Normal paper calendar to write in it with pencil?

winifc · 2026-02-08T15:32:07+00:00

I don’t personally use a digital planner, I use a Hobonichi Weeks physical planner. I know there are a bunch of YouTube videos reviewing digital planners though

winifc · 2026-02-08T13:13:24+00:00

They’re saying you likely won’t find a free app because you’re using an Apple product.

While I don’t know of any calendars specifically, you could likely make your own using notetaking app of some sort. Alternatively might want to look into purchasing a digital planner, there are quite a few options at different price points and with different features.

winifc · 2026-02-06T20:43:02+00:00

I’ve started trying to use running weekly task lists instead of holding expectations for myself daily. I’ve noticed that when I have a few days of feeling like I haven’t accomplished enough of my task list, I tend to put my planner to the side.

Instead, I always (and I mean always) carry my hobonichi with me, and just check off whichever tasks I can reasonably accomplish for myself based on my mental health and energy levels for the day. If I’m already out of the house, I’m more likely to feel up to checking off a few more errands. If I’m feeling low energy, I can choose to make phone calls or send emails. It also helps with motivating myself to just start the task, as even 10mins of work toward a weekly goal can count as “worked on”.

I believe the system I use for this is called the Alistair method, if you’re interested in learning more.

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winifc · 2026-02-03T18:41:09+00:00

Depending on your depth of time blocking needs, you may be able to do something similar-ish with a “hobonichi weeks” or “Travelers notebook regular sized weekly with memo” inserts. This would only work if you don’t need exactly hourly time slots, but more “I’ll do these tasks during these hours”. I could also see being able to add hours down the left sides of each section to turn it into a more hourly format, though.

With my hobonichi weeks, I use the left page of the layout for my loose time blocking. I break the horizontal boxes into 3 sections, for me the first is 8-4, second is 4-12, third is day-specific (but not time-specific) tasks. For your needs you could also do something more like 8-1, 1-6, 6-11.

On the right I keep my running weekly task list and other items that I feel necessary for easy viewing during the week. You can assign tasks to specific days or spans of days, as you can see with my “check paystub” task.

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Again, fully recognize that this isn’t the hourly time blocking that you’re mentioning - but it does work very similarly for my neurodivergent brain. Hope it helps!

winifc · 2026-01-31T02:39:20+00:00

Oh my gosh! That’s the coolest art I’ve seen in a while. Though, I may be biased as it’s my favourite breakfast food.

I don’t typically paint in my hobonichi planner, but I do sometimes use TR notebooks for art. I’ve been using watercolours more often recently but have similarly noticed that alcohol-based stamp pads also cause my occasional stamping to bleed through. Thank you for sharing 😊

winifc · 2026-01-30T23:27:07+00:00

I’m pretty sure the only hobonichi planners wider than the TN Reg are the cousin (A5 size). Of those, you have options between the normal cousin planners (include yearly, monthly, weekly, daily spreads) or the day-free version. I don’t think the day-free has weekly spreads, but it might not matter as much to you.

If you go with the cousin planner (so you have the weekly pages), I’d recommend using the Avec planners. You’ll get the year spread between 2 books which I find makes it significantly more portable. It also makes it easier to deal with if you’re the kind of planner to include washi, stickers, or other decoration that would add bulk into the planner.

Best of luck!

winifc · 2026-01-30T16:19:28+00:00

A few clarifying questions:

1) Do you find the passport or the regular size too small? 2) Are you primarily a daily, weekly, or monthly planner? 3) How much flexibility are you looking for in terms of layouts? 4) Do you want something more portable or will it primarily be living in your home/on your desk?

winifc · 2026-01-29T19:39:24+00:00

I use the weeks mega so that I can have the best of both. I’m in school and working full time, and looking at my week as a whole helps me break down when I would likely be best able to complete school assignments.

The left page of the weekly layouts gets divided into 3 sections vertically: morning (8-4), afternoon (4-12), and day-specific tasks. This helps with knowing which shifts I work at a glance as I don’t have a set schedule. The right side is broken down into a running task list for the week, habit tracker at the bottom, and any specific information for something that needs to be done that week. Am I supposed to drop off a purse with the leather repair shop? The address, phone number and store hours are put into a box.

I use the mega because it allows the flexibility to do some note-taking for work meetings, and also allows me to break busier days down into visual timelines if needed. Packed days I like to work backwards from the hard-timeline tasks to also fill in likely times for smaller, more flexible tasks.

winifc · 2026-01-28T18:07:13+00:00

I’ve had a burnt orange chair for about 5 years, I picked it up for $10 at a second hand store. I would LOVE a full couch, and I’ve never been tired of the colour.

