Happy New Year!!! 🥳 Lots of fun things are ahead this year and I. Am. Excited.

Did you get a new planner??? A new journal? Sometimes an overachiever, I started the new year with a whole new set of planning and organizing tools. I’ll tell you about the entire system and all its components later.

My new Hobonichi Techo Weeks planner. Thank you, Brenda!

One tool that is new to me was a gift from my friend Brenda: a Hobonichi Techo Weeks planner. You can get lost learning all about the Hobonichi family of products, which has inspired a lot of followers and fans and devotees over the years. I decided in December how I wanted to use mine, and even though I had four weeks in 2023 to get started, I found that I could not write in my new planner! I was just paralyzed to make the first mark in this beautiful planner.

I know this isn’t uncommon among all humans, but I am a regular journaler, and have been for years, and have started many journals and planners with no hesitation. Why was this one so different?

I went searching on The Google and hoped for an article, a think piece, a study of some kind to validate this very common feeling and back it up with some science and data. I found nothing! (But if you have an article to recommend with some science to back it up, please leave it below!)

I did find some really neat ideas for making the first marks in a new planner or journal though, which of course I have to share:

The How I Start a Notebook method by Austin Kleon
The Wreck This Journal (by author Keri Smith) method by way of Thinking Closet
Practical ideas for the first page (great content if you can ignore the ads)

Also Apple iOS users — did you know that Apple has a Journal app now, included in their iOS 17.2 release? I used it last week twice and it integrates nicely with… life. All the creepy AI and privacy-encroaching components of our phone can finally be put to use for our benefit!