Starting this week, I am moving from my trusty Moleskine Pocket Ruled to a new Moleskine Pocket 18 Month Softcover Weekly Planner. As regular readers know, I have been breathlessly anticipating the arrival of these new planners. They have a new layout which features a weekly calendar on the left hand page and a basic ruled page on the right, therefore allowing me to keep my action items and calendar items in one easy to carry place. Here are some quick initial impressions:

• I am not sure if this is due to age or wear and tear but the paper in the new planners seems brighter than that of the ruled style I was using.

• The pocket on the new planners is not gusseted like the old style and, therefore, items placed inside are a bit more difficult to see and access.

• The ruled lines on the new planners also seem to be closer together but I have not actually measured to see if that is correct.

• There are a wealth of additional pages included in the planner. Some you might expect like Time Zones, International Dialing Codes and Distances (a grid to figure out distances between major cities). There are some others that are surprising but useful such as Travel Planning pages, a page with a ruler on the side for being able to mark down measurements and some monthly pages for 2006-2008 to mark birthdays, anniversaries and other similar items.

• These have a softcover unlike the standard hard cover Moleskines. Although it is soft it still seems very durable and well designed (perhaps even better because it can flex a bit) for carrying in your pants pocket.

• I also have switched the pen I am using from the (still awesome) Pilot G2 Pro with a .05mm cartridge to a Uniball Signo Micro 207. This is due in part to Mike Rohde’s review and recomendation and also to my own side by side comparison. The Uniball has a slightly slimmer line and seems to dry more quickly. So far it is being good to me.

All in all, I am pretty pleased thus far. Also, a major shout out to Ninth Wave Designs where I purchased it from for the very fast delivery and friendly service. They rock and I recommend them highly for all of your Moleskine needs. they also have a great blog filled with lots of drool worthy artwork and Moleskine pr0n