Hobonichi Techo Cousin Set Up

May 21, 2018

I’ve been in my Hobonichi now for around six weeks.

After far too long spent looking at covers (at one point I had 6 in my cart) I now have one. I’m fully moved in, and have been really settling in to using this now.

I’m absolutely loving the weekly layouts in this planner. This was the reason I bought this one for regular planning, over the A6 and the Weeks and I’ve not regretted it.

The cover

I really wasn’t keen on the idea of getting a plastic cover which seems to be the most common type. As I’m not intending on taking this out and about, it didn’t need to be a leather hard wearing cover. All I wanted was something that had a pen loop and some pockets for stickers. I ended up on Ali Express and found a nice fabric cover.

It’s called wool in the description but it’s really not. I wouldn’t really know how else to describe it though. It’s not real wool and feels a little scratchy. However I like how it looks. It so different from my usual style and from what you usually see.

Inside the cover you get a heap of pockets. Two large vertical pockets are handy for keeping full sheets of stickers. The horizontal slots are more for cards and aren’t very deep. This does limit what you’re able to put in there.

These therefore ended up being a little storage place for little samplers from some of my favourite Etsy shops. I’m terrible at remembering to use samplers and so I hope keeping them in here means I’m more likely to use them. I’m not big on decorating the pockets really, but couldn’t resist the die cut from Happy DAYA Stickers.

The cover comes with two pen loops that you can use as one when it’s closed.

There’s two extra pockets at the back too so you’ve quite a lot of storage in this cover.

This also comes with two bookmarks but I cut them out. I found given the size of the book and the distance from where the bookmarks were (right at the top of the cover) meant they didn’t sit right in the book. In fact, the way they twisted was slightly damaging the pages of the planner sometimes.

How I’m using the Hobonichi

This hasn’t changed too much since my first impressions post. I’m loving planning in my monthly and week pages.

This is the perfect balance of enough space to write everything, and being able to be creative. I’ve started using washi (and purchasing) again, which I had neglected for so long. I’m using lots of functional decorative stickers from Happy DAYA and The Coffee Monsterz Co and have even developed a new range of hand drawn stickers to use in this. I’m also rediscovering my love for stickers from Sugarloop. These simple stickers are perfect for adding a bit of colour.

I’m using my monthly pages more as a planning hub now. Particularly with the running list at the top left. I consult these pages a lot more now when I’m planning out my week.

The daily and yearly pages are still being used like bullet journal pages. The daily pages are mainly notes and collections, with the yearly pages used as an index.

All my planning for the new sticker range was done in here. It was so great to have it in the same place as my regular planning. It meant I could make a to do list or do a brain storming session and then easily transfer any actions into my monthly or weekly planning.

I mentioned in my first impressions post that I’d also be using the daily pages for some journaling and I’ve been keeping to that too. Whenever Ed and I go anywhere, the daily pages get used for that too. We had a little mini break back up North early in May and it was great to come back and create some pages about our time away. I won’t be sharing the pages here, but I’m planning a flip through on my Instagram stories at some point.

Overall set up thoughts

I’m still loving this planner, and with the cover I’m really happy with the set up. This just lives on my desk at all times now and having the week all there at a glance keeps me productive and organised. I’m not necessarily planning a whole week at a time now. I’m planning the bare bones and then planning everything else as I go along and this is working far better for me. In the Happy Planner I felt like I needed to plan everything in one go because of decorating it with kits, whereas with this I don’t.

I’m still getting used to how thin the paper is and have had a few issues with bending or ripping the pages slightly. Particularly where I needed to remove stickers. It’s not enough to put me off using this though, and the way it handles my fountain pen without bleeding or ghosting is fantastic. Smudging though is another story, and I’m frequently getting annoyed with myself for smudging my pen!