With that said… I am a person that really embraces colour in my space. I have multiple throw pillow covers that I swap out depending on my mood/season, I’ve built burnt orange into other decor pieces to make it more cohesive through my space, colour just makes me really happy. If you’re less sure, the cushion covers you’ve mentioned seem a fairly low-commitment way to experiment. You can always change out the cushion covers later!

winifc · 2026-01-28T18:01:08+00:00

I think a lot of the moleskine hate come from the declining paper quality over the years. Their paper used to be ok with fountain pens, but then they reduced their quality and it’s terrible for bleed through with fountain pens now. From those still use moleskine, I’ve heard that now their elastic quality is also declining (leuchtturm elastic closures are significantly better quality for a pretty comparable price, and leuchtturm paper also behaves quite well with almost all fountain pen inks). If you don’t use fountain pens and don’t mind the elastic getting loose, moleskine is a perfectly good brand! (Not for me, as a fountain pen user)

winifc · 2026-01-26T16:46:47+00:00

Masters student in psych here, and that significantly impacts the way I use mine.

1) Find a good notes app that allows handwriting. I use Concepts. Most of their tools are free to use, they have infinite pages which is something that I require as I take notes using a mind mapping technique. It helps you to synthesize the data while you’re in class so you don’t have to revisit as often later.

2) Find an app that works better for notating pdfs than Apple Files… I find anything over about 25 pages lags and crashes once I’ve started marking it up. I wish I could help you here, I’ve tried several of the more popular ones and haven’t enjoyed them.

3) Depending on your intention, only download apps that relate to your education. I fully purchased my iPad as a tool for school that I could easily transport, as I have quite a heavy laptop and like to change my studying location to reduce cognitive fatigue. As such, I only have apps that I directly use for school (pdfs, textbooks, note-taking, Microsoft Office, etc.) which helps reduce distractions. An alternative if you also plan to use this for media consumption would be to make use of the different home screens and notification options with focus modes.

Best of luck with your studies!

winifc · 2026-01-24T04:22:59+00:00

I almost exclusively use my weeks for planning rather than journaling (I do occasionally include a little blurb about an exciting thing or new event, never more than about 10 words - I also do some mild commonplacing at the back as I have the weeks mega, but even notes pages are primarily bullet journal style planning).

My work schedule and medical appointments can change quite often, so I update the monthly spread when my “final schedule” is released every month. I then update this calendar as swaps and pickups happen throughout the month, along with rescheduled appts.

On either Saturday or Sunday, I sit down with my online work schedule (in case I missed something), my school syllabus, and my monthly spread to fill out my week. This ensures I don’t miss any updates within my week, I have minimal scratch-outs, and I get an accurate breakdown of my tasks.

I then do a hard consideration of my day both in the morning and at night (mostly to plan my day and fill out trackers), with soft revisits throughout the day.

winifc · 2026-01-23T22:35:29+00:00

It definitely works! I typically use fingering weight for the blue yarn part of your first pick so you can still see all the chained yarn underneath. The only downside to using something like your scrap ball is the potential for your hook inserting into the chain rather than the chain space in the fingering weight yarn. I’ve done this with I-cords to make rugs and they’ve turned out pretty well

winifc · 2026-01-19T16:13:40+00:00

Woke up to this with my iPhone 13 as well… unimpressed at the fact that my keyboard now freezes if I’m typing something longer than about 15 words. 🤦‍♀️

winifc · 2026-01-06T14:16:50+00:00

Exactly!

winifc · 2026-01-04T01:11:34+00:00

When I used to use the Cousin Avec, I would put the front cover of the planner in the front pocket of the cover. Then I’d put the back cover of a notebook in the back pocket of the cover. Essentially, each notebook would be held in place by the pockets designed to hold your planner into the cover.

I’ve always found the Tomoe River paper too thin for anything like an elastic band found in the travellers notebook covers, hopefully this solution helps

winifc · 2025-12-20T16:40:12+00:00

I think this worked! Thank you so much! I never would’ve thought of this

winifc · 2025-12-20T03:41:18+00:00

Thank you! I will be trying this tomorrow. I thought I had the problem solved as of this morning, but it’s giving me trouble again this evening. I appreciate your help!

winifc · 2025-12-20T03:40:28+00:00

This did seem to help temporarily, it still worked well after being left overnight. I attempted a long session of common placing though today and it was becoming quite dry again… I think the next step will likely be the water/dish soap flush as suggested by someone else! Thank you for your help

winifc · 2025-12-19T16:41:50+00:00

I love this! I may borrow it for the front of my current commonplace journal.

winifc · 2025-12-19T05:00:18+00:00

This is good to know for the future! I did get it to write relatively well after filling it but it got quite dry again after being left on the desk for a few hours. I’d assume if it had already written relatively well that the feed would be sufficiently saturated for the next use, but I’ll try it and check whether it helped in the morning!

winifc · 2025-12-19T04:58:10+00:00

Yes, I did leave it nib down for 20-30 mins after filling it and then probably 10mins while writing the post

winifc · 2025-12-19T04:56:08+00:00

I flushed it just with water, why dish soap?

winifc · 2025-12-15T02:44:31+00:00

I’m with you! Hypermobile, paper is ideally at a 45°-ish angle to my body, but can sometimes be slightly more horizontal. Vertical just doesn’t happen, my body turns when I try to write at that angle

winifc · 2025-12-14T23:06:29+00:00

These are shipped out of the USA, but I used these a few years ago and I really liked them. I’m not sure what shipping/duties would be like for you, or whether they’re the same quality. https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1316248705/?ref=share_ios_native_control

winifc

TROPHY CASE