I was reminded of this phrase by a marketing email from Plotter, linking to this post. Techo Kaigi means “notebook meeting,” and the idea is that you should have a meeting with yourself to contemplate your notebooking methods and make sure they are right for you. This is generally done in the fall, when planners for the coming year become available and you can decide whether to change what kind of diary or planner you will buy.

This will be a unique process for each person. For some, it may be a question of finding the one formatted diary or planner that meets their needs, while for others, it may involve reckoning with how you’ll use several different notebooks each for their own purpose. Here are a few examples:

• Kimberly at the Pen Addict
• The Penguin Post
• Hues and Prints
• Cheeseism.net

For me, techo kaigi is pretty much a year-round activity! I’m always thinking about all the various notebooks and planners that are out there and how best to use them. But it does come to a head each fall when I’m ready to buy next year’s diary. For several years now, I’ve been very loyal and consistent in using a Nolty diary as my dated planner/logbook for the year. I also keep a pocket Moleskine sketchbook for drawings, and I keep a journal in (usually) a pocket squared Moleskine or a Bindewerk journal.

In the last year or so I have also added a pocket Filofax to my arsenal as a keeper of long term lists, but I’m not entirely sure this is really working for me. I’ve contemplated using it as a planner too, but I can’t give up the Nolty. I have various Filofax organizers and similar looseleaf notebooks that I really like, and I used to use them daily, but for the past 20+ years, I haven’t been able to find a solid place for them in my various routines.

But last year, I made one major change to my notebooking habits, and it’s going to evolve even further this coming year. This involves the notebook I keep for my job, which for decades has been totally separate from my personal notebooks.

When I placed my annual Nolty order for 2024, I threw in a dated Pagem diary. I kind of just wanted to check it out and review it for this site, but then I ended up liking it so much, I decided to start using it for my job. For years, I’d always used a larger notebook for work, just filling it with notes and to-do lists and moving to a new page when the old one was full. I always thought a pocket sized notebook would be too small for work notes, but my experiment with the Pagem diary this year proved that a small dated planner could work for me. But in other ways, I found the Pagem format constraining, and not adaptable enough to my odd schedule. The light bulb went off: my work notes could be the perfect opportunity to make use of a refillable looseleaf binder. So this time, when I placed my Nolty order, I added some items from their Petit Pagem and Bindex brands of “mini 6” inserts, which will be compatible with my pocket size Filofaxes and other binders. I also have various inserts from Filofax and Plotter that I can use.

So while my personal techo kaigi took me about 5 seconds to say, yep, I’ll do that again, I’m now looking forward to even more strategizing and testing on how I’ll set up a pocket sized looseleaf work planner. I have a couple of calendar formats to experiment with, various options for notes pages, and several appealing options for the binder itself. And what’s wonderful is that I can keep tinkering with it as I go along! Unlike with a bound notebook or planner, I won’t feel like I have to stick with it all year until it’s used up– I can adjust as I go along, and even if I find an insert system that works perfectly, I can change my mind about the exterior cover and move all the inserts into a different binder if I feel like it. This should be fun! Techo kaigi will continue, and I’ll keep you posted!