New Beginnings

My First Newsletter

Welcome to my very first newsletter!

Did I ever think I’d start a newsletter? Honestly, no. But let me tell you why I’m doing it

I recently started posting on Tiktok about how I plan to use my Hobonichi planner and I’ve been connected to a wonderful community who share my passion.

The trouble is that Tiktok, as great as it is, has its limits. I can post videos, but there’s only so much I can share with you there. I’ve quickly learned that video captions are capped at 4,000 characters. And I need more space.

And so, this newsletter was born.

The plan is to send it out weekly. You can expect:

  • Extended version of what I share on Tiktok - with added benefit of being able to easily drop in photos and links

  • Conversations about analog rituals

  • Journaling Prompts

  • Creative Rituals and Inspiration

The Ritual

My Hobonichi Journey Begins

Sheep Sheep Sheep design in MEGA

I've been journaling for years, but traditional planners felt like a thing of the past for me. At least, they did.

I'm not even sure when that changed, but I came across a preview of the Hobonichi 2027 lineup, and something just clicked. I wanted to start using a planner again. The Weeks layout felt so approachable that we got ourselves a Hobonichi Weeks for 2027!

As I explored my new planner, I got stuck on how I wanted to set it up, which sent me down a rabbit hole (reddit holes) looking for ideas. I took what I learned to TikTok, and the community showed up in full force. So everything below is a compilation of ideas shared by a wonderful community of people (via Tiktok)!!

I’ve listed these in the order the pages appear in the planner:

Hobonichi Weeks

Annual Spread Ideas

Page can be found in the front of the Weeks Planner

  1. Daily spending - write down how much you spend each day, giving you a quick daily snapshot rather than waiting to tally it all up at month's end.

  2. Eating-out spend - log how much you spend eating out specifically, so you can see that category separately from general spending.

  3. Tracking bill / payment due dates - note which bills are due on which days, so nothing sneaks up on you.

  4. Tips received each day - for anyone in a tipped job, log what you earned daily to track trends or watch your total build over the year.

  5. Steps tracker - log daily steps, with optional daily or monthly targets to work toward.

  6. Workout days + type - mark the days you worked out and note the type (spin, pilates, cardio, weights, etc.) so you can see your training split at a glance.

  7. Hours skated - this can extend to any craft or skill: hours spent studying, practicing an instrument, or working on a hobby.

  8. Temperature tracker - log the weather high each day, or your own body temperature, depending on what you're trying to track.

  9. Menstrual cycle tracker - which one person hilariously named "Shark Week" 🦈 , color in cycle days to spot patterns in timing, length, or symptoms over time.

  10. Migraine tracker - log migraines you had and whether meds were taken, so you have something concrete to reference or bring to a doctor.

  11. Daily sleep scores - can easily extend to a readiness score if you use a fitness tracker, giving you a fuller picture of recovery, not just hours slept.

  12. Weight check-ins - log a daily or weekly number to watch trends over time rather than day-to-day fluctuation.

  13. Hair wash days - mark each wash day to track your routine and spot patterns over time.

  14. Alcohol tracker - mark days you drank vs. didn't, useful if you're trying to cut back or just want visibility into your habits.

  15. Mood tracker - build a color key for different moods and color in each day based on how you felt.

  16. Stress levels - log how stressed you felt each day, which can help you spot what's driving the high-stress stretches.

  17. Rate your day 1-5 - a quick daily score that builds a visual reminder that bad days don't outweigh the good ones.

  18. One word to describe your day - a tiny daily snapshot that's fast to fill in but still captures the day's overall vibe.

  19. Gratitude - one word each day to describe what you were grateful for, a lighter alternative to full gratitude journaling.

  20. The Crybrary 😭 - used to track which days you cried (if you do this, you must use this name too).

  21. Minutes meditated - log how long you meditated each day to build consistency and watch the habit grow.

  22. Daily Wordle - color-coded by number of tries, turning your Wordle streak into a fun visual on top of the game itself.

  23. Pages read each day - a simple daily count to keep yourself accountable to a reading goal.

  24. Words written - for a writing tracker instead of reading, helpful for keeping momentum on a longer project like NaNoWriMo or a personal manuscript.

  25. Language word of the day - for anyone learning a new language, jot the word and its meaning to build a running vocabulary log.

  26. Song of the day - log whatever song you had on repeat or discovered that day, a fun little soundtrack-of-the-year log.

  27. Daily or nightly tarot pulls - note the card you pulled each day or night as a small ritual check-in with yourself.

  28. Trips you went on - added bonus: turn each rectangle into the flag of the country you visited for a colorful travel recap.

