for the record: Techo Kaigi

It's 2025! Meaning it's time for wonder | wander | women to say goodbye (and thank you) to all the planners and journals we have used this year and joyfully start all new ones for the coming year.

Bullet Journal spread from all the way back in 2020

The Japanese have a term for assessing all your notebooks and how you used them throughout the year: 手帳 会議 techo kaigi, or "notebook meeting". wonder | wander | women appreciate this idea of conferring with your notebooks as if they are your past or future selves, and you're all planning your life together.

Christmas week spread in Muji planner

In truth, we started our 2025 planners (as many people did) at the end of 2024, so we've had a little while to get to know them. But we also wanted to thank and reflect on the notebooks we used up this year, as we worked on some of them for several years and are finally finishing the last few pages.

Bullet Journal by School of Life and Morning Pages journal
by Paperchase, with a fan artist postcard.

The notebooks we filled up fastest are our planners and Morning Pages. I use the Bullet Journal method, while Mom loves the WeMoon planner. Because we write two to three Morning Pages a day, we can fill up two or even three notebooks a year.

Class notebooks by Seawhite of Brighton

Next, class notebooks. This year I also took a class called Painting Drama, which is a module within the art mentoring course The Magic Box Academy. I started the Magic Box last year as a way to rebuild the skills I lost while my arm recovered, as well as learning new digital skills and renovating my portfolio, and it's been very rewarding (and informative!).

Sketchbook and commonplace notebook from Moleskine

I got these Moleskine sketchbooks gratis from my job at the bookshop before Covid descended. There was a misprint and a set of limited edition Little Prince planners came out with blank pages, so the agent couldn't sell them and gave them to me. 

It took me a few years to finish them - I hop around between sketchbooks a lot, depending on the paper, but even though Moleskine's paper isn't great, they feel so perfect in my hand that I always find myself carrying one or two around.

All together they make a nice stack. We're very grateful for these sturdy, beautiful companions and very much look forward to discovering and filling up several more this year!