I am a stationery nerd.
Everyone has different levels of their stationery nerdiness, and I think I had peaked quite early. As a small brag, I had started purchasing Moleskine in my teens, and for the longest time, I was purchasing Leuchtturm 1917 in bulk (before they brought it into Singapore).
I have a leaning towards good paper because good paper trumps good ink. Meaning, if I had good paper, even bad ink would sit well on it. But if I had bad paper, the best inks would just slide or ghost or bleed and feather in the worst ways possible.
This is also because I put money and time into good inks, or at least inks that I enjoyed to use. Having a nice range of inks doesn’t mean they are all waterproof, but it means I have a nice palette of colors to choose from for writing.
And then comes the pens. I’ve got a basic set of fountain pens which write in a comfortable flowing way. I did not feel enough of a difference in the fountain pen use in more expensive pens to justify their cost, but they’re just really well made.
So Good ink in a good paper, with a usable pen.
Those are the fundamentals I look at when writing and journalling physically. I do this very often, daily actually.
Which brings me to my endgame: the Hobonichi.
The Hobonichi is a daily writing notebook, which had been in my radar, but I never really understood what the draw was. The use cases always looked to thick, and unwieldy as a diary or a journal.
But in the past year, I tested out their range of smaller journals and I found it AMAZING.
First, the paper is Tomoe River paper. This is the thinnest paper you can get, that can hold ink well. It is also extremely smooth, which means if you have a mediocre pen, scratchy or just not that great, it would still work as if it was smooth. Leuchtturm1917 used to have good enough paper to handle watercolors, but over the years, the quality has gone down. Now, even scratchy pens might make a dent in Leuchtturm. But I digress. The Tomoe River works awesome.
Next, the sizing of Hobonichi. Currently, I use the Hobonichi Weeks Mega Sneaker. This is after 6-7 years of Leuchtturm bullet journalling. As the quality dropped, I was disappointed, and I slowed down my journalling tremendously to manage the existing journals I currently owned. Then I started journalling in the Tomoe River Journal I had, but found the A5 size still a little big. It would also get heavy, because you could fit more thin paper in a notebook at the same width, but the weight goes up.
The Weeks Mega Sneaker is trimmed to a long shape, like an A5 folded widthwise. It fits into my bag perfectly, and you can really write on the go, because it’s so much easier to balance. This means I can write whenever, wherever, with any pen.
Last point (because I’m a little tired), the layout and prompts of the book. Unlike regular bullet journals needing you to set it up, and having pages of messed up and miscalcuated dates or days, the Hobonichi has everything there already. The grid lines are there, but not too high contrast. There are dots indicating columns, but you can use them for anything you’d like.
The prompts within the book are really heartwarming. Every day has a quote to encourage you, and there are portions for you to note your favourite lists and even an interview for yourself. There’s a tracker for you to mark the days of the year as you go past them as well, it’s just a super well done and well thought of set of things to think through.
Thus, in 2025, I’m going to be using the Hobonichi Weeks Mega (not the sneaker version, the standard one has a hard cover). I have also gotten a 5 year diary from them, as my current one from Midori is ending. It also has an amazing layout and is totally well made.
So for the next few years, if anyone ever asks, I will definitely recommend Hobonichi. It is super awesome.
Tips:
- Order from the site itself, if you want some free goodies every now and then. They will have specific seasonal items. https://www.1101.com/store/techo/en/
- Think at Funan also sells them, and I like the shop. I got all my Hobonichi from them so far. But I did buy the 2025 editions from the online store.
- The pricing in Think accommodates for shipping, but if you’re getting with friends, then you might wanna consider the online store for cheaper pricing.
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