For three years now, I’ve dutifully filled out my gorgeous Hobonichi Weeks planner every single day. As someone who hates blank pages, I really believed I had achieved the elusive planner peace that many dream about. However, planner peace is boring, and I think I’m ready to switch things up a bit. It’s also worth mentioning that none of the Hobonichi Weeks covers have really stood out to during the 2027 previews so far. I liked the interior of the Moomin Weeks the most, but I don’t like the cover fabric, so nothing feels like a perfect fit yet, which is why I’m even considering branching out. I do love the portability of the Hobonichi Weeks, but it’s starting to feel too small. I yearn for the space to write a richer picture of what I did each day. I originally chose the Weeks as a compromise. On the days when I used to struggle heavily with depression, I could still manage to fill out a couple sentences and avoid a blank entry on the left size of the weekly layout. Now that I’m asymptomatic thanks to my meds, I’m more afraid of short entries due to boring work-from-home days. However, I think that slight pressure of trying to make each day memorable enough to fill all the space will be enough to motivate me to study or engage in a hobby like reading on an otherwise uneventful day. That way, I’ll have something to think critically about and write down in my journal. To that end, I’m considering upgrading to an A5 size since I already have old A5 Hobonichi covers, and an A6 journal would be too small (I also can’t find a horizontal layout in A6). This led me to four popular brands with A5 size horizontal layouts: Sterling Ink ($58), Hemlock & Oak ($72), Aura Estelle ($50), and Wonderland 222 ($42). Unfortunately, Hemlock & Oak uses super heavy 120gsm (80lb) paper, which is a deal beaker for me. It’s also the most expensive option, so I’m not sorry to be excluding this one from the lineup. All the rest use Tomoe River paper 52gsm white (New Sanzen) paper, which hasn’t been a problem for my pens and inks. You’d think that this thinner Tomoe River paper would lead to a more lightweight book, but the Sterling Ink Common planner includes a whopping 368 pages of grid paper in the book for a total of 520 pages in the full year. This means that the book itself weighs 432g or nearly 1lb, which way too heavy for me to include in my daily carry bag. Plus, I already don’t use all the notes pages in my Hobonichi Weeks, so 368 pages would be a terrible waste. This leaves me with just the Aura Estelle and Wonderland 222 planners. Aura Estelle chose to include a monthly calendar on the right size of the weekly layout that eats into the space for my daily updates, which defeats the purpose of sizing up to an A5. Aesthetically, I also just don’t like it, and I’m not sure how I’d use that space. Additionally, there is a weird change in grid size between the yearly and monthly layouts that use a 4mm grid and then weekly and blank notes pages that use a 3.81mm grid. I know I already ruled out the Sterling Ink planner, but it also has some grid weirdness going on because it isn’t square. They use a rectangular grid of 3.7mm x 3.9mm, which might actually suit the English alphabet better than a perfectly square grid for Japanese characters, but I’m not into it. All this to say, I’m left with the Wonderland 222 Core Horizontal A5 Planner as my only real contender. It only has 88 undated grid note pages in the back, coming in at 272g or .6 lb total, which is a little more than double the weight of a Hobonichi Weeks (134g). However, it has the fewest pages compared to the Sterling Ink and Aura Estelle options with TRP, so I assume it’s also the lightest. The spreads in the Wonderland 222 planner are pretty standard, but I want to take advantage of the new-to-me Monthly Review and Overview pages to reflect on my memories and goals a bit more since the Weeks doesn’t have this layout. In the layout, they decided to highlight four boxes on either page edge and leave open grid space in between. For the previous month’s boxes, I’ll probably do an equivalent of a Spotify Wrapped or Currently spread with books read, movies or TV shows watched, favorite songs, albums, or podcasts, and projects I’ve worked on. For the Overview on the right side, I’ll use the four boxes to highlight my top four focuses or projects and why they matter to me. In the notes pages about the prior month, I plan to do a monthly reflection covering highlights, anything that hindered my goals, what I learned, what goals I achieved, and any concerns I might have. For the month ahead, I’ll use the notes for month intention and goal setting, specifically coming up with a monthly theme word and monthly goals, which I’ll translate into daily habits. The rest of the layouts are similar enough to those in the Hobonichi Weeks, so I won’t go into details about how I’ll be using them as you can see how I’ve used them in a past post. Since bumping up to an A5 size is somewhat intimidating, I’m dragging my feet a little with regards to ordering the Wonderland 222 planner. Part of me still hopes that the perfect weeks in the Hobonichi lineup will come along (even though that won’t address my desire to write more in my daily entries) or Sterling Ink might release the A5 Core Planner with TRP and a horizontal layout (right now, they only offer Core planners with their heavier Cosmo paper and vertical layouts). I have the rest of the month to consider my options because both Hobonichi and Sterling Ink slowly drip 2027 lineup information all month, so we’ll just have to wait and see.