Hobonichi Life

[hobonichilife]

It’s been a while, but I’m happy to be posting again.

Hi again everyone.

It’s nice to see you all again, and I hope you’re all doing okay.

I haven’t been doing well in the health department for a while now. Which is why uploads have been so slow. But I’m so happy that I can post this now. Thank you for sticking by me.

As you can see from the date, this footage is from December 7th. Which was quite a while ago now. But I found this journalling exercise really helpful and wanted to share it with you all. 

If you end up following along, let me know what you think. If any of my priorities resonated with you as well, comment them! It’s always encouraging to me to know that I’m not the only one working on a goal.

I want to be clear up front that I did not invent this exercise, but found it on the Get Rich Slowly website. I’ll have it linked in the description. The article, and that whole website honestly, is really refreshing and practical advice for navigating not only personal finances but general life wanderings.

The method is essentially this: by using three prompts, you can narrow down all the chaos in your head to find out what actually matters to you and then, hopefully, use that clarity to fuel your own actions.

First, we want to explore the question: What are my lifetime goals? If I didn’t have to worry about money, what would I do?

You should list everything that comes to mind for five minutes. This is a long time. I struggled with this. The prompt requests that you not filter yourself. Everything is on the table. When you finish the list, you can review the list for an additional five minutes to make the things you listed out more specific or more clear. 

This is the list I ended up with:

travel. Especially to Europe, Canada, and around the U.S. 

Do drag shows multiple times a month

garden, I want to grow my own food.

take art classes and create every day.

spend more time with my partner and my friends

build a book of recipes and treats

play every video game that I’ve put on the back burner

read every book that catches my eye

design a home top to bottom

and

help my friends and others find their own creativity.

The prompt then asks you to choose the top three items that seem the most important.

Mine were:

travel, especially to Europe, Canada, and around the US

take art classes and create every day

spend more time with my partner and my friends

The next prompt is a new list with the prompt of: How would I like to spend the next five years? This is another five minute list making time where the prompt asks to suspend judgement and write not what we think we should do but what we would actually like to do. 

I ended up writing about wanting to spend time with my partner and friends. I want to go out to more artistic events, places, and museums. I’d like to grow my youtube channel. I’d especially like to work for myself or close to it, something truly remote based or flexible. I’d like to learn more about art and improve my artistic skills. And I’d like to be more regularly booked for drag shows. 

Just like before, the prompt asks us to highlight the three things that seem appealing. Mine were:

spending more time with my partner and loved ones, working for myself or even more flexibly, and learning more about art and improving my skills.

The next prompt, I actually skipped. It was too painfull for me to explore at this time. But if you’re following along and you’re interested, the prompt is to explore what you would do should you know that you were to pass away in the next six months. 

For me, the point of this entire exercise was to give me hope and help me realize what I wanted to focus on. I understand why the author penned the question this way, but given my life circunstances, the framing wasn’t appropriate for me at this time. So I’m glad I was able to protect my heart a little and skip that without feeling too badly.

The next prompt is to label the next page ‘My Most Important Goals’ and to list out the things that were highlighted in the previous lists. If any of them were similar, now is the time to combine them into one sentence. This is also the point where, if you’re like me and forgot to highlight the three most appealing points in each prompt, you can do it now. 

So my list of my most important goals is

​Spend more time with my partner and friends

​work for myself/ work in a fully flexible environment

​create daily

​travel

​learn and improve upon artistic skills

The last prompt is more of an open journalling assignment to draft out a mission statement. The statement should be relatively short, from a few words to a few sentences. I decided to write my mission statement as a series of ‘I am’ sentences. I’ll read it to you.

I am someone who prioritizes quality time with my partner and my friends. I value my realationships. I am filled with creative energy and deserve to put that energy into motion on a daily basis. I thrive when I am learning. I value other cultures and expanding my own perspective. 

The author of this promt list then encourages leaving the mission statement for a few days and returning to it later to reflect on it. They stress that this mission statement is not set in stone and that it can be altered and adjusted for practicality or for changes in your own perspective and feelings. 

I decided to expand on it with active action steps that I can take to support my mission statement.

My actions are:

​schedle social gatherings with loved ones regularly

​save and track finances in order to fund travel and quality time

​prioritize art and creation, posting regularly and trying new things.

It’s been over a month and I can say that I have been doing some of these things. 

