2025 Planning + Journaling

While journaling has long been an integral part of my life, it’s come in different forms over the years as my needs and preferences changed: sometimes I’ll stop planning and journaling for a bit, and sometimes I’ll be doing multiple entries in a day, which probably helps when you’re mostly digital journaling and not worrying about space in a notebook. I’m sure I’d run through my notebooks faster instead of shuffling them off to new homes a few years later as my tastes change.

2022-2025 was my most recent break for bullet journaling; 2022 was the year my job at the time went to a hybrid environment, so I no longer needed the setup I had at the time and therefore fell out of it until 2025, when I picked up journaling (of the non-digital variety) again.

I didn’t keep track for 2023 or 2024, unfortunately, so I won’t go too much into detail as I normally would (this is already going to be long), but let’s jump into things that didn’t change throughout that time before going into 2025’s setup and potential changes for 2026!

*I know everyone likes doing their new year setup around this time (and that’s totally fine!), but I’m kind of the opposite and like looking back at what I’ve used in the past year, reflecting on that and doing a really quick overview of what I plan to use next year, because knowing me, it’ll change as my needs change.

Things That Didn’t Change

Journey

The Journey app has been a huge part of my journaling life and it’s truly wild how it’s been almost a decade since I first discovered the app and started using it. The app can be synced across different devices, so I have it as an app on my phone in case I need a moment to journal.

Throughout the rest of 2022 and through 2024, it became a constant companion for venting my frustrations of life and burnout from work. It was used on a pretty daily basis when I got laid off in early 2024 and was navigating the constant barrage of verbal abuse for months* while I was searching for a new job. Needless to say, it was an extremely rough year for me.

*Listen, I understand ‌my mom’s standpoint on why she was nagging constantly on a daily basis. She was probably stressed as well and I just so happened to be the one readily available to take anything out on. That doesn’t eliminate the hurt, though.

Eventually it became a place where I would save memes and reels that I felt were relevant to my thoughts and moods, or just keeping a record of my experiences for myself so I knew later on if I got gaslit or the story got changed to fit another narrative, I would still have my own personal record that can’t be muddied up. It’ll have my experiences and feelings down I won’t have to question, because my experiences and feelings are just as valid as anyone else’s including those that try to change the narrative or try to invalidate me.

Given that it’s digital, I have the option to edit, but I don’t edit unless it’s to add an additional to the entry or continue an entry that I started a few minutes ago. I try to treat it as close to an actual notebook as possible – but with endless space.

In 2025 it became a place mostly for memory keeping and venting. I used it much less as the year went on, though, aside from saving photos of my work displays, especially once I started picking up physical journaling again, but I still use it when I need to get my thoughts down. I type faster than I write, which works perfectly when my brain is also running fast and therefore won’t care for decorating pages. As such, I keep my entries minimal outside of super basic formatting (italics, bold, lists) even though I paid for the lifetime membership (when it first became a thing; I believe the price has increased since) and have access to format as I wish – it’s very stream of consciousness, “getting my thoughts down and don’t look back.”

Habitica

Habitica and I have a complicated relationship where I’ll abandon it for a while and then pick it back up again. 2025 was one of those years where I had an on and off relationship with Habitica constantly, though I tried to log on at least once or twice a week.

It’s still needing cleanup from 2024’s information and tasks and while I did do a little bit of it already, I just haven’t found the motivation to get around to updating, and lately I haven’t been logging into Habitica at all aside from every few weeks. This might change in 2026, though, we’ll see.

What’s Out

I’m a firm believer that your planning and journaling needs will change as your needs and planning styles change, and that unfortunately means some things will get abandoned. I’ve been trying to get better at not beating myself up over it.

Bullet journaling was the first thing I dropped in 2022 when I started working from home part of the week (it was more like a slow, dying abandonment). Most of the time was spent at home, so I didn’t need to carry around the setup I had, and I didn’t have the energy to keep up with it as I was also starting to burn out at work. I could have done a minimal setup, but my setup was already somewhat minimal (I had a running weekly to-do) and it wasn’t working. I loved the blackout journal, though, and I think I’ll carry that into a different part of my system at some point in the future – it just won’t be for bullet journaling.

