After using a dated planner in 2025, I’m using a refillable notebook and going back to the DIY way for 2026. Sort of.

Everyone, Happy New Year! This year, the first day of 2026 falls on a Thursday, and I’m happy that I’ve finished all my tasks and deadlines in the last three days of December, so I can have the rest of the week free for myself.

My first activity of the year is, of course, setting up my planner.

Although my working schedule is not as packed as it was when I was still an English tutor, I still feel the need to write down something. Honestly, I think using a simple calendar app will be just fine. My current job doesn’t really need a fancy scheduling system since it’s technically a corporate job with fixed working hours. My phone’s default calendar app is enough for noting down my WFO–WFA schedule, and maybe several surprise Zoom meeting schedules.

Despite that, though, I still use a notebook for scribbling things down. For some reason, not having a separate note for a planner feels off. This is mainly why I still carry a planner nowadays.

Even though technically I’ve been doing this since college, my planner and journals come in various kinds of notebooks and binders. I think I never really use the same kind of notebook twice…? If I line up all my notes from my college days, you won’t get those nicely aligned notebooks like those of the journaling community usually have.

Unfortunately, I cannot show my planner collection in this post, because most of them are inside a dusty cardboard box in my parents’ house back home. What I can show you is last year’s planner and the newest one for 2026.

2025 Planner

I found this planner through a mutual’s post on Instagram. This weekly planner is from Life Plan Journal, and what I have is their one-year, dated 2025 planner in travel size. They also have another size in A5, but I chose the travel size because it’s simpler and suits my needs more.

Here is its front cover and a list of finished books in 2025.

The travel size one has a simple yearly overview, My 100 section, Your Journey Map with a world map, and Year in Pixels. For the dailies, it has monthly and weekly entries, with a simple habit tracker and blanks for monthly review.

I think the A5 version has more sections, such as action plan and expense tracker—which I don’t really use! Honestly, in my low-energy days, I was already struggling to fill my travel-sized one, lol. You can see I didn’t even try to fill in the pixels until the end 🥲

Here is my visually nice monthly and weekly entry, heheh 😈

Also, since I was struggling to fill the blank space on the right, I turned it into a mini junk journal for things that I’ve bought that week. Not every week is filled like this, but it surely soothes me a bit because at least it’s not completely empty!

The paper is nice and smooth, and I never experienced smudging when filling in my entries. It can lie flat, and its size is also perfect to fit in smaller bags. This planner is honestly perfect if your primary need is the monthly and weekly entries. Check their Instagram if you want to order one~

2026 Planner System

Despite my satisfaction with my 2025 planner, I decided not to repurchase it. At least, just for this year.

If you are in the journaling community, you must have been familiar with the leather notebook cover from the Traveler’s Company. It’s a genuine leather cover with rubber bands where you can insert several notebooks inside. I don’t know the term for it, lol, but the one from Traveler’s Company is widely known, along with Louise Carmen’s, with its trifold style.

What keeps me from buying one is the price! Even people from overseas also think it’s pricey—I don’t even want to think how expensive it will be in my country’s currency, hah.

That—until I realized I can just buy inspired covers made by local artisans! So, for this year, I bought a transparent cover and several inserts to fill it with, everything by Mynty Mint!

Aside from its chaotic academia aesthetic appeal, I like the idea of having several notebooks to carry together. Some people even used their notebook as their wallet too. 

Technically, I can achieve this with ring binders, but I don’t like how the rings obstruct my hand when I write on the left side. And, yes, I already have one. Now lying around somewhere in my room, unused.

So, yes—I bought this transparent cover in passport size! I have four different inserts in this cover: monthly, weekly, a plain notebook for work notes, and another one with square grids for a capture journal. Prior to this, I already had my small work note insert for a year, and I had to carry it separately. I put it inside my backpack’s inner pocket, which was fine, but it wasn’t very convenient.

I also bought the kraft file insert for my stickers, a sticky note, and this fanart of Kamisato Ayato from an artist whose name I forgot…

To make this even more complete, perhaps I’ll need a pen holder, but I always have my pen case in my backpack, so it isn’t that necessary. 

Which One Is Better?

Essentially, each style has a different appeal. But, quality requirements aside, here’s what I think based on my experience:

Dated Planner	Refillable Notebook
⬩Ready to fill in, you only need a pen and a highlighter at most But, ⬩The writing space can be limited ⬩If you have a wide planner system, you’ll have to carry several notebooks	⬩You can carry several inserts depending on your needs But, ⬩Assembling several inserts can be complicated ⬩It can be bulky over time

For me, so far, I like using my new notebook! I have my planner and my journals in one place, and their size is small enough to carry around. It can lie flat (very important!), and I don’t need a separate case for my sticky note and stickers~ Which one do you think suits you more?