How to Choose a Planner for Your 2026 Goals

Inevitably, as 2025 winds down, we all start to think about ways in which we can improve ourselves in 2026. Whether we set out goals related to fitness, productivity, hobbies, relationships, travel, or any number of things, we’ll need the right tools to help us achieve them. In this blog, we’re going to cover analog planners that you can use to help achieve your own 2026 goals. 

Planners come in all sorts of sizes, arrangements, and price ranges and the best one is the one that fits your needs best. There are a lot of companies out there with planners and some of the more popular ones sell out months ahead of 2026 as planner season usually kicks off around August with Hobonichi’s full month of planner reveals. Of course, you can always create your own planner with any notebook as a DIY option. 

Now let’s look into three important things to consider when deciding on a planner. 

Paper

A major aspect to consider is the type of paper that you’ll want to use. Fountain pen users love Hobonichi because of their use of thin and fountain pen friendly Sanzen Tomoe River Paper. Several boutique planner companies have popped up over the years to offer fountain pen friendly planners as well, such as Faded Chronicle, Wonderland222, Just Scribble, and Sterling Ink, to name a few. 

If you’re not looking specifically for fountain pen friendly paper, your options are much more plentiful and include the likes of the Leuchtturm1917, Moleskine, and many, many more. 

Planner Size

Do you need a lot of space for detailed planning and/or notes or can you get by with just a sentence or two? This is important to consider as the size will limit both the formats available for a planner (see next section) and how much space you have to write. Above you’ll see relative sizes of a B5 Sterling Ink Common Planner, an A5 Faded Chronicle Full Year Planner, a B6 Just Scribble Horizontal Planner, a Slim B6 Hobonichi Weeks, and an A6 Hobonichi Techo. 

We find the A5 size to be the perfect Goldilocks size for most people, as it combines enough space for detailed notes and tasks with portability. But if you’re a student or a teacher or just someone who loves having lots of breathing room, then the B5 might be the best choice for you. Some people enjoy having the limitations of a smaller size so that they can focus on only the most important things. If that’s you, go for the A6 or Hobonichi Weekly. There’s something for everyone. 

Formats

All-in-One: These planners have monthly, weekly, and daily layouts in a single book (or sometimes they split it in two) and are usually a lot thicker since they need to cover a whole year. Some, like the popular A5-sized Hobonichi Techo, have their monthly, weekly, and daily sections all separate from each other, which means you’ll need to mark these sections somehow so that you can easily return to them. Others have the monthly and weekly pages in sequence with a large number of undated daily pages in the back (Wonderland222’s A5 All-in-One Weekly Planner) or have everything in sequential order, including daily pages (such as Just Scribble's planners). These planners are best for people that want it all: monthly overviews, weekly views, and daily pages. 

Weekly: Do you prefer to track just weekly or monthly? There’s always the Hobonichi Weeks, the Leuchtturm1917 Weekly Planner & Notebook, and the Moleskine Weekly Notebook which all offer monthly pages, along with sequential weekly pages next to blank pages for notes. These planners are useful for people that want to track weekly goals and have some space for weekly notes.

Daily: If you just want dated daily pages, Sterling Silver, Just Scribbles, Leuchtturm1917, and Moleskin all offer this option. This is useful for people that just want to plan day-to-day and that's it.

DIY: Of course, you can always create your own planner and it’s a lot easier than you’d think. Grab a blank notebook and create the features that you enjoy with stencils, rulers, stickers, washi tape, markers, highlighters, etc. The Bullet Journal method is a popular choice and has some guidelines to help you out if you’re not sure how to get started. 

We hope that this brief overview has sparked some ideas for you in how you could be using an analog planner to help you with your 2026 goals. As for us, Joveth will be using a Hobonichi Cousin for his daily tasks and a Hobonichi Weeks as a health tracker in 2026.