Last time, I went through an overview of my so-called “Life Management System” and some of the tools I use to stay on top of things. One of those is a Hobonichi Techo Cousin A5 for 2025, and this week’s issue is a… well, mostly aspirational description of how I’m using it.

I’m not in the habit of using a paper planner, so hit reply and let me know how you use yours.

Areas of Concern

I’ve set up four colour-coded areas of concern that are shared across my tools:

1. 🟥 Personal
2. 🟨 Family
3. 🟩 Business
4. 🟦 Work

I’m using Kokuyo dual-tip markers (fine point/highlighter) in my Hobonichi to identify appointments and tasks according to these areas.

I use these same colours in my digital calendars, my reminders lists, &cet., so I can quickly identify what I’m looking at.

Weekly Pages - Planning

Pretty straightforward here: every Sunday, I capture one weekly priority for each area in the sidebar, and then fill in any appointments for each day. I don’t bother with time blocking here, because this weekly plan is likely to change over the week; I do, however, try to figure out when I can tackle each of the week’s priorities.

I don’t revisit this to update anything after the fact.

Daily Pages - Planning, Tracking, and Logging

At the start of the day, I capture whatever appointments I have to be aware of in the timeline, and add five habits I’m tracking at the top of the page: meditate, journal, exercise, stretch, and read. Below that, I capture 1-2 tasks to make progress against my weekly priorities, and then below that I jot down a log of what I’m doing as I go through my day.

I should try to time block my work here, but I still struggle with this. I think it bothers me to not see open space in my calendar, but timeblocking does make sense as a commitment you make to your goals.

Monthly Pages - Major Events

I honestly don’t know what to use monthly pages for. Mostly I drop any major events —birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, travel— here, but otherwise I don’t look at it. I could use vrk’s Journal Helper for a 1-photo-per-day kind of thing.

Quarterly Pages - ???

I have even less of an idea of what to use these pages for — duplicating what’s in the monthly pages? Some additional tracking/goal-setting?

Really, let me know. I’m looking for inspo.

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I haven’t been sharing my usual Around The Web and Thought Of The Week sections in the last few issues. I went deep on some personal things, and then went tactical on productivity-type stuff.

I’m thinking about what I want this newsletter to be in 2025, so hit reply and tell me: was there a particular reason you subscribed? What do you like to read about?