Posts filed under Notebook Reviews

Kokuyo Sooofa Soft Ring Notebook Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)

Yes, Sooofa, with three Os. It's fitting, as this is definitely an "oooh" notebook. Kokuyo makes some of the best notebooks, and the Sooofa Soft Ring Notebook might be my favorite of theirs to date.

It's slightly wider than A5, and also comes in a slightly wide B6, in a handful of calm colors. The cover is matte plastic with minimal branding, a wee notch cutout for your pen clip, and an elastic band closure. Inside the back cover is a clear plastic folder-style pocket. The cover is durable and cleanable, so it's up to any kind of adventure, from camping to math class.

The paper is Kokuyo's Campus paper, which is some of the best out there for whatever writing tool you like, from pencils to fountain pens, and it handles it all with ease, so you can use both sides of each of these 80 sheets. The paper has a faint 4mm grid, so it works for those who like grid or lined, but it's also faint enough that it can be ignored altogether as if the page was blank. The grid is a bit small for me to write on every line, but every-other works well. The pages are micro-perforated and can be cleanly removed if the user wants, but the perforation is durable enough that the pages you want to keep don't come loose.

The key feature of this notebook is the soft ring binding. The rings are squishy, smooth plastic that are comfortable against your hand. They spring back into shape instead of getting permanently smooshed like wire binding. There are no stabby bits that snag on things, and they're low-profile, so you don't have a ring-bulk at one end of your notebook.

Basically, this notebook fixes all the things that make me say I hate spiral binding. It's the perfect school notebook, with enough pages to last a semester of notes and assignments. At $13.75 for A5, and $11.25 for B6, it is slightly more expensive than Kokuyo's other notebooks, but still extremely reasonable for the quality. It's more that Kokuyo's other products are shockingly inexpensive, and this one is closer to what I would expect, price-wise--and if it were any other brand, it would probably cost quite a bit more.

I'm already planning to grab a stack of these for next semester's classes, and the only thing I don't like about that plan is the waiting to use them.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Posted on March 17, 2022 by Sarah Read and filed under Kokuyo, Campus, Notebook Reviews.

Kokuyo Jibun Techo Biz Diary April 2022 Start Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

The end of the year always sparks a dash to pick up a planner for the next calendar year. You don't want to be caught on January 1 without a fresh planner to start your year! But what if you want to pick up the habit midway through the year? The thought of skipping past three months of empty pages can be a dealbreaker, and I can certainly sympathize. At that point, you're stuck picking from planners that are date agnostic (meaning you fill in the dates as you go).

Luckily, there's another option that, while obscure, can perfectly the needs described above. The Kokuyo Jibun Techo Biz Diary Mini is a planner that starts goes from April 2022 to April 2023. Each week is a full spread across two pages, with Monday at the beginning and Sunday at the end. This is different from a single-page-per-day planner like the Hobonichi Techo, but these two-page weekly spreads are really great too. It keeps the format compact but still has enough space to plan out or record your days in full detail.

Every hour is accounted for in this planner, though the early morning hours (0-6) have smaller spaces available to make room for the more traditional waking hours. The bottom of each day features some space for notes, highlights, and positive/neutral things that happened during the day. The icons used to denote these extra spaces are vague enough that you can use them in any purpose you see fit. I get annoyed with planners that are too opinionated about how I'm supposed to use them, and the Biz does not fall into that category.

The planner includes some great comfort features that really help from a planning and navigation aspect. The month numbers are printed on the outer edge of the page so you can easily navigate, and there's a small monthly calendar in the left side of the spread so you know where the weeks and days fall in the current month. Overall, the weekly planner portion of this product is really well done.

So far, I've only looked at the typical week spread where you'll likely spend most of your time. But this planner has a ton of extra goodies hidden between the covers.

Along with the weekly spreads, you got a monthly calendar for March 2022 through June 2023. These monthly calendars are also spread across two pages, which provide enough space to jot down notes, highlights, etc.

On top of all that, there are also several other helpful charts, trackers, and different month/year layouts for planning and visualizing different things. There are honestly too many to list, and I think each one has a great level of ambiguity that allows you to repurpose them to your own needs.

An abbreviated list from the marketing copy:

"a world time zone map, Japanese transit maps, yearly schedules, project management charts, and checklists for books, movies, promises, and recommendations."

This little planner really packs a lot in. You'd be safe to assume that it's quite a little chunk to carry around, but you'd be surprisingly wrong.

The Biz uses Kokuyo's excellent MIO paper, which keeps the overall thickness of the notebook thin without sacrificing performance. This 60gsm paper is similar to Tomoe River since it's super thin but handles fountain pen ink without a problem. There is some minor show through on the back side of the pages, but that's also the case when using fine gel tip pens (and even some pencils). This is one of the side effects of using such thin paper, but the tradeoffs are totally worth it when you consider everything that fits in this form factor.

