January has passed in a bit of a blur, and I can’t say I have anything too exciting to report in terms of things I’ve done, and places I’ve been. I often find January to be this way, as you settle back into normal life after the excitement and busyness of the festive season. But I am heading into a week off work, so that will give me some time to get out and do more, and also to relax. 

In terms of stationery, I’ve had a fun month of getting into the swing of my 2026 planner/notebook system, which is much simpler than last year’s. So let’s talk about that first:

Notebooks/Planners

I only bought one planner this year: the Hobonichi HON A6. And oddly, I haven’t been using it as a planner. Instead I’ve been using it as a daily gratitude journal.

I kind of hate the term ‘gratitude journal’, as it seems a bit cheesy to me, but over a year ago I realised that a lot of my regular journaling was quite negative, and I wanted to combat that. I started using Field Notes notebooks to write down three positive things each day, and really enjoyed the practice, so I decided to buy a dated planner this year to use for this purpose.

I’m doing my actual planning in this A6 Hobonichi notebook. This poor notebook has been allocated and reallocated different uses, and has subsequently had many pages torn out of it, but I finally think it’s found its purpose!

I’m not doing anything fancy here, just daily to do lists, and I have a few pages at the start to help me track my 2026 goals, and that’s it. I’ve found that when I make my systems too complicated, I end up abandoning them, so thought I’d keep it simple this year. 

All the other notebooks I’ll be using in 2026 have rolled over from last year, and I’ll just keep using them until they are filled up.

Fountain Pens

My most used pens this month have been the three newest additions to my collection, and I seem to have a bit of a green theme going on here! 

From the top down, I have the Kaco Retro, the Asvine C80 and the Jinhao 20, all of which I’ve been really enjoying using. I am starting to run out of ink in the Jinhao 20 and the Kaco Retro, so there will probably be some other pens rising to the fore in February. 

Not to mention I’ve just received a new, and very exciting pen (my third ever handmade pen!), which I think will probably be my most used in February. But I plan to do a whole post about that pen!

So how has your January been? What have been some of your stationery favourites of the month?