I don’t think I’ll pick up bullet journaling again at the moment, mostly because my planning needs have changed since I was in college and as I’ve changed jobs and industries. It’s possible I’ll pick it up one day again, though, as I’ve still got a long run as a hamster in the working wheel.

Despite how cute and wholesome it is, I stopped using Finch around 2024? I used it for a bit, but over time it became less and eventually I just stopped. I’m not sure when or if I’ll pick it up again, though. Probably not. I think Finch came around in my life when I needed it and it has completed its purpose in my life at the moment.

I also stopped using Notion as well, mostly because I haven’t been reading any webtoons lately so there wasn’t a need to keep track of those. I’ll likely pick it up again* if I get back into webtoons more regularly (and reading them on more than one platform), but since a lot of them are starting to become published, I’ve been picking those up at work instead. I kept track of my blogging and ARCs on Notion as well, but I’ve sort of moved into a “post when I feel like” vibe nor have I been requesting ARCs as much if any, so I haven’t been using it for that.

*I’m not a fan of Notion leaning heavily into AI so I might just scrap it completely. I never was a huge fan of the lag.

The Set Up and Thoughts for 2025

2025 is probably the first year that I have multiple notebooks for different things, and it mostly came about because of my washi tape collection growing quite a bit* and I needed a way to use them more often. It might seem like I carry all of these around with me on a daily basis, but I actually only carry 1 around, maybe 1-2 others.

*Understatement. It’s actually grown large enough that I’m thinking of doing a stationery ban for 2026.

Commonplace Book

I first heard about the Commonplace Book for a humanities class during my first semester in college, where we had to fill one during the time. The assignment was simple: we could fill it however we wanted – song lyrics, quotes, random observations, even regular journaling.

It’s probably one of my favorite assignments since I mostly used my Commonplace Book as a journal to process some events that happened near the end of my senior year of high school and therefore filled it rather quickly (I needed ideas and that was it; the assignment didn’t say otherwise). I wish I continued it after that class since it would’ve been fun to see how things have changed over the years, though I suppose I did in a way since I was using it as a journal.

One of my favorite things about ebooks is getting to highlight quotes, and I wanted to start collecting them; a lot of the time, the quotes that resonate most to me are a snapshot of what I’m going through at the time or how I’m feeling. Around the end of 2024, I thought starting a Commonplace book in 2025 would be good to collect those quotes, and possibly use it in my therapy sessions.

I keep it pretty simple: there’s no reflections about each quote since I planned on dating each page with the month and doing a yearly cover page to divide things up, and because the quotes generally reflect my mood, I’d have my regular journal for more in depth details about what was going on in my life and why the quote(s) spoke to me at the time I recorded it.

I also opted out of not doing an index page, because I knew color coding and doing a key would be too much for me and will therefore ruin the enjoyment for me, which would result in me abandoning the notebook quickly. Keeping the yearly cover page and marking each page with the month was enough for me.

I stopped keeping track of the month around February, though, since it started feeling like too much because I was recording the quotes through other ways and I’d just forget about it.

I also went from an A5 notebook to a B6 notebook around September, since I didn’t like how it wasn’t portable (which didn’t help in remembering to add them in), and the notebook uses Tomoe River paper which makes the notebook thinner due to the really thin paper. In the B6 one, I actually went back to tracking when I came across the quote, and I’ve been using some of the tiny icons from The Coffee Monsterz Co and the mini kitties from Ellen’s Journals to track where the quote came from. That’s about as close to an index I’ve gone, and that works for me currently.

I will say that towards the end of November I’ve kind of slid off again, though, since I don’t always keep this notebook with me even if I intend to. November was also when I was carrying around more notebooks since I’m working on part of my 2026 setup and I just didn’t have the room for it in my bag and backpack.

Monthly Planner

I realized I needed a planner shortly after getting promoted to full-time at the library since part of my job as a full-timer included programming, and I needed a way to keep track of which programs I was running and when programs had to be pitched. This wasn’t an immediate need, though, since I wasn’t taking on programming right away, but it was something that I knew I needed at some point before I became more of a walking mess than I already am.

