When I first bought a Hobonichi Techo in 2019, it was partially because of the covers. The cover I wanted featured scenes from Earthbound or Mother 3, all of which were so colorful and full of life for me that I had to get it.
I never played Earthbound on SNES when it came out - I never had an SNES. The game represented a fun-looking train that had flown by my town of personal cultural influences. I heard it in the distance, I saw the steam emerging from it, but I never caught the train.
I did end up buying an N64 with my allowance and chore savings, and I was waiting for Earthbound 64. It looked cool! Yet it never came out. I forgot about it a bit, and ended up playing mostly Star Fox and Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Eventually, something like 20 years later, I found a way to play Earthbound on the SNES classic. I loved it. It was so weird, I couldn’t get enough. Eventually I looked online for shirts or stationery - or something - that would be a cool way to remember Earthbound.
What I happened across were the Hobonichi Techo journal covers. I haven’t been consistently a planner or journal person, but I figured, “Why not?” And also “Why not buy the journal and the cover?”
I ended up … actually using the journal, which surprised me, and I bought them year after year. I found myself looking forward to October or November so I could order a new Techo and have it ready for January 1.
Each Techo comes with a pen themed for the year, and a small surprise trinket, and there are also brochure-like inserts with comics or stories on them.
As my life shifted, I found the way that I use the Techo shifting as well. From 2019-2022 I largely used the Techo to keep track of books I read and meetings I was attending, sometimes marathon events and training runs. After my baby was born in 2022, I ran out of even more time, and I’ve shifted my Techo practice to feature mostly washi tape stickers and pictures that I printed out with a thermanote thermal printer.
Time has gone by so fast that I realized all of a sudden while writing this blog that it’s truly been more like 6 years of using the Techo, as I have one for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and I’m about to crack open my 2025 Techo and put it in its cover.
So, what about this journal made it work for me? I don’t know exactly. I’d say it’s a mix of the Techo’s size and the feel of the paper, and how each day is marked by icons for lunch and dinner. I like how each page is a day and how there are key lunar cycle days printed on pages. I appreciate the quotes at the bottom of each day page. I draw very little in it and I mostly write or use stickers, yet I liked how watercolors look in it.
While browsing the Techo website, I noticed that there is a 5-year version of this journal, in addition to the 1-year version which I’ve been using. I’m not sure if I’m ready to get the 5-year Techo - in the spring of 2020 (cursed year), I dropped my 2020 Techo on the floor of my Jeep and wasn’t able to find it for a while. I ordered another 2020 journal and eventually found the journal that I’d lost, so I had an extra journal for a while. Ultimately, I guess that year did sort of feel like two years in many ways. So who knows if I’m ready for the 5-year. The idea of losing it or something makes me want to keep to the 1-year journals.
But we will see! It’s aspirational for me to have lots of journals that adequately track my journey through time. Those two words, journal and journey, are related for me - a journal isn’t necessarily about progress, yet it’s about going somewhere.