My Analog Setup: A 2025 Review

The last time I made a post remotely like this, it was 2021: the height of the pandemic, stuck at home, and I have too much time on my hands. If there is one thing that remained constant through the years (aside from the comfort books give me) though, it’s my love affair with stationery. That, with my love of planning (and just basically the tactile act of writing), gave me the necessary foundation to still maintain a healthy analog lifestyle, despite my (slight) dependency with tech. It’s a bold claim to make, but I honestly think this is one of the things that are responsible in keeping my internal world in order. A lot of things have changed and I admittedly played around with my notebook game (e.g., that one time I tried to do digital planning that didn’t quite work out as I hoped it would). Staying consistent with this practice, year-by-year, made me reflect what works and what doesn’t, and I always look forward to that time of the year when I order any supplies that I need to refresh because I loved them so much.

I recently (randomly) googled The Gentleman Stationer again (always an inspiration) and it inspired me to do a quick review of all the materials I use in my analog life, so here they are:

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Notebooks

EDC (every day Carry)

• Hobonichi Techo Weeks in Unsodo: Bijutsukai – My life planner since 2019! I used to subscribe to the local Belle De Jour Power planner back in the heyday of fashion and lifestyle blogging. But when I discovered Hobonichi’s products in 2018-2019 from local stationary groups, I didn’t look back. The Techo Weeks in particular is a dated planner that is convenient to use for my regular work and life planning. (I take an integrated approach in my life, so my work and personal stuff is lined up in just one place.) The layout suits my everyday needs. They use Tomoe River S paper (a variant of the famed but phased out Tomoe River Paper) so it is perfect for fountain pens and fountain pen inks, with no feathering and minimal ghosting. Also, even if it contains a whole year, it is still very slim. And finally, one of my favorite things about it (and probably the best): it lays flat. After all these years, this is still my workhorse, everyday-carry planner. Re. the design — I decided to be a bit adventurous with the color this year since the usual Tomitaro Makino design that I like is not available for 2025. This Unsodo: Bijutsukai design is based on a craft design book that was published during the Meiji period, a collection of multicolored woodblock prints – designs made more than 100 years ago! Though it is not usually my color scheme, I like that little bit of whimsy and history of it. (Note: I recently retrieved my collection from home and it is so satisfying (and honestly making me emotional) seeing them all lined up in one place. I have to stop myself from flipping and reminiscing most of the time. I feel like I am a different person at each year, looking at my notes!)
• Traveler’s Notebook in Camel (Passport Size) – My oldest passport-sized traveler’s notebook (and my second oldest traveler’s by far). This has transformed over the years on being a daily work planner to a common place notebook into its fully realized form now: my gratitude journal. I love how it aged: the oils from my hands from handling it too often, and the scratches from everywhere and anywhere from lugging it around so much, delicately reflected in the patina it developed over the years. These days, I fill it with either a 003 Blank Notebook or a 013 MD Paper Cream refill, and almost always has 3 notebooks in it. This is a notebook just filled with all my happy memories and random, little things that make me happy — imagine a place dedicated to just that. I love this so much! 🤍

Others

• Hobonichi Techo 2025 Cousin in a minä perhonen jardin (Gray) cover – 2022 is when I bit the bullet and decided to try the cousin, hoping it would encourage me to write more frequently. While I have a lot of thoughts for this format, this book has accompanied me in many anxious nights when I couldn’t sleep because of feelings. I renew the book every year since, but the cover still remained the same. Surprisingly, my worry of this cover easily becoming dirty did not materialize. As a refresher: this is a cloth cover with Jacquard Velvet, which was made in the only factory in Japan that has the technique to make it. Each cover sold would contain a unique arrangement of patterns. And after all these years, I still feel a strange affinity towards it.
• Dot Grid Spiral Notebook in A5 – I don’t know if Muji decided to discontinue producing my favorite dot grid spiral notebook with the plastic cover but I couldn’t, for the life of me, find them anywhere else now. Which is a shame because they are the perfect notebook to complement my planners for when my work gets a little bit too much for its pages, mainly because of the quality of the paper that they used for those notebooks. Anyway, I found a good(ish) alternative from Amazon which I’ve been using since. The paper is not as smooth to the touch like Muji’s but it is still fountain pen-friendly. This notebook stays in my desk, and I reach for it for anything long-form or anything that would require a whole page or more in my day-to-day (mostly for work).

