I’m nearly done with set up posts!

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This is what I get for having so many planners, I guess. Anyway, the final set up post for this year is my Hobonichi Cousin. Last year, I tried the Take A Note planner for a bit of a change. While I did enjoy using the planner in general, I did miss the daily pages. So, for 2023, it’s back to the Cousin!

I like to keep my Cousin simple, with a Midori cover* and a sticker* from a local artist.

Opening it up, I used a sticker kit* to cover the Japanese months (purchased Japanese instead of English this year). I don’t have a huge use for this spread, at the minute it’s just highlighting Bank Holidays.

Next, we go into the other yearly pages, which I use as an index. The daily pages in this planner are used in a variety of ways, and so I need an index to keep track of what is on each page. I colour code the day according to how I’ve used that page – shop things, journaling, notes etc. For journaling (seen here in pink) I don’t write anything, but for everything else I write in what is in that page.

Currently, I’m not using the top or bottom sections for anything. I may add some decoration over time but haven’t decided.

Monthly pages

To avoid any repetition in my planners (I already have plans in both my Weeks and Passport) I use the monthly pages as social media planner.

I plan out the month in pencil and split each daily block into two. The top is for Instagram posts, the bottom is for YouTube videos. I don’t have a separate place for blog posts as I align these to the corresponding YT video.

Weekly pages

These are being used to finally work through some of the many stickers I have. With my main planning happening in my Weeks, I’m still finding my groove with these weekly pages again.

I started off the year experimenting with some time tracking using Mildliners* and using the pages as a bit of a memory keeping spread.

It’s quite nice just to have some pages to do some creative planning again.

Daily pages

As mentioned, I have a variety of uses for my daily pages. If you want to see more of how I use the daily pages, there’s a video here.

In this year’s Cousin, the daily pages have mainly been used for journaling and shop/YT planning. I’ve been using stickers from Sterling Ink subscription for a bit of light decoration in these pages.

For the pages that I use the most, I use my favourite Avery tabs* to mark them, and made some stickers to label them.

I’m really enjoying being back into the Hobonichi Cousin. I’m sure how I use it will change over time, but on the whole it’s been nice to be back in this planner!