YOSEKALAB Two-Month Weekly Planner Review

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

With the 2025 planner season coming up, I thought it would be cool to walk through the planner that Yoseka released last year. The YOSEKALAB Two-Month Weekly Planner was designed by two of Yoseka’s employees, Amy Hong and Bethany Wu, who wanted to make something to help folks figure out what planner works best for them. The result is a single planner that has a variety of formats commonly found in other planners so that users could try out different formats before committing to a yearlong planner.

Green stamp not included, but I couldn’t resist stamping mine with the Yoseka partner shop stamp from Traveler’s Company when I was at the store.

The YOSEKALAB Two-Month Weekly Planner is a B6-sized soft cover planner that is made with 68gsm Tomoe River paper, and contains 32 pages of 10 different monthly and weekly spreads as well as some grid memo sheets in the front and back. Also included is an insert with a listing of the different layouts as well as a VERY handy chart of which products use which format(s). I particularly like that there are two 2-page spreads for most of the layouts, so that you can try it more than once to see if it works for you, or for you to use each spread in different ways.

B6 isn’t a super common size, but it is in between A5 and A6, so it will give you a good idea as to whether a format will work for you in a larger or smaller notebook. The handy chart also tells you what sizes different planners are offered in, which is extra helpful. Most of the time, planners will have pre-printed month/day/date but since the Yoseka Planner is meant for folks to try at any time in any year, there is space for users to write the month/day. Lastly, since I am a Bullet Journal follower (more or less), I don’t really use traditional planners, so the pictures don’t have any planning content because I plan on actually using this if my needs change.

Typical monthly layout that you’d see in many planners, though not all of them will have extra space.

Vertical Gantt layout where you can write on either/both sides of the Gantt-style calendar, which is handy for noting/tracking different projects.

Horizontal Gantt layout is an ideal layout for tracking or logging habits, projects, etc.

Vertical Schedule with dot markings in 3 hour increments, and space below for comments, to-do, etc. This format is great for folks who need to plan specific hours for their work, school, or anything else. I don’t plan my time from 12am to 6am (or really from 9pm onwards) but you could always use that space for decorations or other notes.

Horizontal Schedule with Memo on the right. This is the layout that I’m currently using in my Traveler’s Notebook for daily short form journaling on the left and “highlights” on the right.

Vertical Schedule with Memo. If I had found this format 7+ years ago, I might have never discovered Bullet Journaling and eventually Fountain Pens!! While I no longer need this format, I have several BuJo’s worth of self-made weekly spreads that look like this (though mine had a “taller” top section). I used the bottom for notes and tasks that didn’t have to be done on any specific day but had to be tackled that week.

Horizontal Quadrant. This is a fairly common weekly format, and was mostly what I found when looking for planners back in the day. It is divided horizontally into 8 sections, with the bottom right section empty for notes, to-do, etc.

Vertical Quadrant Divided. These Vertical Quadrant formats are similar in that they are divided vertically into 8 sections, with an extra section in the upper left for notes, etc.

Vertical Quadrant Memo. This format is great for folks who want to add a visual element for each day, whether it be a photograph or sketch.

Looking through all of these formats, if I needed a planner, I think I would pick either the Vertical Schedule or Vertical with Memo, but knowing that I could try out a bunch of formats before making a purchase will be super useful.

The YOSEKALAB Two-Month Weekly Planner is available online or in their Brooklyn, NY store for $9.50, which is a bargain, especially when the alternative is ending up with the wrong planner.

(Disclaimer: I purchased this notebook at regular price (and NY sales tax) from their store earlier this year.)

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My Techo Kaigi for 2023

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

What on earth is a “Techno Kaigi”? I had the exact same reaction when I first heard the term earlier this year. Loosely translated in Japanese, it is a journaling or planner meeting that you have (with yourself) where you reflect on what you’ve been using and whether you want to continue that into the next year. Most of the time, this reflection is done earlier in the fall, just as planner products come out, allowing you enough time to buy whatever products you plan to use in the coming year.

In past years, I’ve done this unknowingly just by asking myself if the Bullet Journal method is working for me (the answer has been “yes”) and if so, let’s do more of that. This year, as I was finishing my most recent Rhodia GoalBook in October, I asked myself the same question and had a slightly different answer. In short, the answer is still “yes” but it ended up being more like “yes, but with some tweaks”.