Writing Instruments

EDC

• TWSBI Mini (Black) in F inked with Platinum Carbon Black – My forever workhorse pen, this is what I use everywhere. Despite being an F (and probably due to the consistency of the ink), this write more like a fine-medium nib. Coupled with my forever workhorse ink, the Platinum Carbon Black, they make the perfect everyday-se writing instrument. The ink in particular is a much loved bottle of mine — it is water-resistant, and virtually waterproof once dry, so it is also perfect for sketching and watercolor painting. I also have not experienced any clogging ever, despite how pigmented and easy to dry (decent drying time, dependent on paper) it is.
• Pilot Metropolitan (Purple Ellipse) in F inked with Platinum Carbon Black – I use this exclusively for my Techo Weeks because of how thin it writes. It is an F nib that writes like an EF — Japanese nibs tend to do this. And despite how cheap it is (this is one of my very first fountain pens), it lasted me for a long time and is still going strong despite how often I use it. I used to have an Orange one that I eventually gave to my younger sister. Nevertheless, this is a pen that holds a lot of memories for me since I got it back in 2018. I don’t see myself discontinuing use of this any time soon.
• Pentel Fiesta in 0.5 in (anything) HB – I’ve had a version of this pencil for the last 10+ years or so, even maybe dating back to my university days. I remember buying this specific one before leaving for Ireland more than 3 years ago, and you can see from the sticker how old it is (it even has a part of the price tag from our local Expressions stuck to it, lol). Using this pencil is such a comfort, a little piece of my younger self and my previous life I still hold on to. I use it for everything, but mostly for annotating my books. I write in a way that if I write enough, the graphite becomes almost like a broad-oblique nib which I think is cool — and HB lends itself nicely in this.
• Pentel G-2 Rollerball Pen in 0.5 Black – I bought a box of this 3 years ago and I think I still have not gone through all of it. I love my fountain pen ink but sometimes I need something a little bit on the go, that dries fast. This is for those moments, or for when my pen suddenly ran out of ink and I am not at home.

BackupS

• TWSBI Diamond Mini (Demonstrator/Clear) in F inked with Diamine November Rain – I love different kind of inks, but at the end of the day, I still stuck with the neutral black to use on my dailies. I did however ink at least one of my pens with an ‘adventurous’ ink: one of my favorites, Diamine November Rain. I use it when I feel whimsical and wanted to see those gorgeous red sheen against this green ink. It’s amazing, really. And always bring a smile to my face.
• Sakura Pigma Micron Pen 01 and 03 in Black – I mostly use this for sketching (which is a different topic altogether) but I’ve been particularly attracted to Micron 01 these days. I like it because it is a waterproof ink (perfect for watercolor) but also for times when I (rarely now) use highlighters. I still prefer the Platinum Carbon Black for my permanent ink needs but this is a convenient backup in case drying time is a concern for me.
• Pentel Sharp Kerry in Olive/Green in (anything) HB – While Pentel Fiesta will probably be my favorite pencil forever, this just looks so posh as a pencil I couldn’t help it. It is an unusual capped mechanical pencil that can also transform as a ‘click’ pencil, which is amazing for someone like me who loves the sound of it.

Others Items

• HP Sprocket Portable Instant Printer in Luna Pearl – Ah, yes, my love. I didn’t want to jump on the bandwagon of getting an Instax so I just got this instant portable printer years ago (2019?) instead. This uses the Zink technology (where the ink/dye is in the photo paper, and the printer uses heat to activate it) and can be connected via bluetooth to my phone, which holds most of my photos anyway. I especially like using the collage function and printing photos to include in my gratitude journal, especially those that I didn’t want to post online but still wanted to preserve somewhere.
• Index Tabs – Somewhere along the way, annotating became marking and writing in books with a pencil and putting page tabs to mark specific moments in books I want to remember. I like this as a companion for my reading and have always kept a stock of these ever since I started using them. I stock these index tabs I found at Amazon regularly.

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In Retrospect

A couple of things that I noted while writing this, that made me really happy:

• A lot of the things above remained the same despite the almost 5-year difference from my last Analog Setup post; proving that my efforts to be a bit more sustainable in my stationary consumption was a success. 🎉 Besides the Techo Weeks that I buy every year, almost all are refillable in this list. I constantly buy traveler’s notebook refills but rarely get new notebooks anymore. I don’t buy new covers for my Hobonichi Cousin and just change the refill yearly. It’s still the same fountain pens that I use, refilled by the same ink (coming from the same bottle I had from years ago; so far I don’t think I ever bought a new bottle since I first got it, truly value for money). Though these things are relatively pricey on the get-go, it proved to be cost-efficient in the long term.
• It’s the same observation as before but I don’t hoard (and frequently buy) as much stationery products anymore. More often than not, I make sure to buy only from brands that I trust (which isn’t a lot lately). Since I am very particular with the paper quality due to my frequent use of fountain pens, I don’t get crazy whenever I see cute notebook covers anymore (a Moleskine, you say? bleh. horrendous paper). I also learned how to not get into the habit of buying new fountain pens frequently anymore (well, to be fair, it is expensive). I think I only bought one fountain pen the last 5 years, which was mostly so I can get the tools that came with it to fix an existing one I have. This is mostly attributable to me not being as active in the Fountain Pen community anymore; but it’s curious how being exposed to other people’s haul posts influences so much of one’s buying tendencies. I stuck to the same pens I was using, and honestly I don’t have any complaints so far.

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So, those are the items in my regular rotation. I have a stash of other notebooks that I use ad hoc (e.g., my main reading journal, various iterations of travel journals, etc.) but those are probably for a separate post. Another goal of writing this is to have an inventory of things that I regularly use and have a think about my next year’s setup, considering Hobonichi’s usual September release of their 2026 lineup. In short, I am planning a Techo Kaigi (for the uninitiated: it’s a Japanese term for “notebook/planner meeting”, which is the act of reviewing your current system to see if any adjustment is necessary). I like this practice a lot because it makes sure that I am still intentional with my purchases and the notebooks I keep. I do have a couple of thoughts on my current setup and I can’t wait to get into it — that’s another post planned ahead!

Do you also use planners, fountain pens, and/or Inks? If you are, I’m curious, what are your favorites? Comment below and let’s talk!

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