The 4 Best Planners of 2026: Roterunner, Hobonichi, Cloth & Paper

There’s nothing like the feeling of a brand-new planner. If you're looking to get a little more organized or just love having somewhere to write everything down, there's no wrong time of year to get a new planner. After testing dozens of planners myself, my favorite ones are often either customizable or undated, making it easy to pick them up whenever you want. The world of planners might seem simple if you've only browsed your local Target or bookstore to see what planners they might have on hand. But there's a wide world of options out there that can perfectly suit your needs, especially if you're willing to build your own travel notebook or write in the dates on an undated paper planner, or open to trying your first Japanese-style planner. After trying dozens of planners over the last year, I think these standout favorite planner styles could benefit everyone. If you're looking for a tech companion to your paper planner, check out my guides to the Best Digital Wall Calendars and Best Digital Notebooks to help keep your calendar and thoughts digitally. Updated August 2026: The Erin Condren Academic Planner is my new academic planner pick, and I've added a new section on planner accessories. The Best Planners If you need a single planner that can do it all and won't burn through your back-to-school budget, this is the one. The Roterunner Purpose Planner is an undated planner that has monthly spreads, weekly spreads, and two full open pages for each week, so there's plenty of room to write longer lists or a project brainstorm. Each monthly and weekly spread has a ton of premade checklist sections for you to use, too. There's even space to track your meals, water intake, and gratitude. It's a planner that actually helps me stay organized and gives me space to track and take notes without running out of room. The undated nature makes it easy to pick up anytime and use for whichever months you need. Fell off the boat for a few months? No problem. No pages will go to waste when you can fill them in as you go. It only covers six months, but I actually like that; it once again feels like a feasible commitment, especially if you're waffling on how much paper planner you want to promise to use. I love the massive B5 size, since it's finally enough space for me (almost too much, which is a rare find), but there's also a smaller (and cheaper!) A5 ($28) size. It's truly my go-to planner since it has so much space for me to both use the pre-made lists and the open space to actually stay organized and put all my ideas, plans, and notes into one planner. Most others make me feel like I need a companion notebook, but not the Roterunner. The covers come in a variety of simple colors, and in both hard cover or soft, but the butter-soft faux leather soft cover is my favorite of the bunch. Get it in B5 size if you're always looking for more room in your journals and planners—you won't regret it. If you're getting into planners, there's no way you won't hear about Hobonichi at some point. There are a few different planners the brand makes, with the Techo being the most popular model. I tested the similar Hobonichi Cousin, which adds weekly spreads to the front of the planner after the monthly overviews. While I don't typically prefer a daily planner style, I was surprised by how much I liked using the Hobonichi. All of Hobonichi's planners use Tomoe River S paper, which is super thin but won't bleed through to the other side. It's also super smooth to the touch and to write on. I liked adding my own structure to the daily pages; I sketched a box to separate my to-do lists and habit trackers from my hourly agenda for the day, and then would usually freeform the rest of the page based on what was on my mind. The Cousin I tested and photographed is an A5 size, while the standard Techo is the smaller A6. The 2026 Cousins are out of stock at most retailers, but you can still find them on Hobonichi's website. There are tons of colors, covers, and other accessories you can get for it, too. I recommend picking out a protective cover since I did ding up my soft cover quite a bit, and that was just from being used around the house with an occasional trip in a bag. There are little quotes in the corners, but I got a Japanese version instead of an English one, so I can't actually read mine. But honestly, I'm glad I did; I prefer the Japanese lettering to distracting English words on the corners of each page. There's no academic year version of the Hobonichi, but there are July starts for both the Techo and the Techo Cousin that will cover the rest of 2026, or buy an on-sale January version and skip the first half of it. The Hobonichi planners for 2027 will be released September 1; details for launch day are on Hobonichi's website. I've heard a lot of good things about Erin Condren. Founded in 2005 by Erin Condren, it's known for the LifePlanner that's full of various spreads and productivity tools that you can customize, but there's other variations of planners you can find from Erin Condren. While you'll usually customize your Erin Condren planner if you shop directly on the site, there's a predesigned Target line you can shop that won't give you options, but will give you a well-made planner that's ready to go immediately. I've been testing the Erin Condren Academic Planner you'll find at Target, and it's a great fit for students and people with deadline-style or client-based work they want to organize. Each month has two pages following the monthly spread to set your most important to-dos and dates, but also a full page to track the month's deadlines and what class (or client, or in my case, story beat) they're for. After that, there are weekly spreads with long columns for each day, and seven blocks of four lines that you can label with things like specific classes, clubs, or organizations, or parenting and household tasks, as I track. It's been a really easy planner to add into my lifestyle, even though it's made for students. There's a class tracker in the front of the planner, too, which I skipped using, plus a detailed holiday calendar, and the back has project and exam pages, plus blank note pages, and even