mid year journal update & techo kaigi ✸ hobonichi cousin + field notes 

Welcome to the Hobonichi club!I switched from bullet journaling to a Hobonichi cousin for the time saving too! I just couldn’t and didn’t want to keep up with layouts as life shifted. For the perpetual calendar at the top I do what you were considering- I pull a few highlights out of the month and pop them up there for easy reference! I hope you keep enjoying it 😊

I love how detailed this video is!! Your journals are my inspiration for my own!!! Thank you Kaitlin!!!

Ah the Hobonichi. I have honestly struggled with mine. I love it and it is pretty much the perfect book. I love the simplicity of it and how it can be dressed up (hello, sticker fun!!) or kept simple if time requires that to be so (working full time, going to school full time, mom, house, etc...). I do still tend to feel the pull back to my A6 Stalogy as it really is perfectly what I need on any given day. The pre-printed books make me feel restricted somtimes, I am honestly considering the Plannertess B6 Yearly book for 2024, but we'll see. I use my perpetual calendar for both habit tracking and for indexing my dailies. I honestly need both. The Cousin is a great book. I feel the pull to stay in the Cousin sometimes, but other times I get frustrated with it and find myself back in my Stalogy. The planner chaos I have felt this year has been unreal and it truly seems to be a driving force in the planner community. Sometimes I feel like I should stay off of social media and figure out what works for ME versus seeing how others use their planners which drives me to planner hop. I don't like it. I just want to figure out what works and stick with it... Good luck, I hope the Cousin works well for you! I will be curious to hear/see how it goes for you!

Starts at 16:42

It was interesting to see how you are using your system. Thank you!

OMG you refer to your field notes as a messy space, if my messy space looked like this, I feel like life would be fixed! 😂.

Great video. Thank you for keeping it simple. Simple in that it hasn’t become an art project.

I couldn't figure out the hobonichi original after 2 years and I made a switch to Weeks and I think I found my planner. I'm going to implement the notes!!

I love how this is soooo magazine like in your layout. It's very nice!!

Thank you for the video! May the luck be with you

Great video! I’ve been thinking about getting a techo for years but haven’t been sure how to use it so this was very inspiring!

Great job Kaitlin! I've been following your videos and your journal/planner evolution through this year (I was struggling too 🙋‍♀) and this setup makes sooooooo much sense to me. It's a winner setup. How exciting is it to start an actual planner after so many years bullet journaling, I'm excited for you 😆 also took one or two ideas to try on my setup like the field notes for on the go with no many rules, is perfect!

Love the fact to journal next day in daily pages. I’ll start using to see if it works better for me. I think is more realistic! 🎉❤😊

This is how I found the Weeks Mega 3 years ago when I went back to work from my maternity leave. Chasing after a toddler at the end of a work day burned all the energy and focus I had left and drawing out spreads was the last thing I wanted to do when I could finally sit down to "bullet journal." I'd been using spreads much like the Weeks' layout for years anyway, so the switch didn't change my practice much. I still use a regular bujo for work, but sometimes I get something like the Common Planner and use that the exact same way I'd use my dot grid notebook. I love the bullet journal because you can literally do it in any kind of notebook or less structured planner.

This is so exciting!! I had been bullet journalling in some way for a few years before I realized I also wanted something dated to reduce the amount of set-up each month. I decided to try a Cousin in May, and I'm in love. At first, I was trying to use the weekly update as an end-of-week recap / memory-keeping type thing, but once I switched to using it more as a planner that could easily mirror my GCal, it has become my used section of the Cousin. I can't wait to see more updated videos as you continue using it! :D

I had planners in high school and such, but when I found bullet journaling I fell in love. But I stopped around 2020 because, well, COVID really stopped a lot of my plans, I also finished uni in 2019 so I didn't feel the need for it tbh. But recently I got a new job where I manage people and such, so I felt like maybe it's time to get a planner. I do love bullet journaling, but I too just... got tired of making my own spreads. Which, don't get me wrong, it always felt so nice to do them on a few days before the new month, and then the weeklies being on a Sunday. It was a form of selfcare, and I'll always be the first to defend "art" or "aesthetic" bujos. But yeah, making my own spreads got to me, I've tried so many digital ones and I just can't keep it. I think I just miss the physical-ness of it.

