I'm glad you said that about the Hobonichi paper being different because I've been hearing so many people complain about the new paper and I didn't understand what the problem was…? But I'm using a Sterling Ink so that makes a lot of sense if they use a different special coating. For Sterling Ink planners, you can definitely get them to lie flat. You just have to bend the spine if it's a smaller planner. There's a video in the Sterling Ink Facebook group showing how to do it. I did it at the beginning of the year for my TN-sized Sterling Ink planner and it worked beautifully. So don't let that hold you back.
Regarding Hobonichi Weeks vs SI N2 - it depends on what I'm using them for. Weeks has much less usable writing space, both because SI ditches the quotes spaces and because SI paper goes all the way out to the cover, while Hobonichi has a gap so their paper has a slightly smaller area. SI has the grid on the left side. As you mentioned, Hobonichi uses cream paper. If I were going to be writing a lot and really utilizing that space I'd go with the Sterling Ink. If I were just writing a few things per week, using pretty inks, etc then I'd go with the Hobonichi because I actually find the quotes charming, I love the fun covers, and I like how the cream paper changes how we perceive some ink colors. My personal system plans this year (just bc I want to share lol): I am getting out my desire to buy Spy x Family everything by buying the A5 cover, pencil board, and folders, and putting them on a SI A5 daily :) No Weeks or N2 at all! Hopefully that plus my passport EDC will be enough. If not, I'm going mega-cutesy and adding the Midori B6 pocket cats 'diary' - it's a B6 weeks layout. I've also never used Midori paper, so that'd be a fun thing to try.
Those are great considerations, thank you! Also, I am so glad you shared your system plans for this year! I love hearing what other people are planning on using 😇 I think that sounds like a very functional system -- good idea getting it out of your system by buying the accessories rather than a whole planner! I could learn from you haha! 🤣💞
Truly loving your content and honesty with your feelings. You don’t apologize for how you feel, and you don’t whine - you are just real. You say your thoughts and feelings without the influencer things and worrying about the aesthetics (everything neutral). I enjoy colors and sometimes I want clean and simple. But it is what I want and like and you have shown that it is okay to choose that, not just be what everybody likes. Though I will say your one matches your shirt?❤ I am using a Sterling Ink A5 for work (plus then it is big enough to add my personal stuff so I can schedule accordingly. I work in corrections so I cannot put a lot of personal info in my work planner, however, I need to have it visible so i can schedule work trips and trainings. I loved the SI B6, but going bigger this year with the A5. My pocket carry will be a SI horizontal pocket. I liked the passport size, however, the pocket horizontal has the same weekly layout with the week on the left side and open space on right side (like hobonichi weeks). SI lays flat for me. I hope you get it figured out- I really enjoyed your thought process and you talking it out without the influencer speak. The “I am so obsessed with this or that…” ugh. Thank you!❤❤❤
This is such a sweet and thoughtful comment 💗 I am so happy you enjoy my content, and it truly means a lot to me to hear that you appreciate my candor (I know it's not for everybody 😉). It sounds like you have a very good planner system heading into 2025! Thanks for sharing and good luck 🥰
I am with you as far as the debate over the Hobonichi Weeks vs Steeling Ink weeks version. I have to say I’m leaning more towards Hobonichi because I had a Sterling Ink Mega-type weeks and their compact weeks for 2024 and I found that the mega had too many extra note pages in the back and the compact weeks seemed flimsy. Besides Hobonichi is coming out with a Spy Family weeks and as soon as I saw that I was 80% sure I was going with the Hobonichi weeks. 😂
Haha that’s so relatable! I think I’m also leaning towards the weeks, the covers are just too pretty 🤩 I would love to try something from Sterling Ink though
Thanks for your video and the latest one on compassion. Today, I sit down and WRITE down my brainstorm for 2025 while this video is playing on the background a guide. I already had one in my digital notebook and other snippets in my planner. But these few days, with the flood of video on Hobonichi haul, I am getting so tempted… staying strong with our plan 💪 have planners work for us and not us working for planners. 😅
I did a similar process for my planners for 2025. I had already decided to go with Sterling Ink for my main planner and also SI for some other planners I use faith, study etc I would have gone for all SI for 2024 but I missed out on the pre order in 2023. That's why I ended up with a Hobonichi A5 for my main planner this year. I decided to do your scratch test! I found that my Hobonichi does make that squeaky noise. I've been using an SICP this year as my faith planner and there is no squeaking. :-)) Oh by the way, I haven't done anything to the spine of my SICP. I just open it to the next page and smooth the page down and it lies flat. For sketching or diagrams I might go "hands free" and use a couple of clips.
