A fruitful year of creative journaling in the Take a Note Planner
Adding up little moments of joy here and there
I’ve been keeping a daily journal for over a decade. It started as your generic Sanrio character weekly schedule planner that I used in school, where I would jot down fun things that happened that day. In 2014, I fully adopted the Hobonichi Techo with its one-day-one-page format, and the daily journaling habit started to build for the next 10 years. Part of the reason for keeping a daily journal was my intention to make the best of each day and not let myself go with the flow of life, and then one day look back and feel regret about not keeping a record of any of it. In fact, in one of the earliest YouTube videos I put up on my channel about journaling, I said, “I didn’t want to feel like I wasted an entire gap year away”.
Fast forward to 2025, it is close to the end of the year, and I have filled up every single page of my most recent creative journal: the Take a Note Planner, a system that I switched to after graduating from a 10-year journey with the Hobonichi. It was a satisfying feeling because all 365 pages are held in one book.
Why does the Take a Note Planner work?
To motivate myself to journal every single day, I needed some guardrail and structure…a blank notebook just doesn’t work for me. This was why the Hobonichi Techo worked so well before; the one-day-one-page format is a uniform template that’s ready for me to fill in. While the daily A5-size page was ample space for me to document my exciting adventures in my twenties, I found myself getting busier with work and travel, so downsizing makes the most sense. After all, I don’t want to be weighed down by the guilt of catching up on too much empty space. I didn’t want to sacrifice the comfort of writing by going with a smaller size (A6), so I came to revisit one of my favorite journal brands that offers a daily structure in A5 Size, albeit two days a page — the Take a Note Planner.
If we think about our tendency to use items and products that align with our identity, then The Take a Note Planner stirs the sense of pride in my heart because it is designed and made in Taiwan. The creator designed the notebook to be a functional planner, with monthly pages and daily layouts accented by timestamps, memo sections, and places to take notes for each day, week, or month. However, I used it purely for memory keeping — a place where I write, doodle, and journal about my days, while tipping in ephemera and stickers that I collect along the way.
I appreciate the creator’s insistence on using Tomoe River Paper, on par with Hobonichi’s standards since 2015. Although the Tomoe River Paper quality had gone through its ups and downs, the Take a Note (TAN for short) opted for the 68gsm thickness, which, in my opinion, survived the turmoil of fountain pen enthusiasts and their TRP paper woes.
This is a notebook that I can reliably write on with fountain pens, doodle with markers, and even paint on with watercolor. I’m a stationery addict, and I need my daily journal to keep up with the array of stationery accessories and tools that I find and use.
Flexible spaces for all kinds of documenting
The fun part of keeping a creative journal is that it motivates you to start noticing patterns, your behaviors, and be more intentional about things you do daily. Sometimes, a girl just wants to use colorful pens to mark progress or draw charts. Thankfully, Take a Note offers a lot of flexible space for you to do all kinds of documentation.
I mentioned it briefly in the Techo Kaigi I did earlier in the year. I utilized the Monthly Section to keep track of my health goals, alongside observations of my dog (health and activity-wise).
The yearly overview section at the front of the planner became my “index” where I highlight significant milestones, travels, and special events for me to quickly reference if needed in the future.
An event more zoomed-out yearly overview allows me to color in squares like a tracker. I ended up tracking three things: (1) days I went to the gym, (2) days I streamed on Twitch, and (3) days I called my representatives to vent my frustration about the current state of the United States.
Take a Note designed a weekly overview section that allows you to jot down daily to-do lists, or mark important things of the week. I ended up utilizing that space to keep track of episode numbers of shows I’m following, as well as other media I consume throughout the year.
Finally, the extra Monthly pages that were offered in the book were turned into my “Currently Inked” page, where I keep track of what ink is currently in my fountain pens.
The bulk of the book holds my daily creative journaling, and these appendices and extra pages become a fun playground for me to document other things that I care about and find interesting.
