a week with my notebooks | hobonichi x field notes faq ✸ 

In regards to the last question: I intentionally "mess up" my journals when I'm starting a new one so I can't feel bad about messing it up later. For my 2023 journal, I took my ink pad and just stamped around the inside cover. It really helps me take the pressure off of having the "perfect" journal so I can start actually using it.

I wish you had a podcast, I could listen to you all day long. this video was a breath of fresh air amidst all the business of everyday life. Thank you!

I have been having a really difficult time focusing on videos without putting them at 1.5x or even 2x speed but your videos are always so gentle and calming that I watched it all in one sitting without needing to jump around the time bar. (I guess autistic content appeals to my autistic self, lol duh) Thank you for all your hard work, Megan, we really appreciate it

For the person afraid to use nice books, it helped me to think it was more of a waste of them not to use them than to use them. They're meant to be used. I'm not a tidy journal person and I just ramble on about boring shit so I thought it would be a sacrilege to use a nice book. I had empty books for years while I used crappy spiral notebooks. Or I'd start one, hate whatever I wrote or how it looked, tear out pages, and have a crapped up book lol. I don't do that anymore and for me it's about valuing myself enough to give myself a writing experience I enjoy. It's not for anyone else so it doesn't matter so long as I enjoy it.

*sees a 30+ minute video drop from my favorite comfy content creator* 🥹💕

It is so relatable for me, when you talk about falling back into analog journaling and planning. I remember having so many notebooks when I was a kid, because I, too, was an analog baby born in 98. Notebooks were filled with anything I loved, small stories, journal entries and scribbles. Then I kind of gave in to the digital thing, but it never worked as well as writing did, so gradually I went back to writing in notebooks. Words do stick better when you write them by hand, and it helped me immensely in understanding myself and my feelings and in keeping memories.

Watching your videos has made me realise I've been chaotically commonplacing for years, if not my whole life. I always just labeled myself as an internet hoarder, or a compulsive collector of information, but looking at all the random notes, saved links, copied quotes, new words and tid bits of information I've accumulated over the years, I can definitely see I've been keeping a rather widely spread commonplace this whole time. Something about writing things by hand and making it intentional really resoanted with me, and though I've always leaned towards convenience when it comes to my commonplacing, I'm now really interested in trying to keep a notebook for it all and see if it works for me.

There's something so cozy and delightful about watching people write. This was great company while I did my own weekly planning.

Frixion Pen SOLUTION - In the case that the paper gets left in a car or somewhere hot and the ink disappears you can just pop it into the freezer for like an hour or something and it will bring back most of the ink. (not sure if its a permanent solution but I had this happened to some school notes that I left in my car and was able to bring back the notes and then I just scanned them a tossed the page, stopped using the pens after that cause I was scared. It also brings back some of the stuff that you've 'erased' when you do this but I dont think it was too bad - but this was years ago sooooo...) Also sorry if someone already said this, I took a quick peak at the comments and didn't see it in any of the top ones but I only saw a few and there are a lot so I'm assuming someone else may have already.

Thanks for including the fog. I love it too!

I have been waiting all week for this 🤍 your videos are peak comfort, thank you so much

Fog makes my week too. I enjoy these liminal times.

I only found you recently, but you've really encouraged me to rethink my journaling system. I'm autistic too and I really resonate with commonplacing and my test pages have been therapeutic in a way that typical long-form journalling isn't, luckily I found it before I set up my books for the new year! it's so satisfying to see the flip through of your finished commonplace book and makes me excited to fill mine as well 🙌🏻 also I wanted to add that I saw you like jellycats, there is one called Flumpie Pig that has different textures, an elastic curly tail, and a lightly weighted bottom in contrast to the fluff in the torso. so far mine has been a great fidget/sensory toy for me, especially when I'm watching TV or reading. dunno if it'll work for others, but figured I'd share anyways 💜

‘I’m not too precious about it.’ is something to always keep in mind when journaling. Love that.

I have an adhd, and always get distracted by almost anything, and for the longest time, this was the first video that make me sit through and watch. Thank you :))

i love how assertive you are in the way you speak, I really appreciate when people speak in such a way, acknowledging and reflecting i don't know how to explain it, it just seem like a healthy way to go around thoughts and i love it

thank you so much for this wonderful video! it's so comforting and soothing

Just started with my Hobonichi Weeks this week and it's my first time in a daily journal (I don't do planning, just health tracking and daily habits at the end of the day) and I adore the Hobonichi format. Love seeing you working in your two journal system, such a calming and delightful thing to sink into someone else's journaling process.