I don’t have a traditional job that requires me to use a traditional planner, which is why the Bullet Journal (BuJo) method really worked for me. I love being able to flip a page and add a spread for something new or start over if I really didn’t find something useful or hated how I laid out something. Whenever I finish up a GoalBook, I flip through and decide what needs to get moved over to the next GoalBook and then I will re-create spreads for penpal letter tracking, orders I’ve placed, as well as blood pressure tracking, exercise logs, habit trackers, etc. I also use markers to make my own weekly layouts at the beginning of every month. So that part hasn’t changed.

What has changed is I got sucked into the Plotter FOMO. Yeah, I’m not gonna lie. I knew Plotter was a big deal coming into LAST year’s SF Pen Show when they made their US debut. But it was this year when everyone seemed to be getting a Plotter and darn if I wasn’t gonna get one at this year’s SF Show for my birthday. And because their 5th Anniversary Plotter came out shortly thereafter, I had to get that too. So, now I had TWO new, thin, ring-bound systems that I didn’t really need for project management or “traditional work stuff”?! My Bible-sized Plotters lay unused for longer than I’d like to admit while I figured out what on earth I was going to use them for. Thankfully, the “end of BuJo reflection” helped me rethink my spreads and which ones made more sense to go into a Plotter versus the next BuJo.

I realized there are some spreads that I want to keep track of, on an ongoing basis, in my BuJo where I wouldn’t need to transfer the information to a new notebook. The Blood Pressure log is a good example of this. I wanted the data and a place to log it, but I didn’t really need to move the data to another notebook - I just needed to create a new blank spread. My habit tracker is another example where I can just create a new habit tracker in the new BuJo, I didn’t need to copy over the information from past months. These kinds of things were perfect for the BuJo and most of my spreads fell into this category.

As the BuJo is my ride-or-die “planner”, I will add new spreads to it so that I can see/use it regularly. And when I get to the end of the current BuJo, I can evaluate whether it goes to the next BuJo or the Plotter.

Todos and general planning, tracking, etc. continue to live in my trusty BuJo - the Rhodia GoalBook - including finishing this article, lol!

So what kind of stuff did I put in the Plotter? My list of Pen Addict products/article topics for one – I had gone through 2 BuJos since I started writing for TPA, which mean I had to copy the product list/topic list to 2 BuJos already and I didn’t want to have to do it with a 3rd BuJo. I’m going to use it as a checklist as I go through various product reviews or topics. I can move the completed pages to an archive, consolidate into fewer sheets when I cross off enough items or toss them when I’m done. I also added some pages for food/shopping/attractions when visiting certain cities (I have an ongoing list for NYC and the PNW if you have any recommendations!) - super handy because the Plotter is so portable! In any case, I can keep my notes and don’t have to worry about rewriting it when I finish the new BuJo in 6 months. Also, because the Plotter is a ring-bound system, I can easily add/move pages as needed.

It was handy to have my Pelikan Hub list in my Plotter last month.

I love the Plotter for its thinness, which makes it perfect for toting around. In the past, I’ve traveled with my A5 BuJo, only for it to remain unused in my suitcase the whole time. But the Plotter’s thinness comes at a price – I can’t fit as many pages in it as I’d like. So, I have to be very picky about what things I put in a Plotter and put the rest in a Filofax, which has bigger rings and stays on my desk. The Filofax is also great for archiving pages I no longer need to keep with me, but still want to keep the data. And yes, many of the Plotter’s various sizes are also compatible with the Filofax - the Bible-sized Plotter pages work in the Filofax’s Personal size, the A5 sizes are interchangeable, Plotter’s Mini maps to Filofax’s Pocket, etc.

Tracking my skincare products on Plotter’s paper in a Filofax Personal so I know how long I’ve been using a product. This stays home because I don’t need this info when I’m out and about.

