Planner Peace.
Do those words make you anxious or calm? Up until March, I had planner peace.
I’ve stuck with my franken-bullet journal for 4 years now. It took me many years to figure out a system that worked for me. I have a stack of used A5 Breeze TRP68 notebooks from Taroko Stationery archived. Each notebook lasted me 3 months so I went through 4 a year. My system worked so well for me, I bought the notebooks in bulk!
My main priority for my planner was flexibility. I stopped using dated planners for multiple reasons. I never used the weekend pages so I hated that they went to waste. I also need pages for my monthly goals, weekly reflections, and monthly recaps. If I went with a dated planner, I’d need two notebooks. I didn’t want to juggle multiple planner-ish notebooks so franken-bujo it was.
I loved the process of sitting at my desk on Sunday evenings to reflect on the past week and to set up my bullet journal for the week. I drew a simple weekly spread to map out my schedule and priorities for the week. It was my time to play with my fountain pens, stickers, and washi. (My daily pages were made on the day of and pretty minimalist.)
So what changed? Me. I changed.
Due to my chronic illness, I’ve had less energy to draw weekly spreads as simple as they were. A good friend suggested tipping in a printed weekly spread. I tried that for a couple of weeks but it took so much effort to do that. I’d rather use the little energy I had on the planning process and not drawing spreads or taping pages into it.
After a bit of research, I settled on the A5 undated version of Wonderland222’s All-in-One Unstacked planner (2025 edition). It uses 52gsm Sanzen Tomoe River Paper. After poking around in some planner groups, I felt confident that it wasn’t part of the bad batch that plagued a lot of planners, including Hobonichi.
The undated version gives me the flexibility I had with my bullet journal. At first I use stamps to set up my April monthly pages but that took too much time and energy. I switched to writing in everything. Because of the planner’s thickness (576 pages), the pages were so cushiony to write on, even with my EF fountain pens.
I’m still adjusting to the new format and system, but I feel good about it. Most importantly, I’ve found joy in my planning process again.
Have you switched planners this year? Tell me more!
All products featured were paid for my me.
I had the amazing blessing of sitting at a Wonderland 222 sponsored table at Go Wild in Indianapolis last year and I’m so glad I got to. I have the suncatcher on the window that gets the most sun in my office but what I loved was the B6 planner I got. I also managed to snag some 192 page A5 notebooks that are set up with hourly marks similar to the Hobonichi daily pages but they’re undated. I’ve been very tempted to use one of these for the end of 2026 but I’m not sure. It’ll either be that or a reading journal but I need to figure out how I want to record my notes.
Go Wild looks like so much fun! I’m a fairly minimalist planner person so I’m not sure if it’s a good fit for me. Sounds like you’re enjoying your Wonderland222 notebooks.
Ooh, this is a good layout, I will keep it in mind. For the past few years I’ve been using a spiral bound vertical weekly planner made by a small family biz that evidently called it quits last year which had me scrambling in January. Erin Condrens are just too pricey for my budget but thankfully I found a dupe at Walmart. It’s a little bit larger than I prefer, but so far so good.
Oh gosh, that’s the worst when your favorite planner is discontinued! I’m glad you were able to find a dupe.
I was using TN standard size in a Lochby cover, which was brilliant on every level except the aesthetic. Now I’m using a Midori B5 system with notebooks that come pre-decorated in a range of themes. You can add to the decorations or not, which took some of the pressure off me.
I’m with you on the Lochby aesthetic. I guess we’re not their target audience.
I was in a leuchtturm1917 for YEARS…and then it came to a grinding halt during covid. I wasn’t able to get back into the daily planner after that for quite some time, taking notes haphazardly in my notes app (iPhone) or keeping track in my head (recipe for disaster). Started a whole multi-book organization system for 2026, including a weeks mega, thinking I could use the back pages to keep track of personal projects/initiatives, but it is almost too small for me, not sure. I’m not able to continue in it, and the separation between the annual/monthly/weekly sections doesn’t work for my brain. I have been using the cousin for a memory keeping tool, but again, since it doesn’t travel around with me, I forget to update it. I keep a field notes with me for jotting down notes/thoughts/to do lists, again hit or miss since I forget to always keep it with me. Plus, I want separate books for the different things I want to keep track of…so my next exploration is the paper republic le portfolio (pocket sized) which will hold my field notes, and a couple of different book inserts for my various projects, etc. This should be able to travel in my purse/bag, etc. and I remain ever hopeful!
I love the Hobonichi Weeks size but it’s definitely too small for my needs. I also like keeping different notebooks for different things. It sounds like your system is working for you!
I also used a leuchtturm1917 Weekly planner for years – but this year I noticed Campus made a planner with almost the exact same format, but soft cover and less expensive. I like their paper better for fountain pens so I switched and I love it.
That’s awesome. Campus makes very affordable notebooks.