This was so calming, I just sat and journaled along with you

Loved this video so much! 🤍 thanks for making the time for answering the questions!

this is so lovely and cozy, thank you ♥

i was so excited when i saw the notification you posted! you didn't disappoint:)

This was great. Thank you for sharing!

Great series. Field Notes has an unofficial slogan of "I'm not writing it down to remember it later, I'm writing it down to remember it now" and that feels so apt for your process (a process which I'm totally stealing btw, just replace Sherlock Holmes headcanon with stuff about guitar picks).

I loved this video, you're such a joy to listen to!!!

I loved this. Thank you for sharing with us. ❤

Your video is so comforting. Love it. And your writing is absolutely amazing. Happy hols. ❤️

Thank you! Answers are insightful.

I loved the fog thank you! This video was so soothing to watch and listen to 🥹

YES I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE ❤🎉🙏🏼

Just watched the other notebook video and now its time for this one. Yay! 🥰Lovely warm tea and a nice video

Thanks for answering these questions I find your views on things really insightful.

This was such a lovely video! I find having a weekly spread to just dip in and out of to be really helpful too and watching how you use yours helps me with mine as I see something that all of a sudden makes sense. I also find your videos just really seem to make a bit of my brain happy, which is very nice!

This was such a wonderful video, I'm absolutely obsessed with journaling at the minute and I love seeing how you use your notebooks!!

So relaxing, comforting and probably (another of your) video I'll let continue to play along while I journal. Thank you!

i love this so much! it felt like i was journaling and chatting with a friend. hoping you'd make this again in the future! it's so funnn

perfect video! love love your talking videos because I can listen and journal at the same time I’ve been watching your videos since 2017 and they keep getting better

I love your videos and I think this one turned out great. I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who will rewatch videos like this. I enjoy watching you and frequently learn something or you'll spark an idea that I think might work for me too. 💚

These spreads and your method really calm my brain so much that I picked it up with my daily planning. It’s actually helping my daily “Struggle” with adhd. I’m obsessed

Ur growing so quick!! So proud 😊

Your videos are always such a comfort place for me - when I click play, I know I will have a peaceful and easing time giving me a break from everything that is happening around me. Thank you so much for providing such a space ✨

I like this video so much! I’m a big fan of planners and I like to watch how to people plan or write in them 😊

Taking out my journal to plan with u! ☺️📖

the best video ive seen thank you so much for it

Thank you for answering my (and all the others) question! I'm pulling out a notebook and starting tomorrow to list my daily life tasks.

This was lovely. Thank you for making it. I really appreciated the chat about how you use your commonplace books in tandem with your weeks planner. I frequently struggle with the thought of being redundant across my multiple notebooks, that was helpful!

Your writing is the smallest! I absolutely love it. Everything looks so neat and tidy ❤

I have recently found your videos and they're so special to me. I'm also autistic, so it's nice being able to see someone I relate to enjoying the same hobby as me. I bought a Pilot frixion after seeing you using one, and oh my goodness, the joy of finding a pen that writes nice in your planners! I hope you're having a wonderful festive season.

I adore this video and adore how you set up your weeks and other things. I almost hesitated commenting to share this but… I do so out of kindness because I had a good cry last month when my frixion pen ink somehow disappeared after planning a years worth of content in a planner for RU-vid and Patreon. The ink is sensitive temperature wise. My son tested it after my tear fest and sure enough the ink disappeared. We tried doing what everyone said and put the planner in the freezer and though some of the ink came back.. the majority was gone. Since your planner is very beautiful and memory keeping I would hate for the same to happen to you. Again this isn’t an attack just a warning. One incident really does change everything.

Thanks you so very much for your videos Megan. After 4 days of christmas stuff and being all go go go, watching a few of them in a row was the perfect thing to resettle me and bring me some comfort and calmness. Thank you so much❤

after binging your notebook video about hobonichi i'm really tempted about buying it and starting being more productive! really love your videos! hope you're having/had a great day!

megan!!! i rly love your videos soso much, esp when it comes to your notebooks 💗 i’ve always had an affinity for notebooks ever since i was a kid. btw i’m diagnosed with adhd, so finding a good system for me has been so important and coming across your videos, it helped me restart and ignite the passion of journaling or commonplacing~~ i love learning more abt your system and seeing how you use hobonichi nicely too :’) i just love it. now i hv a more concrete idea to start my hobonichi next year and continue commonplacing as it is, so thank you 🫶🫶🫶

