My current notebooks

I am an avid planner and note taker. I take my planning system very seriously—as seriously as only skipping my skincare routine once or twice a year, because I am a creature of habit and what am I, if not a routine addict.

Though I might not always write everything on my mind on paper down to the T because (1) privacy concerns, and (2) I am not attached to my notebooks as much as I would have liked but in the morning, when the house has quietened down and it’s just me, myself, and a cup of green tea, when the voices inside my head have calmed down, I reach for my pen and paper and begin jotting down whatever tidbits in my head are in desperate need of attention and organisation.

For list-making

The Muji Pocketnote and Muji 0.7 gel pen in black never fails. It’s small enough to fit in most of my bags and for short-form note taking. A great tool for a catch-all notebook and brain dumping. I would appreciate it even more if they come in a hardcover version because the cover for the one I have is just too flimsy for my liking I had to resort to wrapping it with a clear film.

For deepest thoughts and emotions dumping

To be quite honest, I rarely write when my life is in order and looks picture-perfect (on the outside). I write when I need to emotionally unload like that time in December last year when we were debating to change my daughter’s school to somewhere nearer and my emotionally-attached-to-the-current-school self wrote a six page of pure “..I keep crying on and off..” and “..I am still sad today..” and “..I couldn’t stop crying..” and rewriting my thank-you messages to the teachers on paper so I wouldn’t lose them on WhatsApp.. just in case. The notebook that had to suffer through this is mentioned in this post from Buke Notebook and a Pentel Energel 0.7 in black as my writing tool.

For monthly and weekly planning

No matter how busy I am with daily chores–sometimes there are months where I am too busy I don’t have time to take out my planner–I always make sure to at least have a monthly calendar with important events all set up so I can get some semblance of stability like, “okay, breathe, this is what’s going on this month.” Besides, I love looking at all the fun stuff I have going on at that month. Breakfast dates. Lunch dates. Kenduri this and that. I love every single thing, even the smallest ones like grocery shopping and getting food afterwards. My planner of choice will always be the Ana Tomy 2026 planner, with a bunch of coloured pens from Uni-ball One.

I think over time my style of planning and note taking have gone from aesthetically pleasing to pleasingly functional for me. Sure, all the cursive writing and whatnots are gorgeous but at this point in life I just want something that functions. I need to be able to write on all my notebooks and begone with my day. So what do you use for planning?