If you watch journaling channels on Youtube you will often see planner hopping. Planner hopping is jumping from one book to another, sometimes frequently. You'll also see people criticising planner hopping because it is morally superior to stick to one system for the entire year (yes, that was sarcasm).

The 'problem' with planner hopping

The problem with planner hopping is not what you think it is. Planner hopping gets a bad reputation. People see it as wasteful. Some criticise the 'inconsistency' as if changing the way you do things is somehow bad in and of itself. This gets amplified when your hopping is in the public domain. Viewers look for people doing similar things to them and get irritated when that changes.

None of these are real problems. As long as you can afford the planners you are hopping to, you're good. You should not base your planner system on what other people think you should do. You should not base your planner system on feeling bad about wasting paper. Its just paper. Put the old planner away in a drawer where you can't see it and move on.

The actual problem with planner hopping, is guilt. It's the guilt you feel as a planner for being wasteful and inconsistent. Its the guilt that you feel when someone criticises your choice to hop planners.

It's guilt that you shouldn't feel. Because the 'right' way to plan and journal is the way that works for you at any given point in time.

The goal of planning and journaling isn't to complete the pages, it's to help you navigate life in some way. Planner hopping is a good thing.

Embracing change

One of the biggest challenges we as human beings face on a regular basis is change. Everyone's response to it is different, but a lot of people feel threatened by it. Change generally brings about negative emotions and we find ourselves trying to understand what we are feeling - something that journaling is really useful for.

Sometimes that change needs to be reflected in the tools we need to plan and explore our lives. If we have less time, we need a system that won't leave us feeling stressed and behind. If we are struggling with health, we need a system that allows us to explore that, without putting further pressure on it. Essentially, we need to ensure that planning and journaling are making things better, not worse.

So if you need to, change your system.

It might be that you can change within your existing books. It might be that you need something better suited. Either way, you don't want to be adding more stress to your life. Just move.

The FOMO caveat

Generally speaking, planner hopping is positive, but there is one exception to this (sort of). FOMO. The fear of missing out. When you buy a planner because you've seen someone else use it and it looks amazing. Or when you buy a planner because you like the cover or the colour. I say sort of because if the new planner brings you joy, then by all means embrace that. There doesn't have to be another reason.

Where this can fail is when you buy a FOMO planner that doesn't work for you. Then we're back to the guilt. This is why I suggest prototyping.

Prototyping

Prototyping is trying out different planners and layouts and approaches, but without buying anything new. The idea here is to try things quickly and change quickly when something doesn't work. If you think the Take a Note layout might be better than the Hobonichi layout for you, draw up the Take a Note layout. Either in your Hobonichi, or in another book.

Does this work? Do you spend ages setting it up and then not touch it? Do you find you feel like your are duplicating information? Or does it make you feel energised and excited?

Now you know whether to hop or not.

When you know you're a planner hopper

The other thing that could work is planning for planner hopping. If you know you aren't going to stick to one book for the whole year, how do you adjust for that?

One thing you can do is have a book for prototyping. You can't always prototype within your existing books, so alongside whatever I am doing, I always keep what I call the 'overflow bullet journal'. In my case this is currently a Sterling Ink notebook and I would encourage you to get something you really like because while prototyping is rapid. Best of all, I repurposed this book from a failed planner. I use this book for two main reasons.

I need more space to write about something or plan something. Hence the name overflow.

I want to prototype.

The other thing you want to have a plan for is backfilling. When you hop its tempting to transfer all your previous content into the new planner. That may not be a good idea. The trick here is to treat it like any other task - do you have time for this? Does it take priority over other things? Before you hop, try to come up with an answer to this that you will be okay with. The worst thing is to move and then become paralysed by the overwhelming work of backfilling.