Hi Megan, you blessed us with this video. I watched it twice: first watching and listening to you, then later just listening while working. Your voice soothes me ☁️ thank you for the time and hours of work you put into these videos. We can tell 😊

I'm so glad this video is nice and long!

tysm so much for this video -- i cant think of a calmer way to start a sunday morning 🥺 your current setup looks sooo nice, the field notes stacked on top of the leather cover is just... chef's kiss.. and i find it especially inspiring since my setup this year has been somewhat similar as it includes a weeks book with a pocket leuchtturm (w/ plain pages lol) for commonplacing! it's just a really nice system and i love how my commonplace book is looking now that i have been using it for almost an entire year :-) oh and i also wanted to mention that your videos actually got me started on paper planning five years ago so a huge thank you for that 🤍 and thanks for including wednesday and the fog!!

I really enjoyed this as a new viewer. Thank you.

I recently found your channel, and I became obsessed since then. The commonplacing and color coordination with those sticker dots are new to me. However I always wrote down information I found useful or interesting on random pieces of paper. I still have most of them shoved in a binder. You inspired me to took them out and organize them in a mini ring binder. Now, I have my own system with little colorful stamps (pilot frixion planner stamps) and I am really enjoying it. :) Thank you for this useful teaching.

After watching a few of your vids, you have honestly convinced me to start a commonplace and reading journal. Dont know how it will go but your passion is inspirational, so wish me luck. Anyways, Merry Christmas and happy holidays ✨️

the way u have the EXACT desk setup i want omggg

Such an informative and relaxing video! I think the way you only use one pen makes your notebooks look really harmonious and tidy. I have small writing but I used like 10 different pens, and it always looks really messy. I might try sticking to one pen! For starting notebooks: I always find it really helps to begin with a list. For my last notebook, I began with a reference list for things I would need to take with me when I'm travelling, and it's been useful to have, but was also an easy way to begin the book.

hey Megan, I'm from Brazil and have been watching your videos a lot recently, sometimes I keep watching them over and over again all through my day. I really appreciate that you put this on youtube, it brings me peace, comfort and make me feel less stranger to myself. I'm not an autistic one, but I can get really depressed and your videos have been helping me cope with life. I too use my journals since a long time and similarly to you, to keep notes, write down what I'm feeling and save things. Thank you ♥

This video was great, thank you for your thoughtful answers to the questions as well

I'm in love with your nails omg😭

My goal for 2023 is to properly get organised, get a journal and keep on top of it. Thanks for these videos to keep me motivated!

new sub here! really liking your content, i love the notebooks and i love the vibes, just binged 5 of ur videos. def here to stay!

I love your content!

Just brought my first weeks mega today after seeing your video about how you lay yours out. For the last year I've been using a leutchterm1917 but really liked your style of weekly planner and habit tracking so I'm going to try it out! Thank you for making such cozy videos.

Loved this

this video was really pleasing to watch, it is so relaxing and I enjoy watching you journal and plan, it makes me really inspired and I love listening to you also! always so calming and useful. i also love the way you manage your pages and decorate you books, I hope I'll find a system as pleasing to the eye as yours that works well for me! btw, I'm in love with the little sticker you put on the inside of the cover of your hobonichi, where is it from? thank you and look forward to your next videos! xx

Thank you for all the hard work you put into this video, I really enjoyed watching it. Your journaling is lovely 😍

So excited!

I really like the colour-coding system with stickers for your commonplace book - I make headers with different colours of highlighters but the stickers look really nice and neat, I kind of wanna change to stickers now 😆

I love it and watching your video while journaling .I also love notebook since I was little and now as an adult.,I has been collecting random notebook.But I do like to talk my thought on paper too and quite shocked hearing about notion because I has been using it for quite sometimes.But I do realise that writing my thought on paper are satisfying. Have a good day.

going through a bit of an autistic burnout rn and your videos have really helped me to feel not stressed and get in a good mindset for focusing on what i need to do to get better so thanks

Seeing these vids rly makes me want to get journals/notebooks for commonplace, but I always worry that having so many would take up space and be difficult to store over the years ;-;

i have been having a rough couple of weeks. after watching your videos i feel like more like myself. i know that doesn’t make sense. but I really enjoy your videos.

