It’s the beginning of a new year, so it’s an appropriate time to talk about planning and getting ourselves organized. Personally, I am obsessed with time-tracking/organizing tools. I could really say a lot on this topic, but for now I will confine myself to just one item: the Hobonichi Techo Planner.
What It Is
The Hobonichi Techo is my personal time tracking tool of choice. Over the years I have used many datebooks, calendars, random notebooks, even time trackers of my own creation. In 2020 my wife introduced me to the Hobonichi, and I must say, it is the best of all I’ve tried. It is essentially perfect for me.
It’s more than just a datebook. As the makers describe it:
The Hobonichi Techo is a life book. It’s a planner notebook you can use as freely as you like and will adapt to the lifestyles of anyone using it.
It serves not only as a datebook, but also a place to record my thoughts, travels, and anything else that is on my mind. The format is perfect. Every day has its own page, which is important to me. Any less space would not be enough. However the overall dimensions are not so big as other daily planners, making it convenient to carry. It’s the perfect size.
The pages themselves are laid out in the form of an open grid. There are no rigid time slots — only a “12” to suggest midday, and a fork & knife icon to suggest dinner time. As a business owner my day rarely falls within a neat “9 to 5” pattern that some other planners force on you, so leaving it open is brilliant. I mark the times and allocate as much or as little space as I need.
The rest of the grid being open allows me plenty of places to carve out for random thoughts, to-do lists, or anything else I want to record. I usually use the whitespace at the very top, next to the date, to record my locations as I travel. At the bottom of each pair of pages is a thought-provoking quote.
Before the 1st of each month there is a “Coming Up” page which I suppose is meant to keep your upcoming plans, however I use it differently — for each one I write “What progress did I make in (name of previous month)”. This helps keep me motivated when I feel like I’m not accomplishing enough — I can look back and remind myself how much I’ve actually done.
At the beginning of the book are monthly calendar pages if you prefer to look at the big picture view, although personally I don’t use them that much. At the back of the book are a handful of empty pages for free-form notes, some handy conversion charts, and usually some interesting thing about Japanese culture.
Unboxing the 2021 Hobonichi Techo Planner
I used my Hobonichi all through 2020 and loved it, so of course I ordered a new one for 2021. It arrived in this attractive yellow box:
The inside flap has a message in Japanese and English:
They included a few free extras. All the contents of the box:
The cover is sold separately, and there are many options to choose from. Personally I like plain, so I bought their black leather cover last year. I’m pleased to say the leather is good quality. It survived being tossed around in my bag for a full year, and with only a scratch or two, I expect it will be in service for a few more years to come. Here is what the final result looks like when you combine the book with the cover:
As I said a couple scratches, but that’s after 1 year of continuous use and I’m not the most gentle user! 🙂
(Side note: the pen I use is a plain stainless steel Parker Jotter. Its classic, stylish, pleasant to write with, and inexpensive [$14 USD as of January 2021]. I’m not the kind of guy to flash Mont Blancs around, but if that’s your thing you could fit one of those too. I like the Parker though, because it says I’m not some shlub with a Bic pen, yet its not flashy. And for the James Bond geeks out there, it happens to be the same pen Q-branch turned into a C4 grenade in the film GoldenEye, so it always has the potential to be a little conversation starter.)
Why Use It?
Besides the obvious uses, I find it very important to have a sense of where my time goes, and what I’m accomplishing. I guess its just my personality, but I often feel as if I’m not doing enough, or that I’m just spinning my wheels on routine tasks. Often times this is not exactly true, and looking back at what I’ve done helps remind me of the progress I’ve made and gives me motivation to continue.
Another reason is being aware of the fact we forget so much of our lives as the years go by. I have kept journals off and on throughout my life and as I go back to read them, it amazes me how much I’ve forgotten about things that happened only 5 or 10 years ago. With so many demands on my time its all too easy to live in the current moment only and feel as if time is mercilessly flying by. Recording my days helps me to remember more of my life, so that things I did in the past were not all for nothing!
It also helps me to live more effectively. When I think to myself, “I feel sure I’ve dealt with this problem before… what was it and how did I solve it last time?”, I can go back and find it. Periodic looking back at my past thoughts also helps me to avoid (sometimes) making the same mistakes twice… no matter how much I try, from time to time I forget certain lessons I learned in the past, and need occasional reminders.
I’m inspired in these things by the work of Morris Villarroel. If you’re interested, I encourage you to read the BBC News article about him, One man’s 10-year experiment to record every moment.