Sterling Ink seems like an amazing brand, glad to hear they lay flat! Omg thank you for performing the scratch test, I knew I wasn't going crazy 🤣 I love the idea of having a faith planner 🤍
@@lillabjornstationery You're welcome! I have to say I hadn't really noticed the texture perhaps because I do most of my long form writing in my faith journal (which is the SICP) but had to go and test it out after watching your video!! I can recommend keeping a faith journal. My plan is to combine it with my gratitude journal instead of having a separate book. :-)
Playing with a Hobonichi and Sterling Ink right now, but only for about 10 days. They both have strong points. I like that the Hobonichi opens flat. I think the Sterling will with time. I would say you would want a separate cover for the Sterling the cover doesn’t seem super durable. The pens I have used perform about the same. I am going to set up a common place book this year but since I want the book divided into sections, I am going to write things in my planner first and rewrite them in my common place later so it is neater and I can have the separate sections that I want.
That is what I have been seeing as well It looks like the Sterling Ink spine needs some training. Good to know about needing a cover on cover. Sounds like a great idea to do a practice run and then rewrite them later -- thanks for sharing 😄
Yes, you are a "real" RUclipsr now, 🤣, I've watched the other two videos as well: Excellent job with them! I agree BUDGET first, because I went nuts last year and bought far too many that are now gathering dust. However, I wanted to address your questions in this video. I don't have experience with the Sterling Ink Weeks' size, BUT I do have the B6 half year, A5 half year and 2024 A5 compact - they have very good paper and layouts, however, I am a person who likes to have the monthly right in front of whatever month it is rather than all bunched up at the front, so I MADE my own planner with my own binding system but with Tomoe River S paper so I can speak to that. I'm not sure what problems you had with the Hobonichi, but I've been using the TR-S with fountain pens and gel pens without any problems. No feathering if that's what the problem was, and I use Diamine Winter Miracle Shimmer and Sheen ink predominantly, which is a heavy ink, though I've used several other brands, Colorverse, Lamy, Pilot, J.Herbin, etc. I purchased A4 paper from JetPens and then cut it down to A5 and printed out what I want on my daily page and found a Monthly I like (mostly - I may change that up) and voila, the planner I want with the layout I want to use. I have been using this for the past 6 months and have not had any problems with TR-S paper with one exception, I have to be careful sending it through the printer because it's so thin and can get caught. I also believe you are correct; I have a Hon and I checked that against my loose leaf Sanzen - I think there just might be a coating on it - there is a different feel, but that could also be because I'm comparing a bound book to loose leaf too, I suppose. Either way, I'm not a big fan of Hobonichi, though I will always be grateful for the introduction to this TR paper. I don't like all the real estate the quote takes up on the page, especially after using a Sterling Ink without it, plus if I have more to do/journal than one page a day, the Sterling Ink has flexibility to do that with the blank pages. If you remember, I started watching your channel because of the Jibun Techo, which I gave up in favor of my homemade planner and I don't regret it. I like the JT with the weather/meals/moods built right in on the page, but I was able to find something else with that as well as a little 'thankful for' box. 😉 I also didn't care for the page split in half with the timeline down the middle on the JT Days. I think your choices are good ones, I'm not familiar with Paper Tess *spelling! * but if it has what you want and need then definitely get it. I couldn't find what I wanted and I'm the kind of person that I'll go figure it out and make it or find someone who can, ETSY LOVES me. I would pick the SI N2 or NI (I can't ever remember which is Weeks and which is Traveler's) over the Hobo Weeks though. Again, thank you for putting these videos up - I'm sure they helped a lot of people!
