As a stationery lover, I obviously like to use notebooks, so I generally have as many as ten to fifteen ‘active’ at any one time. That means I would consider myself to be currently using the notebook for a purpose, and they tend to be the ones I keep on my desk, in easy reach. 

But of these many active notebooks, there’s only a very small selection that I use on a daily basis. These notebooks tend to be my memory keepers and planning notebooks, as opposed to a lot of my other notebooks which are project-based, or informational. 

I revamped my system a little bit in the New Year, and realised I hadn’t done a rundown of my current notebook system, so in this post I thought I’d go over the four most important notebooks, the ones I use every day. 

Starting with my favourite:

My journal

I only got into journaling at the end of 2023, but since then I’ve filled up 5 notebooks, and am now onto my 6th. This is just a classic journal: I write about my day, what’s happened and my feelings about it. Which considering I’ve had some pretty big life changes since I started journaling, is quite interesting to look back on! 

The current notebook I’m using as a journal is this A5 Neorah dot journal that I got for just £2 from a Trade Outlet. I don’t tend to have one specific type of notebook that I always use as a journal: so far I’ve used a Moleskine Expanded, a Leuchtturm1917 A5, a Stalogy A5, a Paperchase spiral bound notebook and a random notebook I got from Tesco. I’ve liked all of these, but maybe I just haven’t found my perfect journal yet!

My bullet journal

It’s probably a bit generous to call this notebook a bullet journal, as aside from a section at the front to track my goals it’s basically a daily to-do list. But isn’t that what a bullet journal is, in its purest form?

This is new for 2026, as I finally accepted that I don’t have enough happening in my life to really warrant a whole planner. So I now just scribble down anything I need to do in this A6 Hobonichi notebook that I’ve had for a while. So far this simple system is working well!

My Gratitude journal

I kind of hate the term ‘gratitude journal’, it sounds cheesy, but that’s essentially what this is. I noticed my regular journaling tended to be a bit negative, as a lot of it was just me venting my feelings, so a while ago I started using a Field Notes notebook to write three good things that happened each day, in an attempt to be more positive. 

This year I decided to do this in a dedicated daily planner, mostly as an excuse to buy this adorable One Piece Hobonichi HON! This also gives me an excuse to use lots of my pens and inks, because I use a different pen each day, and on the monthly pages at the front I write down what ink I used each day.

One Line A Day Book

This is a five-year memory book, so each day of the year has five entries, so you can fill out what you did on that day for five years in a row. I’m now onto year 4 of this, and it is really fascinating to see what I was doing this time three years ago! 

I know companies like Hobonichi and Midori do variations of this, but I actually like this little diary from Chronicles Books. I think I bought this from Waterstones? I know they still sell them, and I’ll likely buy another one for 2028, once I’ve filled this one up. 

So what notebooks do you write in daily? And how many ‘active notebooks’ do you have overall?