  29. Birthday tracker - a quick reference for birthdays throughout the year so you never miss one.

  30. Hours worked - log daily hours to track workload trends or overtime across the year.

  31. In-office days - mark which days you were in office vs. remote, handy if your role is hybrid.

  32. PTO tracking - log days taken so you always know how much time off you've used and have left.

  33. Tasks completed each day - a simple daily tally to see how productive each day was.

  34. Project timeline tracking - use the grid to map out milestones or deadlines across a project, almost like a lightweight Gantt chart.

  35. Days you cleaned - mark which days you tackled cleaning to build a visual habit tracker for household upkeep.

  36. Home-cooked vs. delivery - note whether you cooked at home or ordered in, so you can see your actual balance over a month rather than guessing.

  37. Screen time - log daily screen time (pulled from your phone's own tracking) to build awareness around usage.

  38. Family schedule - track holidays, sick days, travel days, and parent days, color-coded for who has the kids, especially useful for co-parenting or shared custody schedules.

Hobonichi Weeks

Monthly Planner Spread Ideas

Page can be found in the front of the Weeks Planner

  1. Daily challenge - you can use each box to write yourself a small daily challenge, something to push you a little each day.

  2. Prompt a day - try dropping in a daily writing or reflection prompt each day and use blank pages to write about it

  3. Photo a day - There are multiple variations of this you can do. The main idea is to add a small printed picture in each box, can be themed or just random photos.

  4. Sticker log of your day - For the sticker lovers, use a sticker to represent what you did that day (car wash, sick day, home-cooked meal, hair appointment, wash day, meeting, book club, etc.) it's fun to look back at the month and see the pattern of stickers.

  5. Junk journaling - instead of a photo a day, fill each box with tiny junk journal ephemera (ticket stubs, washi scraps, cutouts) for a more textured, collaged look.

  6. Random sticker a day - a variation on the above. This one has no theme, just place a sticker you like each day for a fun, colorful spread.

  7. Media tracker - use the monthly grid to log what you're watching, reading, or otherwise consuming that day.

  8. Bill tracker - write down bills and when they're due in the corresponding day box, so nothing sneaks up on you.

  9. Gratitude / glimmer a day - jot down something you're grateful for, or a "glimmer" (a small moment that gave you a flicker of good feeling).

  10. Workout plans - plan out or log your workouts for the month box by box.

  11. Doodle of the day - a tiny daily drawing, whatever comes to mind (or it can also be themed).

  12. Monthly bingo - turn the grid into a bingo board with fun goals or activities to complete throughout the month.

  13. Dual purpose planner + doodles - one person writes key events (appointments, anniversaries, etc.) in pencil ahead of time, then once the day passes, erases the text and replaces it with a small doodle of how the day actually went.

  14. Word of the day - add a new word or if you're learning a language, a word you're picking up along with its meaning.

  15. Blank page trackers linked to monthly dates - someone mentioned using a blank page in the planner as a tracker (for a habit, project, etc.) and then references the corresponding start/finish dates back in the monthly spread, so the two sections work together.

Hobonichi Weeks

My100 Spread Ideas

Page can be found in the back of the Weeks Planner

  1. Documentaries to watch - keep a running list so you always have something queued up instead of scrolling for 20 minutes trying to decide.

  2. Movies or TV series you watched or want to watch - one person mentioned a variation just for Hollywood movies watched, narrowing it to a specific genre or category.

  3. Albums you listened to or want to listen to - a nice way to track your year in music beyond just individual songs.

  4. Songs you loved this year / songs you listened to on repeat - your personal soundtrack of the year, built one entry at a time.

  5. New things you want to do / new experiences you want to try or tried - a flexible catch-all for anything from small firsts to bigger goals.

  6. New milestones or experiences - bigger life moments worth recording, whether personal, career, or otherwise.

  7. Bucket list items - the classic big-ticket goals you want to work toward over time.

  8. Tiny adventures - not big bucket list items, but little things you challenge yourself to do: grabbing a cup of coffee somewhere new, walking to a local grocery store, browsing your local stationery shop (personal favorite adventure of mine).

  9. First things you've done - a log of personal firsts, big or small, worth remembering.

  10. Moments you want to remember - a catch-all for anything you want to make sure doesn't get lost in the blur of the year.

  11. Things you want to do each season - a seasonal bucket list, so you're intentional about what each part of the year looks like.

  12. New things you’ve done, can be anything! - the loosest, most flexible version of the spread, no theme required.

  13. Books you read - a simple running log so you have a record by year's end instead of trying to remember.

  14. Books you want to read - your to-be-read list, kept in one place instead of scattered across notes apps.

  15. Top recipes / recipes you want to try - can even split the page in half for 50 tried, 50 to try, so you're tracking both sides of your cooking journey.