I just put this on and did some online shopping. Her voice is so soothing ☺

Fabulous video! It is so much fun to evolve through the years with you! I love the idea of the hobonichi weeks and the field notes! I am going to change My field notes to the common place book! I love entries in the hobonichi weeks! This video explained many things for me. Brilliant!

thank you for the video 😌 I'm one of those people who likes to journal along with someone else so I'll probably come back to this video couple times. also your voice is really nice, you could be a narrator for one of those relaxation apps lol

Rewatching the video for a second time ❤️ loved this video

i used the pilot frixion for yeeeears, also in my hobonichi. But then I discovered the lamy safari fountain pen with EF tip. I never went back!

ahh! I loved this video so much! Thank you for answering my question, sorry it was so long winded haha. That was a really great and insightful answer so thank you. I think my first phone was a nokia brick when I was like 7 or 8 or something. I was born in 2000 so I completely get the analogue as your only real option for keeping records and memories. There something different about writing stuff down, it feels like a more tactile way of thinking and I definitely think that growing up in the early 2000's has affected how I plan and stuff. And yes, that is so true about Notion. Thank you again!!!

re-watching and re-watching all your videos makes me want to do the same layouts in the weeks, but i also have a 5-year that i just got and im struggling to decide where would be best to put journaling because i dont want the 5-year to go to waste :D

hi megan! I just wanted to tell you I enjoy this type of videos so much. I'm autistic too and I've been a passionate notebooks user for as long as I can remember. I need so many that I still struggle finding a system that works between sketchbooking, journaling, planning and commonplacing!! I keep wanting to change systems because I feel it doesn't work as effectively as it should, it's exhausting😭

I liked it!

You captured the explanation for analog vs. digital perfectly. As a lifetime diarist that’s exactly how I feel.

I absolutely relate to the having issues with ruled pages especially dark ruling/grid. When I tell myself maybe it's fine it's not that big of a deal, and buy ruled books I just end up not using it which is an unfortunate waste. I'm not autistic but I do have adhd.

I'm journaling /it's kind of like (well mine is ) a common place book and I can't belive I got through the whole video and I'm still not done. I'm gonna watch one of your other videos

These are so calming! Where do you get your stickers and sticker tape?

Would you be able to link the specific dots that you buy in your next video if you tend to buy the same ones each time? I ordered some but they were super tiny, I don’t know how many millimetres to get!

I love Pilot Frixion pens 🤍 currently loving the Fineliners. (I’m a lefty so it helps me out so much with not smudging with my pinky) and I love that I can erase like a pencil. Works best on thicker* paper. So satisfying 😊 I hope to get mechanical pencils soon. I think those can work well for me also. (still watching, just wanted to comment that for now)

I love your voice so much

More to your point of writing by hand, when I was in mortuary school a lot of our "assignments" were copying study guides/study booklets by hand in preparation for our final examination board... thingies, because our instructors swore up and down that writing by hand improves your retention. I have increasingly become a notebook gremlin if only because I have started buying slightly cheaper notebooks so I don't feel quite as precious about them as compared to my Hobonichi which are something close to holy (likely as a hold over from when my bullet journals were the only things holding my life together in undergrad). either way, lots of love to you and Wednesday from a cold Iowa

New follower... I could listen to the sound of your voice all day :) where do you get you stickers?

you should get those really pointy curved tweezers for your sticker placements, since you are particular about where they go

I spent pretty lowkey birthday today, and watching this seems like the best way to end it ❤

My biggest problem is trying to decide what to put in what journal, what is important and avoiding cross over so I don't have to write the same thing in two books. Last year I designed my own diary on computer and it worked well, first one I finished ever. Changed it up for this year but not feeling it, but loving your system and thinking to give it a try...thank you for sharing 😊

Re the frixion pen, my spouse and I did some ‘science’ : write on a piece of paper. you can heat it in the microwave and it will start to fade. put it in the freezer and the writing becomes visible again. (although im sure its an ink composition that will degrade with time)

Love watching your videos, thank you! May I ask what printer you use for the print outs in your field notes and do you recommend it? And where is your beaded bracelet with the green stars from (it's not featured in this video but you used to wear it quite often)? Thank you!

That pilot pen, I used to love it in junior high until I needed to look on 2 grades back worth of notes and found out ALL the writing in my old textbooks was faint to the point of barely readable. I live in Greece, summers get too hot for that pen not to erase itself but I had no idea about it and I was so horrified that I’ve specifically searched for the blackest and archival ink pens after that … I swear by pentel energel nowadays and platinum carbon black ink for my fountain pens.