In addition to my everyday carry, I use a few key extra tools that I keep at home to setup my weekly spreads every Saturday or Sunday. Here are my current essentials for getting my spreads ready!

Tombow Dual Brush Pen (no. 95) Nothing like a greyscale pen palette to melt my minimalist heart. I Amazon primed the greyscale Tombow set when I was first getting into bullet journalling, and this palest-of-pale cool greys quickly became my go-to for making header bars and “ruled” lines.

Uni Posca Paint Marker PC-1M, Extra Fine Point (white) We bought these at work for a fabric drawing project and I just had to invest in a set for myself. They show up bright and opaque and dry to a nice matte, and you can draw on just about anything with them (I use them over washi tape). I’m currently lusting over this super-fine-point version, which has been in my JetPens cart for weeks now…

Sun-Star Stickyle Scissors (white) These hand-held scissors fold up into a pen cap and are great for detailed work like cutting out post-it tabs (I use those for custom month tabs) or washi tape.

Muji Adhesive Tape Pretty standard, occasionally useful adhesive for putting movie or museum tickets into my planner.

Pentel Petit-Corre Correction Tape (2.5 mm) This was the thinnest correction tape I could find! Always comes in handy (although I sometimes use my Uni Posca paint pen for touch ups too).

BGM Washi Tape (check rainbow) These were a total impulse add to my JetPens cart and I cannot believe how much use I’ve gotten out of them! They are these beautiful, subtle little watercolor rainbow check marks – 7 of them, perfect for days of the week. The washi tape is nice and matte, and re-sticks well, plus the boxes fit perfectly into the 5 mm grid of most dot grid journals. I love that the colors aren’t pastel but also aren’t obnoxiously bright. They still look beautiful and minimal in my spreads while not being at all unprofessional, and add a really nice bit of color that almost always cheers me up. I can’t believe I’ve written this many words about washi tape but there is something so aesthetically pleasing to me about this little roll!

Ink by Jeng Large Dot Grid Journalling Stencil I love Ink by Jeng! I found out about her products and Instagram from one of my favorite YouTubers (Miss Louie) when she posted some bullet journal videos. I love her work and her stencils and products are so useful. Right now I use this stencil to outline days of the week for mini calendars and habit trackers.

Ink by Jeng Row & Column Stencil This. is. so. smart. What a handy product for counting off dots and measuring boxes for monthly or weekly spreads! I have been making more minimal monthly spreads lately but I still love this stencil. If you’re looking at it like “what even is this!?”, check out this video she made to walk you through it!

Where it makes sense, here are swatches/examples of these products in my Soumkine A5 Dotted Journal (apparently discontinued!).