I couldn’t do it ladies and gentlemen. I tried very hard to power through the rest of the year, but here I am going back to my old ways….Goodbye Midori Hibino! Welcome back to my life Hobonichi!

At the start of 2024, I really wanted to try something new. Honestly, I was getting tired of the Hobonichi. I found it more of a hassle to find ways to make a weekly ‘layout’. I felt really weird that I needed to do a weekly and then a daily all at the same time. It was super tedious to duplicate my daily life on two sperate areas in one planner. I love having a planner; I’ve always had one since elementary school. This year, I wanted to try something new.

The Hibino also had three of the wants for my 2024 planner: A monthly and a daily section that gave me the freedom to write. Also the daily section also had an hourly planner to the side. It felt like a two for one special. Perfect fit for 2024… or so I thought.

My first month with my Hibino was okay, it was something I needed to get used to. Then after 2 months of using it, I found many flaws of this planner. The Hibino only comes in one size, A6. That is small, and I mean small compared to the Hobonichi A5 I am so used to. I found myself not being able to use the monthly section the way I would like to. My handwriting is small, but I couldn’t write out my daily gratitude onto the monthly section along with an event on the day. I tried but it didn’t work, the boxes were just too small.

Size also became an issue with the daily section as well. I tried so hard to write as tiny as possible but the lines, in the daily section of this planner were just too tiny for me. I tried to write using two lines, but it just wasn’t cute. On top of that because of the size I was unable to use stickers and my washi tapes. It just didn’t look right; it looked super busy and that wasn’t what I was going for.

By the time it was May I had photos and memories to write down but I also had to pick and choose what to do. Either photos or written memories; I like to do both. But again, I couldn’t do that with this journal.

Now, I’m back to my old habits and went back to the Hobonichi. Am I excited? Yeah, I am. I gotta admit I did miss using this planner. I now have a plan for 2025; I’m pretty sure I’ll continue to use the Hobonichi Avec. As much as I love the whole year; sister girl got thick by the time it was June. I’m glad I’ll be proud to share my spreads with you all now that I’m back to my old ways. I hope everyone is doing well. Now that my start of the year has calmed down, I am now going to be posting a lot more regularly! Yey for me!!!

Don’t forget that happiness is in the little things you do to make this world a better place. Be kind to yourself and be kind to others. Look out for yourself and one another.

Until my next post. – C