techo kaigi 2024, the nolty listy

For those uninitiated, in the planner and stationary world, a “techo kaigi” directly translates to “notebook meeting” and usually consists of contemplating one’s current planner system and deciding what to keep and what to change. Usually, this is done around fall, when planner companies unveil their offerings for the coming year, but I’m never really in a hurry to buy a planner anyway.

I’ve used a planner since middle school, so I’ve gone through a lot of different systems. I had a bullet journal for a long while, until I bought a Kokuyo Jibun Techo Lite in B6 slim. However, after a year with it, I thought it was too small, and I wanted a planner with less pointless pages for space for lists and the Tokyo subway system. This is when I came across the Nolty Listy, and it seemed to be my dream planner with no excessively structured pages and monthly and weekly spreads, all in an A5 slim notebook.

The Nolty Listy

The Nolty Listy is an A5 slim planner with both monthly and weekly spreads. A5 slim is a confusing size, but it is essentially an A5 notebook with narrower pages. The exact page size of A5 slim actually varies across different brands, so it would be best to look up measurements beforehand. Both the monthly and weekly spreads are monday start, which is my preference. If you prefer sunday start, then this planner might not be for you, since, as far as I know, Nolty does not offer the Listy in sunday start.

The monthly spread in the Listy is one of my favorites. The layout is clean and has minimal clutter compared to the monthly spread in the Jibun Techo. The weekends and holidays are not shaded in with red, which are another pet peeve of mine. Even the red numbers aren't a bright blood red, but closer to brown. The longer A5 slim pages mean that each day is given a tall rectangle, which leaves ample space for when multiple events need to be written in for a single day. Sometimes I like to draw arrows across multiple days for events that take up more than a day, and it was nice to be able to do that without worrying about being unable to write in another event in the box afterwards.

The weekly spread is also quite nice, though I wish a few minor things were different. Again, the A5 slim page works to the layout’s advantage. The vertical layout combined with the taller pages means that there’s plenty of space for tasks on the top, the hours of the day in the center, and notes at the bottom. I like how the weekends are treated with respect and given the same amount of space as the weekdays - I’ve seen some designs that shove both saturday and sunday into the space that one weekday gets. The hours of the day are big enough to read but small enough to not be bothersome.

The grey and red shading is light enough to ignore, so it doesn’t bother me here when it usually does. However, I wish there was just a bit more space on the top for tasks. I write my homework and any events or tests in that space, and sometimes it overflows into the hourly section below. This is more of a personal preference though, and thankfully I don’t often have that much on my plate for one day.

On a more general note, the paper in the planner is good enough for fountain pens. I'm not the most familiar with different fountain pen friendly papers, but there's no feathering at all in the Listy. There's some ghosting, but it isn't enough to bother me. The paper is a bit thicker than the paper in the Jibun Techo, but the entire book is still quite thin and lightweight.

You may have realized that I have my fountain pen laid across the page in both pictures. This is because the book is not bound in a way that allows the pages to lay flat. I think this is the biggest flaw of the planner. I missed being able to open the planner on my desk and leave it there, still open on the page. It gets better as time passes, but my solution is to bend the planner so that it lays flat or place the corner of my pencil box on one of the page corners.

Ultimately, I am staying with the Nolty Listy for next year. I ordered it about a month ago, and it just arrived a few days ago from Japan. I’ll be transferring birthdays and things over to the new 2025 Nolty Listy, and then I’ll be ready for the new year.

As for new things for the coming year, I recently made a DIY traveler’s notebook cover with a thrifted leather bag, and halfway through planning the notebook cover, I realized that the Nolty Listy also fits somewhat well into a traveler’s notebook set up. Thus, I’ll be carrying my 2025 Nolty Listy in my traveler’s notebook. I’ll make a separate write-up for this project later, but I had been eyeing the system for years and the fact that sizes matched meant that I could have my planner alongside my journal system, which is a huge draw for me.

There’s something nice about having the same planner for two years in a row. Everything’s familiar. Hopefully the traveler’s notebook system stays too. We’ll see in the next techo kaigi in a year from now.