I had a very busy few weeks with my partner and one of my close friends visiting. But we did a lot of artistic focused activities and it was really inspiring.

I haven’t been great about tracking my expenses in the last month or so, but I feel as though at this time I haven’t needed it as much. I think I do want to track everything again next month, just so that I can prioritize my savings goals a little more. Since I tracked everything I spent during the months of November and December, i feel more confident that I could make a realistic budget and stick to it. 

I also have been trying to get out and be more social. I’ve had some lovely outings with friends and hosted some friends in the last month as well. During the last week or so I haven’t gone out much, but work has also gotten more busy and my health hasn’t been great, so I think prioritizing rest has been a better move for me.

I’m also happy to report that I should have more regular drag shows coming up again. This is great news for my own heart. I’ve also been successful in carrying around a sketchbook and drawing little bits and pieces. They’re obviously not full works of art, but I’m thankful for them regardless as they’ve gotten me inspired to create more regulalry. I haven’t developed a daily habit yet, but I think I’m on the right track.

I hope this was helpful for you. It definitely has influenced me in the last month or so to be more mindful about the things I value and to make choices that are better for me long term. 

I think that’s all for me today. Thank you for listening.

I hope you’re doing as well as you can be.

I’ll talk to you again soon.

Bye for now.

[finchwell]

The last week has been busy for me. Beyond busy.

I may have mentioned it a few times, but I'm in the process of applying for Permanent Residency. The amount of time I've had to spend in government offices and hunched over my computer is definitely taking a toll on my brain.

I've also started a bunch of new assignments for work, and I've felt the stress. I don't handle change well. I get anxious and if things are going to go wrong, they tend to go wrong during the first week or two of an assignment.

But as a result of this stress, I have been leaning harder into my Traveller's book.

What I've been reading/playing:

I haven't made any progress in any of my games. I've been struggling to find the time and energy to play games.

But I did read a bit more in Carl's Doomsday Scenario. My friend from back home and I are reading it together as an informal book club, and I'm still having a great time with it.

A happy moment:

Another great thing that happened this week is that a bowl that my partner ordered for me arrived! These vintage Pyrex bowls were given to my parents as wedding presents. My sweet and chaotic cat, Mama, knocked one off the counter and shattered it, and the resulting breakdown on my end was monumental. My partner ended up finding a replacement bowl online and ordered it for me, and it finally arrived!

This week is going to be crazy busy. I plan to turn in my PR application on Wednesday, and I still need to print and fill out some of the forms. More new work assignments are happening this week as well, and I've got a meeting with my managers scheduled for Friday to discuss the new contract year. Not to mention a friend's birthday on Saturday and needing to work on Drag costuming for the end of the month.

One day at a time, one step at a time, one breath at a time I suppose!

[hobonichilife]

Full transcript is posted below. Cannot even believe I managed to do even this much, seeing as how I’m the driver of the bus to struggle town.

Hi again everyone.

It’s nice to see you all.

As you can see from the start of this video, I’m a bit behind in my posting schedule. I’ve been struggling a bit with trying to record and with editing. But hopefully you’ll find this helpful, even if it’s just in a body-doubling kind of way.

I’ve been struggling with feeling behind or feeling as though I’ve been forgetting things a lot lately. I’ve mentioned this in previous videos, about how I have all of these systems and multiple calendars in place to help me avoid forgetting things. I heard once that your brain is for thinking about things, not necessarily for storing information. Not that it can’t do that as well, but it’s unreliable to be used for that purpose.

I think a lot of the errors or things that I forget come from work. My job’s main method of communication is through email and email attachments. Since I have a bit of an irregular work schedule, the head office will send me the assignments I have via email. The problem is then me having to transcribe those documents into my digital and physical planners so that they make sense in a way that I can read them easily and quickly. But this method of having to input dates manually always leads to errors.

Sometimes my work assignments will be suddenly cancelled as well, so I have to go through and make sure that each of the calendars is updated properly. This often leads to errors as well.

I’m not sure if there’s a way to fix this, really. But it is starting to affect my mental state.

I’ve also had fewer work assignments overall, which affects my pay. So that’s another problem that I’ve been struggling to deal with lately. I don’t really know if there’s any way to fix that either. I do teach on the side as well as a little bit of extra income from Patreon. But that isn’t a whole lot extra. It would be nice to prioritize that a little and make a little more money.