  16. Meal ideas - a running list for when you're stuck in a cooking rut and need inspiration fast.

  17. Dinner ideas - similar to meal ideas, but narrowed specifically to dinner for easier weeknight planning.

  18. Restaurants you want to try - your dining bucket list, handy for date nights or when you're in a new area.

  19. Favorite foods / activities - a simple list of the things that bring you joy, food or otherwise.

  20. Places you've traveled to - a travel log you can look back on, especially satisfying once it fills up.

  21. Hyperfixations - track whatever topic, show, or hobby you became briefly (or not so briefly) obsessed with.

  22. Favorite inks - for the fountain pen or stationery lovers, a running list of ink colors and brands you love.

  23. Products to use up - a "project pan" style list to help you actually finish products before buying more.

  24. Things you decluttered - a record of what you let go of, satisfying to look back on as proof of progress.

  25. Hobby / analog list - track projects or sessions tied to a specific hobby, like knitting, journaling, or woodworking.

  26. Art prompts - a running list of prompts to pull from whenever you want to create but don't know where to start.

  27. Workouts of the year - log workouts completed, useful for seeing your consistency over time.

  28. Things you say no to - a running list of the boundaries you held, a nice way to track personal growth.

  29. Things that make you happy / things that sparked joy in your life - a simple, feel-good list to return to on harder days.

  30. Glimmers - the tiny moments that gave you a flicker of good feeling.

  31. Good things you saw - a cat walking by, a beautiful flower, a good thing you did, small positive observations worth noting.

  32. Reasons to keep going - the things that keep you here on hard days, a list worth having when you need it most.

  33. Good deeds you did - a log of small kindnesses, yours to look back on with pride.

  34. Moments of whimsy in your life - the silly, lighthearted, unexpected moments that added some magic to your year.

  35. Things you're proud of this year - big or small, a running list of personal wins.

  36. Betrayal list - people who've done you injustice, as a reminder to reinforce boundaries; can be paired with a safe people list on the other half, for people outside friends/family who've shown up for you.

  37. Date ideas - can be dates with a partner or friends, handy for when you're in a planning rut.

  38. Words or phrases of the year - words or sayings that stuck with you or defined certain stretches of the year.

  39. New words you learned - a running vocabulary log, whether from reading, conversation, or just picking up something new.

  40. Dictionary word of the day - one new word a day, along with its meaning, for a built-in vocabulary challenge.

  41. Things you want to manifest - your intentions and hopes, written down to keep top of mind.

  42. Thrift store manifestations - items you're manifesting finding secondhand.

  43. Goals for the year - a straightforward running list of what you're working toward.

  44. Project plan - use the grid to map out milestones or steps for a bigger project you're tackling.

  45. Savings challenge - write down how much you saved in each row, watching the total build as the page fills up.

  46. Listen to the Bible in a year podcast and track it - check off each day or episode as you move through the year-long plan.

  47. Favorite Bible verses - a running collection of verses that resonated with you.

  48. Themed top-10 lists - break the page into groups of 10 for things like coffees, songs, snacks, etc., great if you'd rather have several mini lists than one long one

    Bonus tip: A few people mentioned breaking up the My 100 into sections instead of doing one big list — try splitting it 50/50, or into four 25/25/25/25 chunks. Others break it up seasonally, so instead of one big "songs I loved" list, you'd have four smaller ones tracking what you loved each season. Have fun mixing and matching instead of sticking to just one My 100 list!

Hobonichi Weeks

365 Days Check-off Sheet Ideas

Page can be found in the back of the Weeks Planner

  1. Mood tracker - build a color key for different moods (e.g., yellow = happy, blue = sad, red = stressed) and color in each day based on how you felt overall.

  2. Rate your day - score each day from -2 to +2 (or 1-5, 1-10) and color by number. It's a good visual reminder that bad days don't outweigh the good ones, and bonus: pair it with journaling on your blank pages, writing a few bullets about your day to hopefully spot common themes on the good days.

  3. Daily check-in - just check off that you checked in with yourself that day, no mood or color needed. A low-pressure way to build the habit of pausing and noticing how you're doing without having to label or rate it.

  4. How you feel when you wake up - a quick daily note or color on your morning mood, useful for spotting patterns between how you start the day and how the rest of it goes.

  5. Themed day log - build a color legend by theme (e.g., pink = people/love/family, blue = learning/research, yellow = laughter/play/food) and color each day plus a short entry. At the end of the year you can see what filled your year and how it shifted with the seasons.

  6. Emotion / therapy tracker - log emotional check-ins or therapy-related notes, like what came up in a session, a feeling you want to keep an eye on, or progress on something you're working through.

