Happy New Year everyone!

It’s officially 2026, and that means goal setting time! Despite my love of the New Year and that fresh slate feeling, I try not to go too crazy with goals these days. In the past I’ve often set myself challenging, and frankly unrealistic goals, and then become discouraged when I get to February and am already behind. Usually when this happens I just fall off, so this year I’m trying to be sensible, and choose doable goals. 

I’ve come up with a few personal goals involving things like health and exercise, my writing and also reading (I always set a reading goal each year – this year I’m yet again aiming for 40 books, as I can usually hit that goal relatively easily). 

But I’ve also come up with a few goals for my stationery hobby, and also some intentions of what I want to focus on for the coming year:

Buy no more than 10 fountain pens

I set this goal last year, and failed quite badly, as my end of year count up revealed I’d actually bought 15 pens. That’s still a lot less than in 2024, when I’d just got into fountain pens, but not where I wanted to be. 

I feel quite satisfied with my collection at the minute though, so this feels a lot less of a stretch in 2026, but I guess we’ll see. This year I am going to keep a record as I go along of how many I’ve bought instead of just counting them up at the end, as this should keep me on track better. 

This goal is not because I think buying pens is bad, it’s just that I want to really spend some time with the pens I already have this year, and focus on actually creating with them, rather than having that collector’s mindset. 

Buy no more than 5 inks

This year I got into inks in a big way, and my collection really exploded. And I love having so many options with ink, but I am aware that at this point I probably have more than I can use in a lifetime, not to mention that I have so many options I’m barely using some of them. 

So this year I want to focus on using and appreciating my existing inks, and not adding too many more to the collection. There are two I already have plans to purchase (the fairly new Diamine Lady Grey, and I want an archival black ink, likely Platinum Carbon Black), but otherwise I’m going to try and not go crazy!

Expand the use of my stationery

Currently, the bulk of my stationery use is for journaling and creative writing, both things I love, but this year I want to expand and branch out, so I can use my many pens, inks and notebooks for even more purposes. 

Some of the avenues I want to go more into are various forms of art (mainly drawing and collaging), and I’m considering trying out some solo RPGs, since I’ve now learned that that’s a thing, and it sounds fun! 

I also want to learn more about a variety of topics in the coming year, so I want to do a lot more commonplaceing, and perhaps take some notes on some online courses. I like the trend that was going round Youtube and social media a while ago of setting your own personal curriculum, so thought I might give that a go!

So what are your stationery plans for 2026? Have you made any goals for the New Year?