Moleskin Weekly Planners Suck
Background -
At the start of 2025, I bought 2 planners. A weekly Moleskin and a Hobonichi Weeks. The Moleskin was for work, and the Hobonichi was for personal usage. I had used a few formats throughout 2024 and landed on the 2 page per week layout which both of these have. Sometimes referred to as the Weekly + Memo or Notes layout. (7 horizontal rows on the left hand page, and a blank pages for miscellaenous notes on the right.)
Today, I retired the Moleskin weekly planner in favor of a bullet journal style pocket notebook. There are 2 predominant issues that incited this change, one with the Moleskin, and one with my evolving needs.
Evolving Needs -
Truth is, I've started to lean harder on my planner for work. I work in IT, and utilize a ticketing system at work, but a lot of my new responsibilities are tracked outside the ticketing system - this means they are not tracked at all, and it is my responsibility to track them any way I see fit.
The Moleskin only has a few blank pages in the back available for dated meeting notes or sometimes a simple task-based project management spread. Along with using the right side of the weekly spreads for notes, this was going fine. The real problem is I am running out of space everywhere in this notebook. I have enough projects and meeting notes that the measly number of blank pages in the back of the Moleskin was quickly becoming an obstacle, and my weekly notes page was filling up as early as Wednesday.
I needed more room. More room for meeting notes, project tracking spreads, and individual daily tasks/daily notes. There is an irony in reaching for a smaller notebook for this, but the truth is, with one page per day, the flexibility to open to a blank spread and utilize both pages, this actually gives me more room.
Sure, I might go through pocket notebooks faster than normal, but who doesn't need a good excuse to burn through their stockpile of field notes?
Moleskin Issues -
I am astonished at the disparity between price and paper quality of this notebook. I paid right around $25 for this weekly planner and moving forward I don't think I'll ever pick another one up.
Among the pantheon of notebooks that I believe blow this one out of the water are the Leuchtturm 1917, Rhodia webnotebook, Fabriano notebooks (a lucky Barnes and Noble find that I still think is underrated), and the Studio Neat totebooks.
This comparison is primarily about paper quality, but Moleskine’s paper performs poorly - especially with gel or rollerball ink, which tends to ghost so heavily that the back side of the page is barely usable.This makes the Moleskin a ballpoint only notebook for me, which is absurd at the $25 price tag. Any of the alternatives I listed above would be a noticeable improvement.
Maybe this quality is specific to the Weekly Planner, maybe this was simply a bad batch, but I don't think I'll be returning to the brand anytime soon to find out. Not when I have a plethora of affordable and amazing alternatives (some of which are already be on my bookshelf).
~ later nerds