Yes. ‘Tis another post about planner, people.

I was supposed to publish this back then in 2017 but then I just completely got swallowed by uni and sleeping during my winter holiday. So yeah, before my holiday ends I’m just gonna post a quick post about what this planner is and why I switched my main planner to this from Hobonichi!

What it is

Basically, this is just another planner under the brand of Kokuyo (pretty sure everyone knows this brand). It’s unique because it’s basically a 3-in-1 planner. If you purchase the starter kit you’ll get a Life, Idea, and the main journal in one pack. The Life book is designed to last your entire life, while the Idea book is basically a blank grided paper. The main journal is pretty much similar to Hobonichi Weeks with the only exception of the weekly layout being vertical instead of horizontal like Hobo’s.

When you buy the journal, it will always come with the plastic cover (as seen in the cover picture) and also this “pencil board” that functions as your portable ruler and a band to keep your book shut. I wouldn’t say that it’s a functional pencil board like Hobonichi’s though since the size is smaller than the pages and the bands make the surface bump when you want to write on it. So yeah …

As you can see, the cover picture has two covers, white and dark blue. The dark blue version is an Amazon limited edition cover, so usually they only come with one cover per set!

Layouts!

The main planner’s paper is made out of Tomoe River Paper, the same type of paper that Hobonichi uses, so it’s really thin but bleed-proof, which is awesome. Jibun Techo uses more variety of colors to indicate dates and tabs, which makes it look more colorful and exciting to use. They also come with an abundant amount of checkboxes for your free list, as well as a mood tracker for each date.

As opposed to Hobonichi Week’s horizontal weekly spread, Jibun Techo comes in a vertical spread with a timeline bar! This is really similar to Hobonichi’s Cousin weekly spread. But what I like about this planner is because I can focus more on systematic journalling since they don’t have daily pages that I’ll feel obligated to fill in each day. Also, it’s way less heavy than the Cousin!

The weekly spread has a weather checker on the top of the bar, a mood checker on the lower bottom, and meal trackers in the last three rows of each column. I found those extras very functional and helpful to keep track of what I feel and eat very briefly. The timeline, which you can see, has a filled line and empty ones. It indicates when the sun rises and sets each day and it will change throughout the year! Since I don’t use the first 6 hours of the day to plan anything, I usually just write down how long I’ve slept in that space to keep track of my sleeping schedule. Yay for functionality!

The main journal has also many other pages like 2018 Goals, miscellaneous tracker, gifts received/given page, books/movie page, and others! It’s too many for me to take a picture of it one by one, but if you’re curious, you can always check Youtube review videos for better resolution of images and explanation!

The Life book

The life book is a really interesting concept for me since this is the first time I’ve had one. The anniversary spread basically just tracks down everything that occurs yearly. Birthdays, anniversaries, events, etc. I find this very useful since I won’t need to rewrite everyone’s birthday each year in a new journal and can just refer to this one instead!

This spread is supposed to be filled in with events that have occurred in your lifetime, be it personal, family, or world events. Honestly, I didn’t know what to do with these pages because I don’t remember anything amazing that had happened to me and needed to be noted lol. So I just wrote things like graduating from high school and enrolling to a university in my 19th year of the spread lol.

This is really interesting but I still haven’t been able to fill those boxes in because I’m still not sure if I feel the need to haha. It starts from your grandfather and grandmother, then your parents, and then yourself. It continues down until your grandchildren’s generation, which I think will be … fun? (If I do have children in the future. But, eh…)

Last but not least,

Jibun Techo’s height is pretty much the same as the Weeks, but it’s a bit wider. The weight is also similar if you take out both the Life and Idea booklets out of the cover. Price wise, Jibun Techo is just a bit pricier at ￥3780 (Starter kit + Amazon limited edition, free shipping) while the Hobo Weeks cost me ￥3596 (the main planner, cover, pencil board, and the freaking ￥756 shipping cost). If I were to only buy the main planner without the life and idea books, it would be much cheaper than Hobonichi and you get to get the same quality planner. The cover of Jibun Techo might be too plain for some people, though, so they might prefer Hobo’s beautiful covers. But in the end, it’s up to your preference of journaling that leads to your buying decision!

What do you think of the planner? If you use a similar type of planner, how are you using them to organize your day? Feel free to share in the comments!

I finally placed my Hobonichi order on the 24th while I was still back in my home country. It took them just three days to ship the thing off and one day for it to reach my apartment! The package reached my place exactly one day after I returned to Japan so I was really hyped!

If you’ve read the post I made about 2018’s line-up impressions, you would know that this cover wasn’t originally inside the list of covers that caught my eye. To be honest, I just bought this cover on a whim because all three covers that I had my eye on got sold out before I could place my order. But to be honest, I was so glad I purchased this cover after I got to see it and feel the material directly. It’s just simply gorgeous.

This tori-to-hana cover (lit. bird and flower) is a collaboration cover together with a brand named minä perhonen, a Japanese fashion brand. Each year, they produce a different cover together but I was never really interested in their designs. To be honest, I never would’ve wanted to purchase a cotton-type cover because it’s hard to maintain, however, I find that this cover’s color combination is really soothing for me. The insides of the cover are made of synthetic leather, giving it a unique touch.

At first, I thought that the embroideries on this cover would be rough, but it’s actually really soft and smooth it really feels satisfying to feel it on your hands. The dotted lace bookmarks are beautiful on its own as well, but I found a little problem caused by this which will be discussed more below.

Moving on to the planners. This year I decided to try out the avec version of the planners that Hobonichi has. I found out that my current 2017 planner was too chunky for me to bring out and I always end up leaving it in my drawer. Avec planners are divided into two, so it’s lighter and slimmer as well.

As usual, Hobonichi will give you bonus goodies for purchasing their planner online. This year’s goodies consists of a fluorescent yellow ballpoint and a meal decider dice. I love the pens provided by Hobonichi since they’re easy to write with. The dice, however, will remain untouched just like the toaster plate they give out for 2017.

Since this cover has lace bookmarks, it’s thicker than the usual bookmark they have. It ended up creating that somewhat big gap between the pages when I tried to close the book. It was disturbing when I found out at first because my planner couldn’t close flatly, but I’ve learned to bear with it lol.

So that’s it for the unboxing + mini review. I hope you find those poorly taken photos satisfying for your needs. Overall, I’m really pleased with the service and delivery for this year since it was processed really quick (as usual). This planner cover might be the most expensive one that I’ve purchased, but the quality does not fail me at all! I’m looking forward to using this cover in 2018 and find out what 2019 (I know it’s still far, but time flies) will offer!