A Look Inside Hobonichi Techo Weeks | How To Set Up A Hobonichi Techo Weeks
Why does the Hobonichi Techo have a cult following?
The Hobonichi Techo brand debuted in 2001 and now has users in over 100 countries and regions and all-time sales surpassing 10 million copies. They consider themselves a Life book that is meant to cater to your life and style by providing users with the freedom to use their pages as they wish!
From their original version to the Cousin, HON, Weeks and Weeks Mega, they've developed different sizes and styles to adapt to their user's needs.
As someone who has lived and loved an analog lifestyle for their whole life, I can confidently say I have tried and tested dozens and dozens of different planners before discovering the Hobonichi Weeks that I now call my planner soulmate.
The Secret Is In the Paper, Tomoe River Paper
The pages of all the Hobonichis feature Tomoe River Paper (pronounced as "toe-moh-eh") that is a thin and durable paper specially designed for planners. It's known for its ability to hold ink well and provide a smooth writing experience. By far one of the selling points of this planner was how much I enjoy writing on the pages!
The size of the Hobonichi Weeks feels more portable for every day use for me and of course the huge selection of cover designs add a lot of fun to choosing one annually. This planner is a January start version but provides you with a December monthly and weekly spreads for the month to get started which I find very generous!
It features a weekly horizontal layout with the weekly pages on the left and grid memo pages on the right. The back of the planner also provides you with graph memo pages for note-taking at the end of the book.
For my personal monthly spreads, I chose to use it more for fun as a doodle-a-day and photo-a-day. There is a lot of extra room on the margins and bottom for notes or important dates and events too.
A Look Inside The Hobonichi Techo Weeks and Weekly Spreads Ideas
The weekly spreads have the perfect amount of space for me to customize each week. I use the left side as a place to keep track of anything time sensitive + general daily actionable items. I use the right side as a combo of mini gratitude list, weekly to do dump, habit tracking and end each week with a weekly recap.
I've been finding so much joy in mapping each week out with a fun color palette or color scheme and I love having an excuse to use my enormous stash of washi tapes, stickers and other stationery supplies!
*A disclaimer that not every single week looks as fun as these! Some spreads have been more minimal if it's a busy week or if one or more of my little girl gang are feeling under the weather etc. The two weeks we were in Singapore do not have any to dos so I used the left page to jot down a quick summary of each day and will use the right side to fill with small photos of that week!
There Is No Limit To Your Hobonichi Techo - Ideas For Your Note Pages
The back of the Hobonichi Weeks features even more Tomoe River paper in graph form (my favorite type and style of paper is graph paper!) I've used it as a place to do a personal goal list, shop goal list, birthday tracker and even swatched fountain pen inks which held up really well (the creases in the sheets are just from me tossing this planner around not from the inks!)
Other ideas include:
Wish lists
Current writing utensil swatch pages
Annual best of lists
Current daily routine
Notable social current events
Accessories For Your Hobonichi Techo
While not a necessity, there are 3 additional items I would recommend if you get a Hobonichi Weeks for 2026. A pencil board is a must to give myself a flat surface to write on as well as use the straight edge to draw crisp lines!
I also added a clear cover which helped preserve the integrity of cutie Paddington.
Last but not least, to keep my planner close I tied an elastic band around it as a loop and added a few cute charms!
I hope you found this blog post helpful and a little more in-depth to why I cannot recommend this planner enough. As a small business owner, a mom, creative person who has very limited time, this planner really does it all!