Showing posts with label planner. Show all posts

Hobonichi Techo Weeks

 


 

 I've been exploring japanese brand planners and last year I've been using the Hobonichi weeks planner. I got it off Amazon! They come in simple colors or neat designs that are changed each year. The weeks covers are different from the Hobonichi daily planner. The weekly is a complete book in that the planner and the special covers aren't separate like the daily planner is. Since this is a Japanese brand planner, the text is in Japanese, but its not at all difficult to use it as basic info like the days of the week and months are also typed out in English. I personally really enjoyed using the weeks mostly because I really like its small slim design and it being lightweight. Its has enough space to write and small enough to easily carry or bring with you. I ended up really liking this planner style so I highly recommend it! 


 The whole week is on one page and the other page is a grid blank page. Because the week is all on one page, this won't be ideal for those who need to plan or write a lot each day. While each day has subtle lines to divide it into three square (morning, noon, night), there really isn't enough room to write down much in English. It might work for meal planning or something similar. The planner starts on late November the year before and ends on December. Even though there's a grid lined page on every week, there is another 1/3 of the planner is just grid lined pages. They are numbered so there's 69 pages. There is a index page for these notes so you can write the page number for certain pages. I really like these extra pages just to write down whatever. The daily planner version on the other hand has like 15 the grid pages section so if you want to plenty of these pages, the weeks has them! Other than that, there's the usual planner stuff like have months and random stuff at the end. Overall I liked it and would likely continue getting Hobonichi planners.

Traveler's Company Traveler's Notebook Starter Kit Blue Leather



 So I've been interested in a Midori Traveler's Notebook for a while. Now they have changed its name to Traveler's Company so now it sounds a bit weird to have traveler's twice in the title. If you've never heard of this product before, its essentially a piece of smooth leather with an elastic in the center that holds a notebook and another elastic on the back cover thats used to close the whole thing. This system makes it really easy to customize to fit to your lifestyle and needs which I really like. This kit comes with a cotton bag, a blank paged notebook, and another elastic. I am pleased with it so far so I highly recommend it!

 I was hesitant on buying this as its about $47 for essentially a simple piece of leather. There are faux midori notebooks but they don't seem to have the same type of leather, but I have seen some made with different material besides leather. I wanted to get the original one just to see what its like. The notebook leather does come in different colors and you can find them on Amazon. I bought mine on Jetpens which has blue leather.

 Having just one notebook does make it look bare and basic. I've looked on Instagram and Youtube for how others use their notebooks and many stuffed theirs with a lot of inserts and other decorations. If you want to add more notebooks you need another elastic to bind two books together. There are a few different ways to do it and it all depends on how many notebooks and accessories you want to put in. The only accessory I bought was a zip pocket and a kraft folder. I got an off brand one on Amazon and it fits and works well with the notebook.

 I've decided to make a faux notebook by adding a stack of paper on the cover of the blank pages notebook with binder clips. This acts like a notepad. I had the zip pouch and kraft folder wrapped around it but it was too thick for the folder so it kind of pushes the pages out. I then tried to make my own stapled notebook and used the kraft folder as a faux cover for it. This makes every sit more neatly together and I used the extra elastic to hold the homemade booklet to the original blank page notebook. A regular stapler definitely isn't long enough to staple a booklet so if you don't mind having a fold in half the pages do it or get a long reach stapler. I have seen other methods to staple booklets without a long reach stapler, but it hasn't worked out for me so I may buy one.

 I have took the travelers notebook on my international trip and it is the perfect size. It kept boarding passes, pamphlets, and the folder I got with my currency exchange. They all fit perfectly fine in this notebook. So it has been handy in keeping my important documents together. Overall, I am pleased with this product and highly recommend it!

A6 Pattern Weekly Planner by Iconic

This is a weekly planner made in Korea. I was dumb and didn't read how many weeks this was and just bought it because of the low price. This planner only has 27 weeks worth which is like 6 months. Kind of weird for a planner to be 6 months and not a whole year. Might be more appropriate for students.

What I like about this planner is that nice cover design and the design of the weekly pages. This planner doesn't have a set year so each day is unnumbered and has a line for you to write the number as well as a 3x4 table of all the months numbers for you to circle. The whole weekly is on both pages and leave plenty of room to write for each day at least for me it does. There are ruled lines underneath each day but the spacing of them is quite tiny. The planner has 54 pages all together. Not sure what to do for the rest of the year though.

The paper is thicker than the moleskine planners so writing doesn't show through as much. There are no pages of a world map, conversions, etc like moleskine. On the last page is a personal data page but it only lists Name, birthday, mobile phone, email, and homepage. The planner comes in a clear PVC cover that has a loop on the back cover to hold your pen. I like to stick the left over moleskine stickers between the cover and planner cover since its perfect as a pocket. The cover comes in two different designs. The blue has a floral pattern and the red has a grid design of a flower.

Overall I do like this planner. but wish it had enough pages for a whole year instead of just 27 weeks. I will update this again after I finish it up.


Moleskine Weekly Soft Cover Planner

In my college days I bought a few moleskine notebooks and sketchbooks since they were sold everywhere. I was really impressed with them then. I never used a planner until last year to track and record all my businesses. So I decided to check Moleskine and they have planners for sale. I remember when Moleskine just had notebooks and sketchbooks so it was interesting to look at their website now and see all the new products they have.

But I have read many comments and reviews of the poor quality Moleskine books have become. Some say they had changed their manufacturing to China, but others say that they've always manufactured in China. Upon receiving the planner I do see that it doesn't look as high quality as they use to be, but I do not have my old moleskine books anymore to compare. For the price I paid I expected it be alittle more impressive. Nonetheless this planner should be able to do the job well enough.

Moleskine books are more known for their little black leather book with a strap look. Most of their books have the strap and a ribbon for bookmarking. They come in various kinds of papers depending on use. I really like the sketchbook since their paper are much thicker but that means less pages. Which can be a bad thing since that means it won't last as long. The planner's paper are really thin that you can clearly see whats printed on the other side. This makes ink bleeding through a concerning issue. Although a simple cheap ballpoint pen is good enough. Since the paper is thin it does leave an imprint of your writing. Inside the back cover of most Moleskine books is an extendable pocket. The planner contained 3 sticker sheets for holidays, birthdays and such. The planner came with a little booklet with info the the Moleskine brand history. It also came with a little sticker with an identification number for quality control. This is important if there's defects with the product so I stuck it on the extendable pocket.

The first dozen or so pages or useful info that most planners have. There's a page for lost and found info, a page for important info such as car plate # and doctor's contact, a few pages listing for two years with each day in one line and labeled by week number with moon cycles, a couple pages with international holidays chart, a couple pages for the a mini calender for two years, a couple pages for traveling dates, a couple pages of a world map with timezones, a couple pages of a chart of flight durations, a couple pages of international dialing codes, a couple pages of measurements and conversions, and a page with ruler lines printed on the edge to measure. This is a weekly planner with the left pages are the dates and the right side is just lined for notes. This is not bad for a journal or a diary since it doesn't leave much room for much details for the day or week. This may not be appropriate for school or work related use. Because the whole week are just on one page instead of both pages it makes very little room to write business details of the day in the pocket sized planner I bought. It might be better if I got the bigger sized one or the daily planner instead.

Overall, this planner is nice and definitely one of the better looking planners out there.

And now after using it up for a year it has held up really well. If the page design is changed to having the whole week in two pages instead of just on one I'd repurchase the planner for the upcoming year. The pocket size is perfect for me. I barely used the stickers so I will keep them for 2014.