While Techo Kaigi is often used for planners, I’ve decided to apply this to journaling as well. A few months ago, I started journaling (for the first time in a LONG time) and decided to do it in a Traveler’s Notebook. Unfortunately, I’m very bad at journaling with any regularity and I end up forgetting a lot by the time I get to it. So I decided to use the remainder of my 2022 Hobonichi Weeks to do short form “jot” journaling, with the intent of doing long form journaling in the TN later. The intent was good but the execution wasn’t great. The Weeks is just a bit too small for the jot journaling and the TN is also a bit too small for the decorating and long-form journaling that I wanted to do too (is anyone shocked by my long-windedness?). So, for 2023, I’m going to move to a Traveler’s Company 2023 Weekly Diary for short form and an undated A5 Hobonichi for long form. I will continue to use the Hobonichi Weeks for my “pens of the week” scribbles and quotes.

My attempt at journaling with the Hobonichi Weeks and Traveler’s Notebook - nice try but not quite the right size.

2023 journaling will be done with the Traveler’s Notebook and A5 Hobonichi - got started with a little decoration so I’m ready to go!

While I use a lot of other notebooks for other things like quotes, lyrics, etc. - maybe I’ll write about those some other time - I think I have my planning/journaling system in place for 2023 and I’m looking forward to seeing how it works out.

Hobonichi Undated A5 notebook (with Have a Nice Day cover), Traveler’s Notebook customized by Baum-Kuchen, Filofax Personal, Plotter 5th Anniversary Bible-sized Liscio Green, Rhodia GoalBook in a Hobonichi A5 Cover.

If you want to find out what others are doing for 2023, check out this Techo Kaigi YouTube playlist with a bunch of great content from the Stationery Brew Crew! Until next year’s Techo Kaigi, stay inky!

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WMS & Co Keyboard Planner Review

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

In our digital world, it can be easy to get stuck to screens while the world rushes by. For many, having an analog connection to the physical world is important. That could be notebooks and pens, or other objects that bring us joy or help us with productivity.

There's a very niche market in the notebook realm that targets odd or uncommon sizes for specific uses. While desk pads aren't as common as they used to be, you still have plenty of options today. But, with the advent of the computer, full-size desk pads don't work well for most desk spaces due to the computer peripherals that need prime space on your desk. Well, that's okay because there's a few options for desk pads and planners that lay in front of your keyboard for easy access. The most recent one I've had the pleasure of trying is the WMS & Co Keyboard Planner.

This small desk pad is 11.4 x 4 inches, and spans the width of a normal keyboard. It's actually the perfect size for a wrist rest, but it happens to function as a free form week planner.

There are 74 one-sided sheets in this pad. Each sheet has a space for Monday through Friday, while Saturday and Sunday share a column. You'll notice that there aren't any times or dates printed on the pages, and that's because this is intended to be an open style of planner. I've found it useful for jotting down a quick sketch of the week so I know where my open spaces are, and then I can jot down fleeting notes as they come up. Since this is more of a scratchpad, I don't feel any anxiety about ripping out the page and tossing it in the can at the end of the week. I've found it really useful for being a time scratchpad as opposed to a traditional planner. The size and open structure don't cater to detailed planning or diaries, and that's okay!

The binding on the notepad is sturdy. The spine is rigid, but it's still really easy to rip a single page out without tearing.

The notepad also features a colored edge that adds a nice flare of personality. You can choose between Yellow, Gold, or Rose for the edge color. In each variation, the spine is black.

In my testing, this paper holds up surprisingly well with all types of pen and ink. I used a variety of ballpoints, gel pens, rollerballs, fountain pens, and pencils and was satisfied with how they performed on this pad.

Not that it matters, but there's barely any show-through on the back of the page. Similarly, I haven't noticed any feathering or bleeding with the fountain pens I've tried. While this paper isn't one that you'll spend a lot of time writing on, it still performs exceptionally well.

You'll probably know at first glance if this keyboard pad can help you organize or visualize your days. If your first reaction is something along the lines of "I could never use that for planning my week! No times? What?!", then you might be right. That was my first reaction too, but once I sat down and gave it a fair shake, I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed having it right in front of me along with my keyboard. No more shuffling things around to take some quick notes!

I know the WMS & Co Keyboard Planner isn't for everyone, but it fits a specific niche size that I'm glad exists.

This planner is $14 in either Rose, Yellow, or Gold edges. These would make great gifts or great additions to your desk!

(This product was purchased from The Gentleman Stationer at regular retail price.)

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

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