Posts filed under Planner Reviews

Midori 5 Year Diary With Embroidered Black Cover Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Bluesky. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)

We humans love our memories. From the social media memories features, to "On This Day in History" columns, to our genealogy research--we cherish the past. And the only way for future generations to do the same is if we record the present. I feel pretty confident in saying that your grandkids aren't going to have access to your Facebook memories, and whether that makes you sad or relieved, you'll need another way--an analogue way--to pass down your voice. Thank goodness for the journaling renaissance that's happening right now. Daily pages, journals, diaries, commonplace books--all these volumes will give the future a clearer window into these "interesting times."

Midori 5 Year Diary Embroidered Black Cover

If you're looking for a way to record your thoughts over a passage of time, the Midori 5 Year Diary is the perfect place to start. Each page of the book is labeled with the date, and then divided into five sections, one for each consecutive year. You make your entry each day, then at the end of the year, start back at the beginning. The daily sections are small, encouraging brevity, so it never takes more than a minute or two to complete your daily entry. It's still just enough room to list your day's headlines.

You don't even need to use it for general entries. The format would work very well as a baby book, a weather log, a mood or health tracker, a business or career tracker, an ink journal, or travel journal. It looks rigid, but it is endlessly flexible.

The Midori 5 Year Diary comes in a number of colors. All of them look fantastic. This special embroidery edition comes in both black and white. The cover is a cotton or linen fabric with colorful stitchwork. The embroidery is done in actual thread--it isn't a printed image. It is very pretty and tactile. It comes with a vinyl book cover to protect the stitchwork, but I've taken that off so I can enjoy the texture. I don't care if it gets worn--in fact, I expect it to, after five years of use. Assuming I can keep it up. So far, so good.

Inside the beautiful cover are 193 sheets of ivory Midori MD paper. It's top-tier paper and performs well with almost anything.

The standard edition of the 5 Year Diary sells for $42.50, and this embroidered edition sells for $65. That's very steep for a notebook, even one intended to be an heirloom. This is one of those cases where it's worth it to you if it's worth it to you. It is very well made, clearly designed to stand up to those long years of use. If you're intending for it to be a future gift to a loved one, then this level of quality makes sense.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Posted on January 22, 2026 by Sarah Read and filed under Midori, Planner Reviews.

Laconic Pocket Log Diary B7C Undated Daily Planner Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Bluesky. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)

Plans are like goldfish, they grow to fill the space you provide for them. This past year, I switched from a Hobonichi Weeks into a Hobonichi Cousin because I felt I needed more space for more and bigger plans. But that was too many plans. I need to return to a smaller planner and make a rule that when I'm out of space, I'm not allowed to add anything else to my day. With that in mind, I'm looking for teeny tiny planners. When I saw the Laconic Pocket Log Diary, I felt I needed to give it a try.

This pocket-sized diary is the same size as a passport (though much thicker), so it fits in small bags, and only allows for so many plans. It is a six-month diary, so it won't last the whole year, but who knows what our plans will be like six months from now, anyhow? These days, 12-month planning feels like hubris. The diary has a vinyl cover that is removable, and the insert is a soft cardstock-covered notebook.

The first section has a spread for six monthly themes to be described--perfect if you have a specific goal or focus for your months. Then there are six spreads of undated monthly calendars. The days columns are labeled with a Monday start. There is also a wee column for a memo. Each date square is only about 1.5 cm, which is just enough space for one work shift, one appointment, and one event. Which is PLENTY. Then there are the six months' worth of daily log pages.

Each daily log page has room to write in the date, circle a day of the week, circle the weather and record the temperature, a place to record something else related to health or fitness, a meal planning section, and then a to-do list with handy checkboxes. It's part planner, part diary, part logbook, and it will make a nice keepsake for reflecting back on the past months.

Past the daily pages are some list pages that allow you to document up to 72 things. Books read, movies watched, etc. Then there are a few sheets of grid paper for making notes. The final page has room for handy personal information. There is also a nice note on the back page assuring that the paper is made from properly managed sustainable forests, which was neat to see. There are also two ribbon bookmarks, so you can keep your month and day marked.

The paper inside this diary is very nice. It's smooth and a soothing cream color. It feels and looks much like Tomoe River Paper, but it isn't. While the paper provides a great writing experience, it doesn't work well with liquid inks. Rollerball, Sharpie, marker, and fountain pen all had some bleeding issues. Gel pens, ballpoints, and pencil worked great. With writing spaces this tiny, I'd likely be using a very fine point gel pen anyway, so it's not an issue for me, personally, but if you stick to fountain pens exclusively, this one would be a pass.

The Laconic Pocket Log Diary comes with covers in eight different colors, and it sells for $18.50. That feels a bit steep for a pocket-sized six-month diary, especially considering that the Laconic A5 notebooks are only $6 — though those do have fewer pages and no slipcover. While the price is a bit more than I would have expected, it's definitely a handy little book. I don't know if it will become my plan-minimizing planner next year, though. I frequently have to plan more than six months in advance for things--in fact I have quite a few big plans already that happen beyond the scope of this book. But I do like the daily log feature a lot. I think it would make a better diary than planner, for me. But if you're also seeking to reign in your plans and don't need a whole year at once, this one is worth looking into.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Posted on August 29, 2025 by Sarah Read and filed under Laconic, Planner Reviews.

Paperian One Month Goal Tracker Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)

Hey, got any new goals? Need to track them? Is one of your goals to not spend ten hours a week designing your own habit trackers? Well, then! Take a look at the Paperian One Month Goal Tracker sheets. They come in three different formats: a grid, numbered shapes in a flowchart to fill in, and a numbered list. My brain loves grids, so that's what I got to try.

The pack contains twelve cards to get you through the year, six on a cream color and six on a tea color. The cardstock has an antiqued look to it that I like. They remind me a bit of vintage library catalog cards. There are lines to write your goals and wee rectangles to mark off every day of the month.

The cardstock is good quality and the cards are sturdy with rounded corners. They're sized well to use as a bookmark or put inside planners. But best of all, they do well with every kind of ink I tried on them. Everything from pencil to Sharpie to fountain pen worked like a dream.

I really like the modular format of these. It is, after all, just a card. Change your mind? Fresh card! Come up with a new goal mid-year? Fresh card! Want to keep track of your progress forever? Paste it in your journal! Want to forget this ever happened? Toss the card!

The twelve-pack of trackers is only $4.40 at Jetpens, which is a fabulously good deal. I would have expected the price to be higher, given the quality. I can think of all kinds of uses for them beyond standard habit tracking, as well. How about a color-coded temperature tracker for the year? An ink of the day square? Health notes, bar charts, etc... tons of uses.

I think I'll be using lots of these, and might even try the other formats to see what ways I can use those, too. I do, after all, have a lot of habits to be tracking. Some of them are even good.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!