As I’m writing out this script, I’m not entirely sure where it’ll be in regard to the footage on the screen. Maybe that’s something I can work on as well. Well, actually, tell me what you think. Do you tend to look up or need the words spoken to match what’s on the screen? The way I’ve been doing this the last few videos hasn’t particularly matched unless I had something specific to show. But maybe that would help. I could always just try to yap as the video is playing…

Either way. I’ve got my monthly calendar all set up, both the one that I stick to my front door and the one in my traveller’s book. I’ve also updated the weekly spread.

Something I’ve been trying to do the last week or so is to set five non-negotiable tasks for each day. And I’ll put those on the right-hand side of my weekly spread in my traveler’s book. This has been helping me feel a little more accomplished at the end of the day. I don’t include things like ‘go to work’ or ‘take a shower’ or things like that, unless I’m specifically struggling with those things. The five non-negotiable tasks tend to be things that I’m wanting to do for myself for my own edification. So for example, the ones for today were ‘work on YouTube video, exercise, print out Permanent Residency paperwork, draw, and cook something nice’. This last one is different from just saying ‘eat lunch’ or ‘make dinner’ because I’m trying to push myself to try new recipes and to cook things that actually make me happy to eat.

By this point, hopefully, the video should be showing my scrapbook/junk journal. I had fallen a bit behind and had things that I wanted to add in from when I went back to the states in September. Unfortunately, not everything that went into my journal are happy things. But they’re significant. And I guess that’s what makes it feel more solid to me. Not that junk journalling or scrapbooking isn't solid, but I think a lot of the collage work that people do is purely aesthetic and not necessarily meaningful to the artists themselves. That’s fine, I have pages like that too. But my adding these not-so-happy bits and life-significant bits makes the book go from junk that’s pretty to something that’s actually special to me. I will continue to add meaningless, pretty things, of course. But I think that’s what also inspired me to add in some writing. Which I hadn’t done to any great extent until this last entry. I do think I like it. I like the aesthetic of my own handwriting, now, even if what I’m writing about isn’t all that important.

Well. Looking back over what I’ve written out for myself to say, I do hope that that’s enough audio for me for now. I missed writing out my thoughts like this, and hope that it’s been enjoyable for you to listen to. The last video didn’t have any audio, but hopefully my yapping will bring some listeners back.

I hope things go as well for you as they can. And I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Bye for now.

[hobonichilife]

Guess I’ve been notebook-ing for a while now :’)

Thanks to everyone who is still here/who follows along.

[internetaccountabilitypartner]

Journals

I have always collected notebooks or journals. And I have always loved journaling for my mental health. I've always felt bad about not journaling daily; I try but I am imperfect. Similarly, I love using paper planners, but can struggle with consistency. Switching my mindset from 'I have to do everything in advance' to 'it's ok to mix future planning with documenting my day' has helped me stay on top of checking in with my planner. A few months ago, I started junk journaling, and, just like mental health journaling, I've been inconsistent. Now I'm starting a commonplace book and part of me started feeling so bad about how consistently inconsistent I am. Part of me worried I was overdoing myself. Oddly enough, watching journaling YouTubers has been super helpful. They have all discussed the need to let go of perfection and daily consistency. They have been so vocal about embracing the process of putting journaling down and showing back up when you're ready that I'm excited to take the leap on adding yet another journaling style. I actually got so excited that I started daydreaming about what it'd be like to be someone who regularly (if not consistently) keeps multiple journals I realized that there has been a glaring barrier in my way. My journals and related supplies have so far been all spread out over my apartment. When I'm sitting in bed wanting to journal, I really don't want to get up to sit in the living room to junk journal, which often means going to the office to get the scissors and washi tape. I've rearranged everything to be in my nightstand and I'm excited to see how that impacts my journaling journey.

[peacefulandcozy]

ig credit: laurasreadingtime

[hobonichilife]

Finally got another video up. Just music this time <3

[hobonichilife]

I guess I skipped June entirely, that’s a bit unfortunate. No wonder I felt so rusty uploading and editing today.

Sound editing did go a bit more smoothly, but I think I need to work on my recording methods. Especially towards the end, the audio blows out a bit and I really didn’t want to record it again since I get so much anxiety about recording my voice in the first place.

But it’s there. It’s done. And I made it. And that’s enough.