One thing I learned from bullet journaling is that daily pages didn’t work for me as far as planning goes; I didn’t have enough tasks to warrant a need for daily pages, and I didn’t like rewriting tasks each day. While I went with weekly pages, I also found I didn’t use it that often either – most of the time my tasks remained the same throughout the week with little to no changes. I did go for a weekly running task list and that worked for a bit and eased the stress a little, but I didn’t feel the need for it either as a full-timer.

I could use those daily and weekly pages as a journal or memory keeping, but my brain could never wrap around putting planning and journaling together so I prefer keeping them firmly separate. Maybe my brain just thinks planning is disposable and ever changing and more volatile to crossing out (and brings a little satisfaction while doing so) while journaling is more permanent and less volatile. But also the perfectionist in me really hates striking things all over the place in a journal — like I don’t mind the occasional striking out and personally do it because it’s part of the journaling process, but I don’t like it everywhere if that makes sense.

What I did need, however, was a monthly overview with reminders of the going ons in my life: ideally this would be a monthly calendar that would be made a few months ahead of time (about 3) and then a 2-page spread for notes and upcoming things that I needed to keep at the forefront of mind for each month. I would maybe check it once a week or two weeks, but it would be the thing that I would check/update the least since my schedule remains mostly the same. If I forgot to check it for a month, then it would still be fine. It’s something I would carry with me on a daily basis and have at the ready to mark things in, but it won’t be in my hand all the time like my journal.

Five Year Diary

Initially, I wished I started this on January 1 because the book starts then and I kind of like how it’s a nice start to the year. But I also like not having to worry about the holiday delays in the postal system if I start in the middle of the year…

Anyway, I decided to undergo the challenge of keeping a five year diary (sometimes called memory book) around April, but I didn’t get started until May (and unfortunately my first entry is about the St. Louis tornado, so that’s fun). I started with the intention of keeping the daily highlights of my journal (which at the time was solely through the Journey app as I’ve not yet started the physical one yet) and possibly decorating the day with washi tape or stickers depending on mood.

It’s a small book (about A6 size), and I found that while I enjoyed the concept of a five year diary, I also hated the size of it, so I stopped at the end of July. There was a fair amount of abandoning it slowly over time before I got to that point. I wanted to utilize my 20+mm washi tape more, which takes up the entirety of the space in the A6; I wouldn’t be able to put in a highlight of the day or anything if I wanted to use those washi tapes occasionally. I wanted to put in the song I was currently listening to on loop, the book that I finished for the day, or maybe an anticipated sequel release – the amount of space in an A6 just wasn’t working for me if I wanted to do all of those options.

And so began the hunt for a bigger Five Year Diary throughout August, because I wanted to see if the size was the issue, or if it was the long term commitment that would be required.

Most of the ones I found had pages that I didn’t want to include like contact information or dates to remember or didn’t have enough space, so I genuinely thought of grabbing a notebook or two and creating my own – if I could find a notebook with at least 365 pages! I knew a standard 160-192 pages with two days covered each page wouldn’t work – I might as well return to the A6 size then.

The Hobonichi Five Year was something I considered, but I’ve never used Tomoe River paper, and I’m not sure I’m a fan of paper that’s 52gsm* – but maybe I’m just used to 120gsm or higher (usually 160gsm). Mostly, I didn’t want to deal with the quotes at the end of the page, and I didn’t like some of the pre-printed stuff regarding favorites (even though I’m not sure what I want on those pages instead just yet). And I definitely didn’t need any contact information pages or tracking gifts.

*This was a paper I considered for my Commonplace Book while searching for where my Notebook Therapy notebook went before I found said notebook and ultimately went with that one.

I ended up settling with a B6 one from Sterling Ink about a month later (the previous softcover, not the current hardcover; that one released a month after I got mine). They didn’t have the A5 one in stock and portability won in the end for me.

I love how there’s some pages at the beginning and then additional pages at the end for spillover, but I especially love how it doesn’t have the years like the others do for flexibility. Each day is divided into five equal sections for the year, but I can easily get into the next year a little bit without having to worry what it looks like. With the additional pages, I have a lot more flexibility.