a simple sheet of stickers with things like “Exam,” “Midterm,” and “Paper Due.” You can find a similar academic planner on Erin Condren's website, but it costs more since you'll have customization options, and you get many more cover options; Target only has one. I've been obsessed with travel notebooks this year. A travel notebook uses bands to connect three or four notebooks together, and I love using this system to build a customized planner designed for my exact needs. It makes it easy to change the design, too, since you can just switch out a single notebook when it's full. I really like Cloth & Paper's Travel Notebook Collection. There are 13 different notebooks you can choose from to include in your travel notebook, ranging from classic weekly and monthly spreads to more unique options like a daily wellness notebook and a task planner. It's really a great option if you want a couple of specific things, or even just a regular monthly and weekly notebook plus a blank notebook in the back you can fill with to-do lists and replace anytime without needing an entirely new planner. It's great for students, too, because you can have a notebook dedicated to tracking your assignments and syllabus for the semester. You'll need to create your own, though, as Cloth & Paper doesn't have a dedicated academic notebook for you to select. I tried both the A5 Slim and the Pocket Plus size, and I really prefer the A5 Slim for a traditional planner experience. The Pocket Plus would be fun to bring on a trip; I wish I'd had it on my latest trip to store little mementos and important things like parking receipts, and could have also written out notes and the plan for the week-long trip. But otherwise, the larger A5 slim was much easier to write on and use for my daily notes and planning. You'll want the Clear Vinyl Travel Notebook Cover ($23 to $25) no matter which size you choose, which includes elastic bindings to bring all the notebooks you buy together, and you can also pick up more colorful elastic options to add a little more personality to your planner. The A5 fits up to four notebooks that you can purchase individually, or get the Travel Notebook Set ($63) that includes three notebooks and a clear cover for $10 off buying them individually. Honorable Mentions Like I said, there's a huge world of planners out there. Here are a few that the Reviews team and I at WIRED have tested and enjoyed. More Planners I’ve Tried Agendio Basic Planner starting at $48: This is a completely customizable planner. I liked it, and you have the option to design your own pages, and the folder-style cover will protect both the pages and binding. I didn't love the customization tools or abilities as much as I wanted to, and there are a lot of steps to create your planner. I preferred the custom tools of Plum Paper over it. It's a good planner if the pages and binder-style are what you're looking for, and you can find some preset options that usually start around $48 for the smallest page size and black-and-white print. Ban.do 17-Month Planner for $35: If you're looking for another affordable option but want something with more personality than the Roterunner above, Ban.do's planners are fun and colorful and even come with a page of stickers. It's only a horizontal weekly format, though, which I don't love (but maybe you do!) This 17-month version is made to start for the school year and go through the end of 2027, but you can also find 12-month planners if you prefer. Happy Planner 12-Month Planner for $24: Happy Planner uses disc-bound planners to make it easy to remove and add pages or covers, which is nice for customizability. But they're a very specific aesthetic, and personally, I didn't love turning pages on the discs. Still, it's a good planner if you like the style, and they come in a ton of different layouts. Right now, you can get a Happy Planner that starts in July 2026 and will run you until June 2027, perfect for tracking the academic year. Laurel Denise Academic Planner for $59: These planners are cool because you'll look at the month and your weekly at the same time, because the slim weekly pages lay on top of the monthly spread. However, I write way, way too much for the space in these planners. It's great if you just want to write a couple to-dos and meetings per day, but if you want space for detailed lists, you might feel the way I did. Leuchtturm1917 18-Month Planner for $33: This is a solid, minimalist planner that as a popular following. It's a simple horizontal weekly layout with the week on one side and a lined page on the other. It's not enough space for everything I write down, but if you're looking for something simple and space for a couple lists or notes for each week that fit onto a page, it's a good option for you. Leuchtturm1917 also has a nice line of notebooks that look the same from the outside cover, so make sure you actually get the planner. Muji Undated Weekly Planner for $9: If you want a super simple, super affordable planner, the Muji Undated Weekly is for you. It's just undated weekly horizontal spreads from front to back, even on the paper cover. It's slim, but still more than a year's worth of weeks in it. It's the most minimalist planner I've tried, and though I'm not a fan of horizontal weekly spreads for my planner needs, it's a great cheap option for a lot of people. Papier Hardcover Academic Year Planner for $29: My favorite thing about Papier's planners is how gorgeous the covers are. Papier has a range of beautiful designs you can choose that feel like they belong on a bookshelf rather than just my planner. I tested one of the annual planners, which has the horizontal weekly layout I don't love on any planner (and you can still get that by choosing the mid year layout for any cover Papier has if you love that style) but the academic one has a vertical layout that's much more up my alley. Whichever style you like, you can pick. Papier also has softcover planners ($32) that use a ring binding, which is easier to lay open than the hard cover binding, and still has both mid year and academic layout options. Passion Planner Mid-Year Planner for $45: This planner was really popular when I was in college, and maybe it still is with the