At just 4.7 x 7.5 inches (120 x 190 mm), otherwise known as "B6 Slim," this notebook can fit in almost any bag and most coat pockets. It's also large enough that it's incredibly comfortable to use on a table. The binding is well done and has no problem laying flat on its own once you've opened the notebook to a particular weekly spread. Likewise, it stays shut when you're not using it.

There are two independent cloth markers — black and red — to mark different spots in the notebook. They're a little long for my taste, but they're easy to trim if needed.

Along with the notebook, you get a nice plastic cover to protect everything inside. There's no closure system for this cover — it simply wraps the notebook cover. Still, the notebook has no issues staying closed. The cover also adds a few pockets. In the front inside cover, there are three business/credit card slots. On the back inside cover, there's a horizontal slash pocket that can hold something similar in width to a credit card, but much longer.

There's a small plastic pen loop attached the back side of the cover as well. It's not a robust pen loop by any means, but it gets the job done. I don't know if will last a whole year of heavy use, but it's good enough for light to medium daily use. If you're not using it, it easily folds flat and tucks out of the way.

The front of the cover has one more slash pocket that is large enough to easily fit a pocket notebook (3.5 x 5.5 inch) or two, making it a great little kit.

I'm more of a "will he or won't he" user when it comes to journals of any kind, but I know for sure I haven't been giving enough credit to the two-page week spread. The Kokuyo Jibun Techo Biz diary helped me see the light, and I look forward to using this throughout the year.

I'm using the Matte Navy B6 Slim variant in this review, but you can also pick this up in an A5 Slim size. Both sizes offer the same color options: Matte Navy, Matte Black, and Light Beige. At $42 to $44 (depending on the size), this is a great option for getting into a weekly journaling habit a quarter into the new year.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Posted on March 16, 2022 by Jeff Abbott and filed under Kokuyo, Jibun Techo, Notebook Reviews.

Theme System Journal Review

Last year, my only resolution was to "try and get through this year." With a slight risk of speaking too soon, it seems I have achieved that. And I feel like I can push for some goals beyond mere survival for 2022, so I got out the Theme System Journal I've had on my shelf for the past year.

If you're even a little interested in this journal, do go check out their site and listen to the Cortex podcast episodes where Myke and Grey describe all the thought that went into its design and purpose. It will almost certainly tip the scales, and you'll be glad it did.

The journal itself is a nice object. It's slim, meant to last a single season, which makes it nicely portable. It's not a planner, so there's no need to have the whole year in your hand at once. In fact, it's better to stay focused on the short-term so that themes and goals can be revisited and adapted every so often. It is difficult to describe the cover. It's flexible, but very firm. Something in between a hardcover and soft cover. I confess I do not like the texture of it. It's matte faux suede and has a slightly velvety-rubbery feel that makes me not want to touch it. It shows dust and fingerprints a lot, and it looks pretty rough after only light use. I tried sticking stickers to it, and some worked very well and others would not stick at all. I will likely put a journal cover on this book.

It's an A5-ish size with nicely rounded corners and the Cortex brain-y logo is debossed on the front cover. The back cover has a tiny logo and "THEMESYSTEM" at the bottom center. Inside, there's a title page and an intro to the system. The corners of the pages tear away. I didn't like that at first, as it seemed messy, but tearing them off is very satisfying and I've been collecting the wee bits in a box on my desk to use as confetti for next New Year.

The pages include 4 theme pages, 90 daily pages, 12 tracker pages, 13 note pages, and 2 index pages. It's a good breakdown, with enough structure to offer guidance, but not so much that you feel locked into a specific journaling protocol. For example, I still haven't figured out how I'll use the boxes on the journal pages--but I never technically have to figure it out. I can just use them however works best for me that day.

The paper is Munken Lynx 100gsm, which is a new one for me. It works well with pretty much everything. It's not one to show off fountain pen ink characteristics, but it doesn't bleed or feather. It has good dry time. All around a very practical paper for a product that will likely be used both in and out of the stationery nerd community.

The journal costs $25 for a single volume, or a quarterly subscription for $20 each. That does make this a very expensive system, either committing to an $80 cost for a year, or $100 if you get them one at a time. Whether or not it's worth that much will be a very individual decision, and I think it's too early for me to answer that question for myself, yet. It will depend on how well this system works for me, which will be different from how it works for others. So far, I like it, but I don't $80 like it, so I'm not inclined to subscribe. But I am very open to this notebook changing the way I think about and move toward my goals, and I see its value even in a single season's use. Just sitting and thoughtfully setting up my themes has been time well spent, and I can see the philosophy of this system carrying over to other journaling methods if this setup doesn't end up working out.

For right now, this system was what I needed to get back into the mindset of even allowing myself to have goals again. They are gentle goals, more focused on progress than achievement. If you are also emerging from a cocoon of survival mode, I definitely recommend giving this system a try.

(Cortex Brand provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!