Hobonichi vs Sterling Ink

My thoughts on the cousin and the common planner

Hello! I’m glad you’re here.

One of the biggest questions I’ve gotten on Instagram this year is how I’m liking the Sterling Ink Common Planner, so I figured I’d do a quick comparison with the Hobonichi Cousin and share my thoughts.

The two planners are pretty similar, but the Common Planner includes more goal-tracking pages at the beginning. Here’s how the layouts compare:

Sterling Ink Common Planner

• Year at a Glance

• Blank grid pages

• Goal Breakdown (one day, one year, half-year, quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily)

• Yearly Tracker

• Quarterly Sections (Q1–Q4), each with another Yearly Tracker

• Monthly calendar spreads

• Weekly spreads

• Undated daily pages

  

  

Hobonichi Cousin

• Year at a Glance

• Yearly Tracker

• Monthly calendar spreads

• Weekly spreads

• Dated daily pages

  

I used the Yearly Tracker in my 2024 Hobonichi Cousin to track my Wordle scores against a friend, but I ditched that towards the end of the year and won’t be carrying it into 2025. Right now, I’m using it as a “music stuck in my head” tracker, but I’m still undecided and will probably switch it up soon.

Beyond that, I haven’t really used the tracking pages since I haven’t put much thought into them (let me know how you’re using yours!). My busy work season is winding down, so I might play around and see what sticks.

My monthly, weekly, and daily pages are still the same—photo a day, behind-the-scenes of BeReal, and whatever nonsense fills my daily pages.

I love the undated pages in the Common Planner. They give me the freedom to squeeze multiple days onto one page or take up three pages for a single day when I feel like it.

The Common Planner uses the Tomoe River Paper (52 gsm), the same paper Hobonichi used before switching it up to Sanzen. Honestly, if no one had started talking about the paper change, I probably would’ve bought a Cousin again. But in the spirit of trying something new, I went with Sterling Ink.

That said, my absolute favorite change doesn’t have anything to do with either brand—I switched to a two-part journal (Avec) for the year, and it’s glorious. While I love the idea of a full-year planner, writing in a thinner notebook has been a wonderful. I’ve consciously thought about how much more enjoyable journaling is in a half-year book every time I sit down to journal.

Besides the additional trackers, the Hobonichi Cousin and the Sterling Ink Common Planner are very similar. Let me know if you have specific questions about either journal and I’ll be happy to answer them!

See you soon and happy journaling!

Natasha <3