2026 TECHO KAIGI

it’s that time of the year. with 2025 having ended and 2026 bringing in a new year of possibility, now’s the time to declare my—as the tiktok kids would say—”journaling ecosystem.” but typically, within the journaling/planner circles, especially when approaching the beginning of the new year, it’s called a techo kaigi. 

what is a techo kaigi? i’ve previously explained that it’s a meeting with yourself to determine the planners and notebooks you’ll be using for the new year. i typically don’t like sharing a techo kaigi especially when i used to be the kind of person that experimented with several planners and notebooks, only to abandon most of them a month later. but i figured i’d share mine here since most of it are stuff i’ve already been habitually using. 

MY MAIN ROTATION

1) TRAVELER'S NOTEBOOK: MY DAILY DRIVER

carrying around my main techo last year has taught me that i absolutely love writing in a slim, narrow size. what i used before was the same size as a hobonichi weeks, but i found the page size to be a bit too small for me. this isn’t my first rodeo with the traveler’s notebook system, but i found myself loving my olive TN less and less as it continued to age in an unpleasant brown versus the moss green i expected. so i went on etsy and bought myself a new cover from a leatherworking shop in ukraine, and i’m already in love with the way the patina is developing on it.

i have three inserts in it: the sterling ink monthly and weekly horizontal booklets, as well as a 160-page tomoe river notebook from paper penguin co.

i’m using the monthly booklet as my future log, marking future events, bill due dates, deadlines, etc. there’s a few gridded pages at the end of the book, so i’m using those pages for long-term collections. so far, i’m planning to log how many books i’ve read, a wishlist for things i want to buy (but won’t decide until i wait a month), my grocery staples, ideas for my blog/website, and recipes i’m capable of cooking by myself.

the weekly booklet acts as my bullet journal’s daily logs. i plan out events and tasks on the left page, and i log what i did that day on the right, sectioning out space for each day. this is my bread and butter. if nothing else, i make sure to fill it out every day. 

as for the 160-page notebook, it’s basically a catch-all notebook. i journal, commonplace, doodle, sketch, whatever. it acts like an accessory to my ailing brain, allowing me to sort my mind and make my thoughts and feelings more coherent. i keep an index at the very back of the notebook like how one indexes a bullet journal, marking page numbers for stuff i’d probably want to refer back to later. 

i love it so much. it genuinely feels like an emotional support companion, and i love watching the patina develop on the cover as i continue to bring it everywhere with me.

2) A5 HOBONICHI GRAPH NOTEBOOK: MORNING PAGES

if you aren’t familiar with the concept, morning pages is the act of writing your stream of consciousness, three pages a day as recommended by julia cameron. right now, i’m trying to make it more manageable by reducing it down to one page a day with my hobonichi graph notebook.

but… i admit it. i was not good about doing morning pages in 2025. i left page after page an empty slate for months.

however, i’m happy to say that i’ve recently found the value in establishing a morning ritual that would encourage me to properly get into the habit. my sweet, sweet girlfriend heard me bemoan about how depressed i get during the winter season, so she gifted me a therapy lamp for christmas. so now, i get to spend my mornings sitting in front of the lamp for an hour. that gives me more than enough time to do my morning pages, and it’s especially made easier when it’s preferred not to use screens while using the lamp. i get to spend half an hour filling out an entire page, and the other half hour reading a book i borrowed from the public library. 

i started off doing this by re-dating my now-outdated hobonichi cousin, but sadly it fell apart near the end of january. (that's on me. i ripped out the weekly pages from it because i wasn't using them and that ruined the binding.) so i've moved into an A5 hobonichi graph notebook that i bought a few months ago, and it feels more satisfying to write in because i get extra space that would normally be taken up by hobonichi's daily quotes. i’m optimistic about keeping this up, so long as i have my lamp.

3) A6 HOBONICHI GRAPH NOTEBOOK: WALLET

i admit, this is the one thing where i don't feel entirely confident that i'll stick with it. but i found this old earthbound cover sitting in a box of other notebook covers i've been collecting, and it reminds me of the year where i began using the hobonichi techo for the first time and wrote in it every single day. (i've never accomplished this again since.)

but recently, i found that my traveler's notebook is a bit too heavy to use as my wallet. i've felt some irritating resistance taking it out and slipping off the elastic band to get my credit card out while juggling a heavy notebook in my hand. so i'm using this as a wallet, and also as a way to entertain myself with an analog outlet. if i'm bored and itch to use my phone while i'm away from home, i aim to take this out instead and write in it. i've included writing prompts to play with for both my original projects and fanfiction, so if i'm not sure what to do in this techo, i'll turn to one of these prompts.

this is also me trying to find a way to use my adorable uniball one p more often, as it doesn't fit in the pen loop on my traveler's notebook.

OTHER NOTEBOOKS I KEEP ON STANDBY

4) A5 STALOGY EDITOR'S 365DAYS NOTEBOOK: HANDWRITTEN FICTION

i love writing on a keyboard as much as any other writer, but writing words by hand is an incredibly useful tactic, especially when i feel creatively blocked. i usually like to give myself a scene i want to work on, time myself for thirty minutes or an hour, then write the scene by hand. i find less resistance in writing this way, as it lets me focus solely on writing without the allure of doing other things on my computer. this tends to yield me about 800 words per hour, which is pretty great! 

5) LIVE | PLAN | DREAM NOTEBOOK: RESOURCE GUIDE

i talked about this notebook in my last techo kaigi update, and i have to admit that i’ve fallen off from writing stuff in it. i still would like to try continue filling out this book. 

essentially, it acts as a personal guide of resources. i copy down articles and blog posts with tips on stuff that would benefit me, from mental health tips to productivity methods to accommodate my ADHD. my goal for this book is to eventually have a completely filled notebook that i can carry around with me idly read from to pass the time. it would definitely beat mindlessly scrolling on my phone. 

i’m not entirely confident that i’ll fill the whole thing by the end of the year, but i’ll try to be optimistic and make time to write in it.

6) HOBONICHI 5-YEAR TECHO: DIARY

i originally got this with the idea of daily writing my day-to-day events in mind. that clearly didn’t work out. but i won’t give up on it! i already log what i do every day anyway in my traveler’s notebook, so i plan for this to be a monthly task rather than a daily one. basically, i plan on coming back to it each month and backfilling the days by copying the entries i’ve written in my journal. 

it may sound tedious and unnecessary, but i really would like to have a single book containing five years worth of memories. fingers crossed i fufill this goal.

7) COMPOSITION BOOK: COMP BOOK

ever since i read syllabus by lynda barry in one sitting, i fell in love with the idea of keeping a "comp book" of my own. it's quite nostalgic, and reminds me of the amelia's notebook children's book series. her idea of the comp book is to write, draw, and paste anything you come across.

i find that i'm mainly sketching, but it's still a lot of fun. i don't use it as often as lynda barry wants from her students since i have other notebooks i'd rather fill in, but this has become such a delightful sketchbook for me. it helps that i only paid like three bucks for this notebook, so i feel more free to draw even if it turns out "bad."

thank you for taking the time to read all this! i hope it was interesting, and that it gave you some idea of what kind of notebook you’d like to keep in 2026. i highly recommend keeping a notebook of any sort. i think everyone could benefit from the act of writing things down. 

if you have any comments or questions, feel free to shoot me an email at ghostingpen@gmail.com — i would love to hear from you. i am more than happy to help others figure out a notebook system that suits their needs.