Wow, what a wonderful and informative comment! I will first say thank you so much for your kind words about my videos 😄💖 I am seeing that several people are concurring that the Sterling Ink paper (and the Paper Tess) are different than the Hobonichi, and for that, I am so glad. That is super impressive that you created your own planner! Have you ever thought about selling them? I am always interested in shopping from small businesses. I tend to agree with you about the Hobonichi quotes, there is simply too much going on and it takes away from the simplicity of the planner. With every comment, I am leaning more and more towards not getting a Hobonichi this year *gasp*. I know I might feel naked without one, but I'm not sure it would suit my needs anymore. Thank you! 💘💘
I'm really enjoying these "thinking aloud" - videos you are doing. If you end up doing one / week until it's January 2025 I would not mind :) Good to know that other brand's tomoeriver paper is less coated than the hobonichi. 2024 was my first year experiencing the paper and I actually liked the A6 more than the weeks because I felt it smudged less. I have been wanting to try a bujo in a papertess weeks size notebook, but kept being turned off by the paper. Now I might try it out at some point. A lot of the smaller RUclips channels I've been watching have regretted dedicating a full planner for social media. Specially if it was something expensive like a weeks or Sterling Ink. Is there a reason you don't want to integrate it to your EDC or bujo?
I really appreciate it! I think I will likely do one more video before 2025 like you suggested 😇 Let me know how it goes if you do end up getting the PaperTess weeks! My thoughts regarding a social media planner is mostly that I like having a space dedicated purely to content ideas. In my Jibun Techo, I had a separate "IDEA" notebook that I tucked in the back to serve that purpose. When I had my weeks, I was using the blank pages at the end for that purpose. I guess I don't necessarily need a new planner for it, but I just need blank pages. You have me thinking now that I could probably section off some pages at the back of my EDC to be dedicated to content. I think another component is just that I want a weeks, which is not a very good reason haha! So thank you for bringing this up, I clearly need to do some more thinking 🤣💓💓
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm glad you said that about the Hobonichi paper being different because I've been hearing so many people complain about the new paper and I didn't understand what the problem was…? But I'm using a Sterling Ink so that makes a lot of sense if they use a different special coating. For Sterling Ink planners, you can definitely get them to lie flat. You just have to bend the spine if it's a smaller planner. There's a video in the Sterling Ink Facebook group showing how to do it. I did it at the beginning of the year for my TN-sized Sterling Ink planner and it worked beautifully. So don't let that hold you back.
Thank you so much! Glad to hear you haven't had any problems with your SI 💓😇
I am really loving this series. It's refreshing to see a creator being genuine about their planner struggles 😇
Thank you, I appreciate that 😊
Also I love you using the pen cap as a pointer 🤣
It was so helpful lol!
Regarding Hobonichi Weeks vs SI N2 - it depends on what I'm using them for. Weeks has much less usable writing space, both because SI ditches the quotes spaces and because SI paper goes all the way out to the cover, while Hobonichi has a gap so their paper has a slightly smaller area. SI has the grid on the left side. As you mentioned, Hobonichi uses cream paper.
If I were going to be writing a lot and really utilizing that space I'd go with the Sterling Ink. If I were just writing a few things per week, using pretty inks, etc then I'd go with the Hobonichi because I actually find the quotes charming, I love the fun covers, and I like how the cream paper changes how we perceive some ink colors.
My personal system plans this year (just bc I want to share lol): I am getting out my desire to buy Spy x Family everything by buying the A5 cover, pencil board, and folders, and putting them on a SI A5 daily :) No Weeks or N2 at all! Hopefully that plus my passport EDC will be enough. If not, I'm going mega-cutesy and adding the Midori B6 pocket cats 'diary' - it's a B6 weeks layout. I've also never used Midori paper, so that'd be a fun thing to try.
Those are great considerations, thank you! Also, I am so glad you shared your system plans for this year! I love hearing what other people are planning on using 😇 I think that sounds like a very functional system -- good idea getting it out of your system by buying the accessories rather than a whole planner! I could learn from you haha! 🤣💞
Enjoy hearing you talk through your thoughts! Helpful!
I am so glad you found this helpful! 🥰
Truly loving your content and honesty with your feelings. You don’t apologize for how you feel, and you don’t whine - you are just real. You say your thoughts and feelings without the influencer things and worrying about the aesthetics (everything neutral). I enjoy colors and sometimes I want clean and simple. But it is what I want and like and you have shown that it is okay to choose that, not just be what everybody likes. Though I will say your one matches your shirt?❤
I am using a Sterling Ink A5 for work (plus then it is big enough to add my personal stuff so I can schedule accordingly. I work in corrections so I cannot put a lot of personal info in my work planner, however, I need to have it visible so i can schedule work trips and trainings. I loved the SI B6, but going bigger this year with the A5. My pocket carry will be a SI horizontal pocket. I liked the passport size, however, the pocket horizontal has the same weekly layout with the week on the left side and open space on right side (like hobonichi weeks). SI lays flat for me.