I love your idea of the fueld notes. I was thinking of using a passport travelers notebook for the same purpose. The best clear cover I've found for the cousin is from Lauren Phelps designs. The only missing thing would be a pen loop.

Thank you so much for taking us on this walk-through! I've been wishy-washy about trying Hobonichi, mainly because of the price-point. BUT after you'd mentioned the discounted rate through JetPens, I decided to go to their website and order one of the Original 2023 notebooks. I'm excited to try it out for the last part of the year! This way I can decide if I want to stick with it and buy the same style or switch to the cousin in 2024. I know this was a long video to put together, so again - thank you!

I love Hobonichi and the Tomoe River paper, but you may want to look at The Night Owl Planner for next year. She does similar setups to the Cousin, but uses numbered pages at the back for BuJo lovers. Just a thought!

Loved the weekly spread on hobonichi and how you use like rappid logging what happened in the days

I’m getting a Common Planner next year for similar reasons!

@KaitlinGrey for the top section I think health vitals would be nice and current weight and or even cycle days that month. I realize it’s been a couple months and maybe you have something by now. 🤗

The top of the monthly section would be good for top 3 goals of the month.

Those 3 boxes is used top 3 highlight of the month

Great video. I was into bullet journaling too but switched to Hobonichi this year because of my hand cramps. I have a weeks and an avec A6 and was set to get another weeks and a Hon A6 for next year but this is making me rethink my setup. Maybe I’ll just get a Hon and a weekly supplement. It would be much cheaper too. Lol anyways what I’m saying is I’m glad I watched this.

Glad you are enjoying your Hobo Cousin. There’s some good alternatives out now too that are page numbered without the dated dailies so that it can be more hybrid of bujo and printed planner. SterlingInk is one and it’s awesome and comes in A5 but also smaller sizes still in the Cousin style. Another is NightOwl which isn’t quite the same but still same vein. And wonderland222 has the A5 unstacked all in one which is same as cousin but with built in trackers and functional planning pages and page numbered too. It’s amazing. I have videos on all three if you care to check them out.

I also switched to Hobonichi from being a bullet journaler. It's just way more convenient, yet still leaves room for flexibility.

I’ve been watching your videos for several years now and I’m loving how you’re using your Cousin so far! I’d love to see how you plan the changes you make to your journaling system whether midway through the year or in preparation for the new year - do you plan your planning on paper? Also it is Hobonichi season, have you been watching the daily reveals for 2024? x

I take a break from designing my own spreads every couple of years for six months at a time.

Love the new setup! I have a recommendation for the photo prints. Have you ever tried Presentation Paper? It’s thin and flexible and the image quality is pretty good. There are 2 I’ve tried that I like: koala double sided matte photo paper and epson matte presentation paper. The epson premium matte presentation paper prints beautifully but I think the paper is too thick.

Thank you, Kaitlin, for introducing me to JetPens and the Sarasa Grand Vintage pens. I liked this video and I think your new system will be more manageable. I’ve been keeping a journal since 1990 and have gone through MANY notebooks and systems. I currently use a Leuchtturm notebook for journaling and their planner notebook as my planner and my place to record writing prompts for journaling when I have time to write. I love the idea of doing everything in one book, but I write more in one day than fits on a Techo page. I fill about 3 A5 notebooks a year. I enjoy watching your videos. No one is ever too old to learn something new.

Ahhh. Ive been an Original Hobonichi girl for almost a decade now, but i realize that I need more space. The Cousin seems like a nice size, but I don’t like the weekly space because I use these as daily journals rather than planners. Cousin + Weeks seems like the perfect combination but what would I do with the weekly space in the Cousin?

Hi, I really love this video :)) do you prefer the Hobonichi weeks or cousin? :)))

GM, I am just learning about this planner and I’m on the fence about it. I have been inconsistent with my disc planner until recently. I really like and appreciate this video. I learned alot. The one question I wanted to ask you is do you find it annoying to have to go back to a different part of the planner to write about your day and do you still like it?