  7. Complain tracker - track the days you catch yourself complaining, as a gentle way to build awareness around the habit.

  8. Cried or not - simple mark for days you cried. Someone called this "the crybrary" and I still love this name.

  9. Reading tracker - audiobook, Kindle, or physical books, each assigned its own color, colored in daily by format. Parents can adapt this to track days they read to their kids instead.

  10. Journaling days - pick a color for days you journal (and optionally a second color for days you don't), so you can see your consistency at a glance.

  11. Writing a novel - track your writing progress, e.g., words written per day, helpful for keeping momentum on a longer project like NaNoWriMo or a personal manuscript.

  12. Learn a word a day - for language learning; jot the new word and its meaning so you build a running vocabulary log over the year.

  13. Personal curriculum tracking - assign a different color to each subject you're studying (say, one color for coding, another for a language, another for a certification) so you can see at a glance whether you're actually spreading your study time across everything or neglecting one area.

  14. 365 creative tracker - color in every day you do a creative routine, coded by activity type, or keep it simple with black for non-creative days and red for creative ones.

  15. Sleep tracker - color by hours slept (e.g., 8+ hrs = green, 7-8 = yellow, 6-7 = red), or a simpler red/green split around a 7.5-hour target.

  16. Steps tracker - log daily steps, with optional daily or monthly targets to work toward.

  17. Gym / workout / exercise ring closure tracker - color-coded by body part or workout type (spin, pilates, cardio, yoga, weights), or simply mark whether you closed your rings that day if you use a fitness watch.

  18. Weight / body mass tracker - log a daily or weekly number to watch trends over time rather than day-to-day fluctuation.

  19. Water intake tracker - mark off glasses or ounces/liters consumed each day to help build the habit of staying hydrated.

  20. Vitamins tracker - check off each day you remembered to take your vitamins or supplements.

  21. Migraine or seizure/episode tracker - log occurrences, and optionally medication taken, so you have something concrete to reference or bring to a doctor.

  22. Menstrual cycle tracker - nicknamed "shark week" or "the blood curse"; color in cycle days to spot patterns in timing, length, or symptoms over several months.

  23. Sex tracker - a private log for your own reference, whether that's frequency, timing, or whatever you want to track.

  24. Contact lens wear tracker - helps you count how many dailies you've used, handy for knowing when to reorder and for FSA reimbursement tracking.

  25. Hair wash days - mark each wash day to track your routine and spot patterns in how your hair or scalp responds over time.

  26. No soda or alcohol tracker - color in each day you skip soda or alcohol, useful if you're trying to cut back or just want visibility into your habits.

  27. Eating habits tracker - note whether you cooked, ate leftovers, or got takeout/ate out, so you can see your actual balance over a month rather than guessing.

  28. Screen time tracker - log daily screen time (pulled from your phone's own tracking) to build awareness around usage.

  29. No-contact days - color in each day you go without contacting a toxic person; one version colors each line in ROYGBIV order for a rainbow effect as the streak builds, which doubles as a motivating visual the longer it goes.

  30. Decluttering challenge - check off each day you declutter something, even something small, to build momentum toward a tidier space over the year.

  31. Loads of laundry - simple tally count of loads done, useful if you're trying to stay on top of a backlog or just like watching the number climb.

  32. Mowed the lawn - tally count, handy for tracking how often lawn care actually happens across a season.

  33. Days spent outside - nicknamed "days I touched grass"; one version tracks hours outside with a yearly goal (e.g., 10 hours/year) rather than just marking whether you went out at all.

  34. Travel / days out of country - build a color legend by country or place visited for a colorful year-end spread that doubles as a visual travel recap.

  35. Track vacation / holidays / public holidays - mark them on the calendar so you always know what's coming up and can plan around them.

  36. Spending tracker - color-code by day: e.g., green = no spend, yellow = only paid a bill, red = spend day, giving you an instant visual of your spending habits across the month.

  37. 365 savings tracker - each number written in the grid represents an amount saved that day (e.g., "25" = £25 saved), or use pence/cents if you'd rather track in smaller increments.

  38. Tips received tracker - for anyone in a tipped job, log tips earned each day to track trends or just see your total build over the year.

  39. Weather / temperature tracker - color-code by the day's temperature, which makes for a striking gradient spread once the seasons are filled in.

  40. Camera roll cleanup log - track days you tidied up your camera roll, a nice nudge to stay on top of photo clutter instead of letting it pile up for a year.

The nice thing about these spread ideas is they’re interchangeable, with a bit of imagination, almost any idea can be adapted to work in a different spread

Happy Planning!

- Deb

See you next week.

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