I hope you get it figured out- I really enjoyed your thought process and you talking it out without the influencer speak. The “I am so obsessed with this or that…” ugh.
Thank you!❤❤❤
This is such a sweet and thoughtful comment 💗 I am so happy you enjoy my content, and it truly means a lot to me to hear that you appreciate my candor (I know it's not for everybody 😉). It sounds like you have a very good planner system heading into 2025! Thanks for sharing and good luck 🥰
I am with you as far as the debate over the Hobonichi Weeks vs Steeling Ink weeks version. I have to say I’m leaning more towards Hobonichi because I had a Sterling Ink Mega-type weeks and their compact weeks for 2024 and I found that the mega had too many extra note pages in the back and the compact weeks seemed flimsy. Besides Hobonichi is coming out with a Spy Family weeks and as soon as I saw that I was 80% sure I was going with the Hobonichi weeks. 😂
Haha that’s so relatable! I think I’m also leaning towards the weeks, the covers are just too pretty 🤩 I would love to try something from Sterling Ink though
Thanks for your video and the latest one on compassion. Today, I sit down and WRITE down my brainstorm for 2025 while this video is playing on the background a guide. I already had one in my digital notebook and other snippets in my planner. But these few days, with the flood of video on Hobonichi haul, I am getting so tempted… staying strong with our plan 💪 have planners work for us and not us working for planners. 😅
I am so glad you found this video helpful! That is so true, planners work for us 😉💝
I did a similar process for my planners for 2025. I had already decided to go with Sterling Ink for my main planner and also SI for some other planners I use faith, study etc
I would have gone for all SI for 2024 but I missed out on the pre order in 2023.
That's why I ended up with a Hobonichi A5 for my main planner this year. I decided to do your scratch test! I found that my Hobonichi does make that squeaky noise. I've been using an SICP this year as my faith planner and there is no squeaking. :-))
Oh by the way, I haven't done anything to the spine of my SICP. I just open it to the next page and smooth the page down and it lies flat. For sketching or diagrams I might go "hands free" and use a couple of clips.
Sterling Ink seems like an amazing brand, glad to hear they lay flat! Omg thank you for performing the scratch test, I knew I wasn't going crazy 🤣 I love the idea of having a faith planner 🤍
@@lillabjornstationery You're welcome! I have to say I hadn't really noticed the texture perhaps because I do most of my long form writing in my faith journal (which is the SICP) but had to go and test it out after watching your video!! I can recommend keeping a faith journal. My plan is to combine it with my gratitude journal instead of having a separate book. :-)
@@rayq352 That is such a smart idea, thank for sharing 🥰🥰
amazing
Thank you!
Playing with a Hobonichi and Sterling Ink right now, but only for about 10 days. They both have strong points. I like that the Hobonichi opens flat. I think the Sterling will with time. I would say you would want a separate cover for the Sterling the cover doesn’t seem super durable. The pens I have used perform about the same. I am going to set up a common place book this year but since I want the book divided into sections, I am going to write things in my planner first and rewrite them in my common place later so it is neater and I can have the separate sections that I want.
That is what I have been seeing as well It looks like the Sterling Ink spine needs some training. Good to know about needing a cover on cover. Sounds like a great idea to do a practice run and then rewrite them later -- thanks for sharing 😄
Is the Sterling Ink tomoe river paper squeaky like Hobonichi's?
I'm literally so curious now!! Someone do a squeak test!!
NO!!! I have a sterling ink 5 year and I LOVE THE paper as much as I do the Jibun Techo Paper!
@@TheKoffeeVerse Oh my gosh this comment just SAVED my planner lineup! Thank you Beth 😁💞
@@bujowithsarah Hahaha for real!
No, no squeak on the SI paper!