What do I journal about?
The easy answer is “anything”. And the real answer is “everything”.
After all, this is a journal that documents every day of my life. These can be exciting trips where I jetset to different cities or countries. It could also be the repetitive daily routine when I work from home and only have conversations with my Goldendoodle in baby voices. The most important thing is to “take note” — things that I see, songs or quotes I overheard, news I watch, people I met, experiences I had, and most importantly, emotions I feel.
My daily entries range from superficial rattling off of things I accomplished that day, to reflective entries about the future. Sometimes I deep dive into my insecurities and uncomfortable thoughts. This year, a lot of pages were ranting and venting about my frustrations. Then I’d balance it out with another entry about how cute I thought my dog’s new haircut was. If you had the time to sit down and flip through my journal, it would be an experience to see how complex human beings are in their daily whims.
When I’m on the road traveling, I don’t carry this brick of a journal with me, and instead, I “catch up” at a later time and turn those days into a fun travel scrapbooking entry. I would print out photos from my phone and create collages on the page. The strong binding of the journal also allows me to tip in postcards, scrap paper, and ephemera that I collect on trips. Whenever I write about a trip, I feel giddy as if I’ve experienced the journey all over again.
I enjoy doodling about my family members (including my dog), the delicious meals I had (I love food), and sometimes I’d paint little vignettes of the scenes outside my window. In my opinion, there’s no “boring life” nor details “not significant enough” in our everyday. I’d sometimes note down the pattern of crows that flew into the air on a rowdy afternoon. I’d write about the color changing in the canal, reflected by the sunset. I love how the creative journaling habit made me a keen observer of life. Instead of living through the blur of time, I enjoy being mindful and present in every moment.
At the end of the day, I try not to be bound by a certain aesthetic and style. The best thing about keeping a daily journal for yourself is that it can change and morph to your taste and season. There are no rules on how it can be done; the only thing that matters is if you want to journal or not.
Journal like no one’s watching
In 2025, I literally went off the grid on Instagram and decided not to share any more of my stationery and journaling pages on that platform. The decision felt heavy at first — how can I let go of this journal and creative archive that I’ve shared with so many friends and strangers in the online community? At the same time, I heaved a huge sigh of relief because I’m officially free from the worry of “taking the perfect spread” or “is this page good enough for the gram”. Not that it had affected me that much in the last two years anyway, but there was a time when I wanted everything on my Instagram feed to look consistent to grow followers.
Again, my cynical and jaded view of social media these days played a pivotal role, and I also don’t want to sacrifice or offer my artistic work on platforms that feed or enable AI slop. No matter the motivation, this year was the best year of my creative journaling life because I’ve been journaling, fully, for myself.
In today’s fast-paced and AI-filled world, it is easy to feel helpless and irrelevant. By keeping a creative memory journal, I feel like my stories and experiences are captured. It makes me feel worthy and relevant, even if these whimsical observations are only acknowledged to myself. From the sticker I put down, or a washi tape strip I placed strategically, each element represents the playful, cynical, and honest part of me that I want to capture throughout different phases of my life.
That’s why I journal, and that’s why I think you should start a creative journal too. In a world where a lot of people are angry and raging to tear others down, preserve your peace by documenting joy close to your heart.
I’ve already set up my Take a Note for 2026 and couldn’t wait to dive into it.
Do you journal? And how long have you been doing it? I’d love to hear!
I have scanned journals and notebooks back to my 20's, which is 50 years ago! There are gaps, though. I was writing in a "diary" years before that. Now I use the standard TN 013 insert almost exclusively. I put photos, clippings, memes, ephemera, and my writing in it so I go through 2 per month!
Well said: "preserve your peace by documenting joy close to your heart." I might create an art journal page with that (giving you credit for the quote, of course).
Thank you so much for this post. The main takeaway for me is to find a journaling method that fits me. That’s serves me well in my daily life. Your journal is beautiful!