash Hon.
But I wasn’t sure if they would be as easy to use as the Cousin. I tried to find out whether they had all the layouts I needed, and overall, even though it seemed like they did, the resources didn’t explicitly specify that it would have the yearly index I was most keen on.
Eventually, I decided on a Cousin again (I didn’t want to risk not having the yearly index) and picked out the Unsodo cover, which looks even more beautiful in person! I also picked up a pencil board (again, Unsodo) and some stationery.
Everything came in last week, and I am happy. I am 100% happy with the Cousin and the cover. I also loved the freebie notebook and pen (which my son immediately nabbed).
I’m not so sure about the stamps, tapes, and stencils. They seem a little too small for the A5-size paper. I also found that the stencils don’t work all that great with the pen I am using. The stamps and deco rush tape also look a bit delicate and tricky. Definitely got influenced by the hype here.
Let me see. I am looking forward to trying them. If I am not comfortable with them, I can go back to the Alicia Souza stickers when they come out later this year.