Yes, you are a "real" RUclipsr now, 🤣, I've watched the other two videos as well: Excellent job with them! I agree BUDGET first, because I went nuts last year and bought far too many that are now gathering dust. However, I wanted to address your questions in this video. I don't have experience with the Sterling Ink Weeks' size, BUT I do have the B6 half year, A5 half year and 2024 A5 compact - they have very good paper and layouts, however, I am a person who likes to have the monthly right in front of whatever month it is rather than all bunched up at the front, so I MADE my own planner with my own binding system but with Tomoe River S paper so I can speak to that. I'm not sure what problems you had with the Hobonichi, but I've been using the TR-S with fountain pens and gel pens without any problems. No feathering if that's what the problem was, and I use Diamine Winter Miracle Shimmer and Sheen ink predominantly, which is a heavy ink, though I've used several other brands, Colorverse, Lamy, Pilot, J.Herbin, etc. I purchased A4 paper from JetPens and then cut it down to A5 and printed out what I want on my daily page and found a Monthly I like (mostly - I may change that up) and voila, the planner I want with the layout I want to use. I have been using this for the past 6 months and have not had any problems with TR-S paper with one exception, I have to be careful sending it through the printer because it's so thin and can get caught. I also believe you are correct; I have a Hon and I checked that against my loose leaf Sanzen - I think there just might be a coating on it - there is a different feel, but that could also be because I'm comparing a bound book to loose leaf too, I suppose.
Either way, I'm not a big fan of Hobonichi, though I will always be grateful for the introduction to this TR paper. I don't like all the real estate the quote takes up on the page, especially after using a Sterling Ink without it, plus if I have more to do/journal than one page a day, the Sterling Ink has flexibility to do that with the blank pages.
If you remember, I started watching your channel because of the Jibun Techo, which I gave up in favor of my homemade planner and I don't regret it. I like the JT with the weather/meals/moods built right in on the page, but I was able to find something else with that as well as a little 'thankful for' box. 😉 I also didn't care for the page split in half with the timeline down the middle on the JT Days.
I think your choices are good ones, I'm not familiar with Paper Tess *spelling! * but if it has what you want and need then definitely get it. I couldn't find what I wanted and I'm the kind of person that I'll go figure it out and make it or find someone who can, ETSY LOVES me. I would pick the SI N2 or NI (I can't ever remember which is Weeks and which is Traveler's) over the Hobo Weeks though. Again, thank you for putting these videos up - I'm sure they helped a lot of people!
Wow, what a wonderful and informative comment! I will first say thank you so much for your kind words about my videos 😄💖 I am seeing that several people are concurring that the Sterling Ink paper (and the Paper Tess) are different than the Hobonichi, and for that, I am so glad. That is super impressive that you created your own planner! Have you ever thought about selling them? I am always interested in shopping from small businesses. I tend to agree with you about the Hobonichi quotes, there is simply too much going on and it takes away from the simplicity of the planner. With every comment, I am leaning more and more towards not getting a Hobonichi this year *gasp*. I know I might feel naked without one, but I'm not sure it would suit my needs anymore.
Thank you! 💘💘
Could you please tell us which pen and ink did you use?
Oh so that's what EDC stands for 😅
Haha yes!!! 🤩
I'm really enjoying these "thinking aloud" - videos you are doing. If you end up doing one / week until it's January 2025 I would not mind :)
Good to know that other brand's tomoeriver paper is less coated than the hobonichi. 2024 was my first year experiencing the paper and I actually liked the A6 more than the weeks because I felt it smudged less. I have been wanting to try a bujo in a papertess weeks size notebook, but kept being turned off by the paper. Now I might try it out at some point.
A lot of the smaller RUclips channels I've been watching have regretted dedicating a full planner for social media. Specially if it was something expensive like a weeks or Sterling Ink. Is there a reason you don't want to integrate it to your EDC or bujo?
I really appreciate it! I think I will likely do one more video before 2025 like you suggested 😇 Let me know how it goes if you do end up getting the PaperTess weeks! My thoughts regarding a social media planner is mostly that I like having a space dedicated purely to content ideas. In my Jibun Techo, I had a separate "IDEA" notebook that I tucked in the back to serve that purpose. When I had my weeks, I was using the blank pages at the end for that purpose. I guess I don't necessarily need a new planner for it, but I just need blank pages. You have me thinking now that I could probably section off some pages at the back of my EDC to be dedicated to content. I think another component is just that I want a weeks, which is not a very good reason haha! So thank you for bringing this up, I clearly need to do some more thinking 🤣💓💓
Waittttt I had no clue Hobonichi coats their paper?!?!?
I hadn’t either, but I recently got a comment that mentioned it! 🤯
I had a cat named Oskar.❤
Aww how sweet! 🥰