Shigesato Itoi on the Hobonichi Techo:

It’s all about what you think when you’re alone. How you spend time when you’re alone. What your true colors are when you’re alone.

“I listen to music when I’m alone,” he’ll say, but that still doesn’t take up all the time he spends alone. “I read books,” she’ll say, but she isn’t reading non-stop.

When people are alone, they have this hazy, blank period of time they can’t put a name to.

The nameless feelings experienced during those nameless times make up a major element of a person. And one day, like a bubble surfacing in water, something will emerge in the form of words. I hope the Hobonichi Techo can serve as a means to keep those words.

I’d like the Hobonichi Techo to be a fishing net to catch all the things you think and feel during your unnameable times. Of course you can use the techo as a scheduler, but there are already other tools you can use for that. I get the feeling there’s never been a container to keep things that surface during unnameable times, unimportant things that stick with you, or things that resonate with you when you don’t know why. It takes a Hobonichi Techo to hold them because we created it as a group of people who are neither stationary manufacturers nor professionals. Even as the planners are all the same containers, they have unique shapes as clay formed by hand.

There will be days when you couldn’t catch a fish, and there will be days you won’t fish. But with 365 days in a year, over time your net will fill with plenty of minnows. Such is the wealth of our thoughts.

Hobonichi Planner 2013

This year marks the first time Shigesato Itoi’s “Hobonichi Techo” is available in English.

The graph paper design maximizes customization, so it’s a blast to compare notes and see how each person has made the planner their own. There’s also a collection of quotes on the bottom of each day, specially translated from Itoi’s long history of interviews with others. At the back of the book are beautifully illustrated informational pages.

Itoi put it best when he said he wanted the planner to be a book that you add to your bookshelf at the end of the year. There’s a lot we take for granted in our daily lives, but looking back on a year of offhand scribbles and notes and schedules and doodles is fascinating. Let your New Year’s resolution be to realize how interesting you are.