college kids. I liked it, but I feel like the Purpose Planner does a similar thing but better, at least for my needs. It's got vertical spread, but every slot is timed, so I can't use it as a to-do list. It's great for anyone needing to plan out a super detailed schedule and has some to-do list spaces on the bottom, but they're pretty small in my opinion to work for an entire week. It's good for students who only want to track their busy schedules and a couple assignments and tasks for each week. Some Planner Accessories Looking for what to pair with your planner? Here are some of our team's favorite daily tools and planner accessories. Passion Planner Passion Highlighters for $20: If your planner could use a little color, I really like Passion Planner's highlighter sets. They're nice and thin-tipped to fit into slim planner lines, and I especially like the vintage colors for adding color without it feeling neon-bright. You can use the highlighters to organize your plans by type (I like to do red for work, blue for my kid, yellow for things like doctor's appointments, and green for my social life) or color-code your class subjects like we used to do with ringed notebooks. Pilot Metropolitan Fountain Pen for $34: I never understood the appeal of a fountain pen until I bought one. A properly smoothed fountain pen nib requires very little pressure to write with and seems to glide across the page with a soft, satisfying scratching sound. I know, I'm one of those people now. Much of my initial skepticism came from the perceived complexity of caring for and using a fountain pen, which is very much overblown. My favorite pen of the dozen I've tested is the Pilot Metropolitan with the fine nib. It's easy to work with, taking either prefilled ink cartridges, which you can pop in and out without ever spilling any ink, or you can fill it yourself using a converter and the ink of your choice. I started off using the cartridges, but eventually my quest for a waterproof ink led me to the converter and this sketching ink. Once a week or so, I dip the Metropolitan nib in the bottle of ink and twist the converter to fill the chamber with ink—that's all there is to it. Whichever fountain pen you find works best for you, you’ll find you'll have a quite simply better writing experience. —Scott Gilbertson Plum Paper Seasonal Stickers for $10: There are a lot of stickers out there you could use for your planners, but my favorites—especially for the holidays—are from Plum Paper. They're beautiful and fun, and are mostly nice and small to fit into small lines or monthly charts without eating up the entire section. I like that there's a mix of shapes and styles, and you can also shop stickers for themes like home, fitness, wellness, and baby milestones. You can even make your own custom stickers (starting at $12), which are only thick line-style stickers where you can customize the word and icon on them. Still, very handy! Planner Alternatives Not everyone needs or wants a rigid planner. If you just need daily to-do lists or are a fan of bullet journals, consider getting a great notebook instead. Former WIRED reviewer Jaina Grey opts for a plain, lined notebook. After trying dozens, her favorite is the Midori MD Notebook with paper made from cotton pulp (just like money!). It comes in lined, unlined, or dot-grid. Grey says there's just something meditative about turning over a blank page at the beginning of each week and carefully jotting down her schedule, plans, and workload. Midori’s notebooks are designed to fit inside notebook or journal covers (which you can find all over Etsy). The pages are a subtle off-white and have a weight and texture that draw you in. WIRED reviewer Scott Gilbertson says he doesn't use a planner, but each day he writes down the handful of things he's going to do on a single 3-by-5 index card. The index card with this to-do list lives in his pocket, along with a small notebook in which he jots down notes throughout the day—often the source of the following day's to-do list. The notebook and index cards fit inside this very cool waxed canvas notebook cover. Gilbertson says he copied this system from one of the most successful people he has known, and after nearly 20 years, it's still better for him than any other system he's tried. It's cheap, lightweight, and easy to manage. —Medea Giordano FAQs Why Choose a Paper Planner? Studies show that it's good for your brain to write things down. Sure, you could put your calendar in an online tool, but putting pen to paper activates more brain connectivity. We're more likely to remember and learn things if we write them down by hand, so using a paper planner for your to-do list can make it easier to remember. Plus, it's fun! You're given a creative space to let out everything you need to remember, from appointments to the day's tasks, and customize it in a way that best helps you stay organized. What Style Paper Planner Is Best for You? Paper planners mainly come in two styles: weekly and daily. Daily planners have an entire page dedicated to each day, while weekly planners have an entire week spread across just two pages. These aren't the only options (monthly is another popular one, for example, but not as popular as these two styles), but they're the most common you'll see. I like daily planners for folks who have a really busy schedule they want to plan out, and long daily to-do lists. Weekly planners are great if you want to be able to write down a few things per day but don't need an entire page. What Sizes Do Planners Come In? Here are a couple common planner sizes. My favorite are the larger sizes since I like lots of room to doodle, but the smaller A5 is a popular choice for a book-sized planner that won't take up too much space. Not all paper planners use the same sizing names—Moleskine, for example, calls its A5 size a large—so you'll want to check measurements before you purchase. - A5 (5.8 by 8.3 inches) - Regular/Medium / B5 (7 by 9 inches) - Large/Letter (8.5 by 11 inches) - Personal/Pocket (3.5 by 5.5 inches) Power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting and exclusive subscriber content that's too important to ignore. Subscribe Today. [Image text:] HOBONICHI TECHO2026 original