I started the bigger one on my 28th birthday, which I thought was a more fun milestone than January 1.

Washi Tape Notebook

This one is actually a fairly recent addition. Originally when I got my Five Year, I wanted to keep track of my washi collection and how it would change over the years with the 2025 collection at the beginning pages and then anything additional at the end of the notebook working backwards since I’d run into space problems otherwise. There’s no way I can guess how many pages I would use just for washi tape in five years. 

One day I came across a Reddit post where someone was showcasing their washi tape journal and I kind of had a moment of, “why didn’t I think of this sooner?”

I had a few different options regarding what kind of notebook I wanted to use for this: 

1. One of my A5 notebooks – Realistically, would I actually have a large enough collection to fill up 192 pages? No. I think by then I have a problem, so I’d like to not think I’ll ever get there. I also realized not long after that I wanted it to be portable and my A5 notebooks are very much not portable as I learned from my first Commonplace Book that I abandoned.
2. Discbound – I could categorize how I wanted to categorize and add pages in as I wanted or as my collection grew, and I could also remove pages as I wanted. It felt like too much effort the more I thought about it, though. The discs don’t make it entirely portable either unless I swap to smaller discs, but then we circle back around to “too much effort.”

I ended up settling with a B6 notebook I found that I originally intended to use next year as my monthly planner after I finished my current one. There’s nothing special I do with this one: I just do a line of washi and write the name of it if I remember or can locate it, the place I got it from/the artist and the year I got it. If it’s from a third party seller where I paid more to get the item, I made note of it so I knew to prioritize it less when making samples to give to friends. (That sounds awful of me, but I mostly wanted to make sure I’m actually using those more often and not giving it all away unless I truly wasn’t using it much.)

Most of them were acquired in 2025. 😅

Daily Logging/Memory Keeping

I didn’t intend to start a physical journal, but I was finding that I didn’t like the size and spacing in the A6 Five Year Diary. There wasn’t enough space to cover what I wanted to remember, and I was finding that I couldn’t use washi tape or stickers (especially the bigger ones) – and that ruined some joy and keeping up.

Originally, though, I did intend to use it as a supplement for my regular journaling on the Journey app and the memory book. I actually wanted to use up more of my washi tape collection and some of my stickers that were just sitting in a drawer, but it ended up being one I carry around with me on a regular basis.

I don’t do any extensive journaling here – I keep a bulleted list of the things that happened throughout the day and decorate to my heart’s desire. Sometimes I had a theme and kept to it throughout the month, other times there’s no particular theme. I make my pages ahead of time so I can simply write in it and not have to worry about doing it every day, though there are some elements I wait until I actually get to the day.

It helped with keeping up with my Five Year initially since I could skip doing those pages and just flip back through later and pick out what I felt was the most important, but that, unfortunately, didn’t last long. However, once I switched to the larger B6 Five Year that I currently have, I find I’m having less trouble when I have to skip a day or two.

I did find that it helps with my therapy sessions every two weeks since it’s a more condensed version of the going ons in my life without being too condensed and if I did need more context, I usually had the rest of it elsewhere I could easily reference to.

(For privacy reasons, I edited out all the text from the two photos showing entries. Click photos for enlarged version.)

Possible Changes for 2026

Originally the changes I was going to implement for my Commonplace Book and Five Year Diary were going to start in 2026, but I decided to make those changes in 2025 instead of waiting until the end of the year and suffering through the rest of the year.

So far I’m planning on keeping most of what I have, though I’m considering going back to a physical journal in 2026 and ditching digital completely. While I use the Journey app for digital journaling, I’ve also not been using it as much since I started my five year memory book and keeping a daily notebook for memory keeping (logging the things I did each day), although part of that likely could just be things going on in my life and not having enough energy, which could potentially change next year. It’s also possible I have easier access to my actual journal than my digital one, and as a result I’m going to favor that one.