[hobonichilife]

I went to a cafe I hadn’t visited before after my nail appointment and the vibes were immaculate, so I made sure all my dates and plans were accurate and took some notes for my work assignment later in the day.

I’ve been struggling with feeling a ton of creative energy but limited time to do anything. Finding balance has been so hard and despite having free days from work, I still feel at the edge of overwhelm most days.

[metal-hippy-deactivated20250717]

I love how my ringbinder- junk journal gets bulky and colourfull.One thing i realy enjoy doing in my journals is to create kind of an visual overload and i'm on a good way thorwards that.

[incidentalcomics]

[hobonichilife]

I haven't had the time or the mental energy to film or post in a long time. But I did this week. I have, indeed, jumped ship from hobonichi as well.

[finchwell]

The information community I am most active in, though I belong to many, would be the online journalling community.

I made my debut in the community in December of 2013. At the time, the blogging and reblogging Tumblr community was hot, and I was highly influenced to start journalling by a video posted by the official Hobonichi Techo YouTube channel, which was then cross-posted onto their Tumblr. Be forewarned, the song is particularly addictive.

I documented and posted my first entry on my Tumblr and Instagram accounts.

This image is well over a decade old and was taken on my iPhone 5. That along with the multiple filters used at the time had led to significant blurriness in the image, but I’m so glad that I still have it.

For whatever reason, my Tumblr account gained a lot of traction from my initial posts and I found a small community of like-minded bloggers and journalers. Not all of them used the Hobonichi Techo branded products, and in fact, most of the Japanese bloggers I found preferred to use Filofax at the time.

But neither of these communities would likely come to mind of the average person when I mention journalling as a hobby. The Bullet Journal, however, just might. Launched in August of 2013, the bullet journal method was coined by Ryder Caroll. The concept focuses on using a series of symbols and a daily log to keep track of your ideas, hobbies, to-dos, and life events. In a matter of just a few years, the concept took off and Carroll released a book, an official Bullet Journal notebook, and has been credited with inspiring multiple self-improvement coaches like Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, and Ali Abdaal.

For a while, the Bullet Journaling online community was quite vigilant in its gatekeeping practices. Posts on Tumblr and Instagram that utilized the Bullet Journal hashtag were criticized for not following the method exactly as Carroll had outlined.

In more recent years, the online community has embraced more creative styles of memory keeping and life planning. Influential creators include Meghan Rhiannon, who has recently combined a ring system memory-keeping book and a Hobonichi Techo cover, and Jashii Corrin, who has recently been using her Bullet Journal-styled system to create a video game or tabletop RPG-inspired system to tackle her life admin tasks.

My own system of journalling combines art, memory keeping, and general task deadline management. I tend to document it photographically, but I have put in significant effort over the last year to document it visually and musically on my own YouTube channel. The audio formatting has certainly been the biggest hurdle, and I find myself venturing into the audio/visual information community regularly to ask for help. I’m still learning, but I enjoy being able to blog verbally about a topic that I am also journalling and scrapbooking about.

As time goes on, I am highly interested in how the journalling community will grow. I hope that we will continue to learn from each other’s methods and embrace more creativity.

[clipitcutout]

Notebooks/Sketchbook/scrapbook pngs!

Follow for daily uploads 💖

[babiefats]

So I can see my system in a lil grid. Trés cute 🥰✨💕

[hobonichilife]

I'm absolutely gutted.

After only a single entry in the blank back of my 2025 day-free, I've noticed significant bleed-through with my fountain tip pens. Not to mention the amount of time that it took for the ink to dry in the first place.

I guess the complaints about the new paper aren't completely unfounded. I thought that it was only the 5-year books or the larger books that had the new paper, but scrolling through reddit shows weeks and original users struggling as well.

I feel as though I've only just started to sort of get comfortable with fountain tips and I was really enjoying the experience.

But that experience, paired with struggling to be comfortable writing in a smaller book, is causing me a lot of heartache I wasn't expecting.

I had barely found some peace in my planning system, and now I feel like I'm out to sea again. I don't even know how to process this. I love my books. I don't want to give them up.

[hobonichilife]

She’s here 🥹

I’ve had an absolutely unmoored start to my year and I’m hoping having a system will bring me a little peace.

I will admit, I’m not used to the size of the little book anymore. Im a bit concerned about that, but I hope I’ll get used to it again with time.