I got a daily planner* from Sterling Ink’s 2026 journal lineup after a lot of consideration — I was hesitant on it for a few reasons: 

• I have a few other blank A5 notebooks I want to use up first.
• 2025’s experience with the Tomoe River paper (if you follow the planner community or use a Hobonichi) was not received very well, so there’s some wariness.
  • I don’t mind ghosting, but bleeding is a hard no for me. That being said, I do have my Spy x Family pencil boards I got for other notebooks that I’m planning on using with this, so if there’s bleeding then it’ll get on the pencil board and I can wash it off since I use water based inks usually. Sadly, I wouldn’t be able to use the other side.
• It’s not cheap, and I’m trying to save up for personal reasons in 2026 (plus trying to save up for a rainy day again since my car repair took out all my savings earlier this year…). If I abandon it, that’s $50+ down the drain, even if I use the notebook for general writing purposes.
  • I know another perspective on this is learning that this doesn’t work for me and therefore it’s a worthy investment — it’s a valid way to look at it, but it is also a tad dismissive for someone who has some negative feelings regarding money.

*This link goes to their undated daily planner, mostly because I’ll probably forget to update the link when the 2027 lineup comes out. So I’m doing this for future Hannah.

A Hobonichi A5 Cousin was something I considered and went back and forth on internally — the 2026 lineup has some really nice covers from their Colors line that very much fit my vibe (namely Ivy Forest and Black + Clear Blue), but the covers unfortunately weren’t being sold individually. I was definitely not forking out $100 for a book and cover just for the sole purpose of getting the cover. But did I want to use a Hobonichi for a year? Would I be okay with the quirks of the Hobonichi just so I can reuse the cover when I switch?

The weekly layouts being included was the deal breaker for me. I had zero need for the weeklies currently because the things I would mostly likely track were already being tracked in my Five Year (media watched, books read, song stuck in my head) or regular journal so it would just be a duplicate, ones I had no desire to track, or would put me on a fast track to abandoning.

Additionally, I’m generally not a huge fan of fabric covers — I feel like they’re so bulky even when I put nothing in the pockets or they’re just in my way and I didn’t want to take out my notebook from the cover every single time. I’ve yet to decide if I have an issue with trifolds or if it’s all covers, though, since all of the ones I’ve had issues with were trifolds. I’ve personally enjoyed the glitter clear cover I have on my Five Year and feel it’s sufficient, however, I don’t bring it outside of the house all that much — maybe once or twice or month when I really need to catch up on entries.

I’m planning on treating my Daily Planner like I did with my journal, though I might convert to actually writing full on entries each day rather than a bulleted list. Maybe I’ll do both, depending on how I’m feeling.

I liked how I decorated pages ahead of time in my notebook so I don’t have to worry about doing it each day, so I’m planning on doing that here as well. I think doing that will help me not abandon it since my brain would think, “oh no big deal to write a few sentences/paragraphs about the day and maybe decorate with a couple stickers” instead of “so I have to write about my day and pull out my stickers and washi with the full nine yards???” It also helps me with using my stationery collection since I’m considering going on stationery no buy for 2026.

Final Thoughts

This ended up being a longer post than I thought it would be! I might do something different next year, we’ll see (I’d say that’s a future Hannah problem but next year is quite literally in two days…).

My favorite thing about 2025 is discovering B6 notebooks. I was concerned about the lack of space, and I still like A5 journals (since those are highly popular and accessible in comparison) but it actually turned out to be one of my favorite sizes. I’ve started growing an appreciation for them throughout the year since they’re portable and a bit lighter without sacrificing too much space – I honestly wish it was a more popular size.

2025 also brought about figuring out how I actually like my planners: working as reminders and overviews and something to look at not very regularly – nothing else beyond that. Apparently that’s difficult to find out there? There’s so many that are weekly or daily and while I won’t deny they aren’t helpful to have for most people, it’s just not for me.

2026 brings some more experimentation, though I kind of have a better idea of what I like currently. I did want to share some of my setup for 2026, too, but I’m likely going to change it up before the end of the year or early next year, so I think I’ll stick with my usual routine of sharing at the end of the year since I can’t change my mind unless I somehow have a time machine. 😂