I keep a commonplace book because I want to keep track of the best articles and books I read. A commonplace book is like a “thinker’s journal” that serves as a focused act of self-reflection and way…

I have a new obsession: commonplace books! source I accidentally stumbled upon them while researching Morning Pages. And I'm in love! What are commonplace books? I'm so happy that you asked! source A commonplace book is a personal compilation of knowledge, ideas, quotations, and observations collected by an individual. It is a notebook or journal where one gathers and organizes information from various sources for future reference and reflection. They are more like a database than a diary. In the past many people used commonplace books as a way to order their ideas and make them easy to refer back...

All my life, I learned from my dad that underlining great passages in a book and otherwise marking and making notes does the book great honor. The more of the book is underlined, the better the book, or possibly the better the reader. However, I do not underline library books and

For some individuals, it’s merely a book of quotes they want to remember and draw upon later.

Consider these commonplacing examples for you to try out:

Hey there! Some links on this page are affiliate links which means that, if you choose to make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I greatly appreciate your support! I want to talk about something a little different today. I know my blog mostly focuses on bullet journals. But there are also other forms of journaling out there. One type of journal I’ve become fascinated with recently is the commonplace book. I’ve come across people talking about commonplace books before, but I’ve always had the impression that a commonplace book was a notebook where you wrote things you wanted to remember. Though this is true, the commonplace book is a little more complicated than that. And what I find most interesting, historically had a specific purpose. So today I want to share exactly what a commonplace book is and how you can use it. Because I’m extra like that, I also want to share the 21st-century version of the commonplace book and chances are you’re already using it. What Is A Commonplace Book Historically the commonplace book was used as a tool to record and digest information. Some commonplace books have been found from before the 16th century. A precursor to the commonplace book was used in Italy as early as the 14th century. Known as a zibaldone, it was a combination of diary, ledger and scrapbook. These volumes were used as a way to record life. Renaissance humanists began using commonplace books as a form of study and note-taking. Historically how smart you were was linked to how much you could remember. We don’t have quite the same views now that everyone has a Google machine in their pocket. But in the past being able to remember lots of “stuff” was important and the commonplace book was used to help with this. In the 16th century, Erasmus of Rotterdam set down a series of rules which would help the user manage the information in the commonplace book. These rules described how literary texts should be organised under specific headings. The act of writing quotes in the commonplace book would aid the owner in recollecting the information gathered through study. Through the commonplace book, the act of reading and writing became linked as the reader used their commonplace book as a way to understand the world. How To Use A Commonplace Book The exact way that you use a commonplace book is very personal, though Erasmus set down specific rules, as you will soon see, those rules could be changed and in fact, the way people have used commonplace books have changed over time. Commonplace books were commonly used in an educational setting. Universities like Oxford and Cambridge would teach their students how to keep commonplace books and was an important part of education. I’m currently working on my dissertation and I can see how a commonplace book could be useful. I wrote an essay for my dissertation module about commonplace books. So I decided to try using one while working on my dissertation and it has been extremely helpful. Part of the dissertation process involves doing lots of research around a topic. I’m finding it extremely helpful to collate this information in a notebook, essentially making it a commonplace book. There are lots of ways to do dissertations, and the way you choose can depend on the type of research project you are working on. After talking to some other graduates I know that the amount of research you do depends on the subject. A science student whose research involves a practical part might not be required to do so much research. But as I’m doing an art course, research is extremely important. And this is where the commonplace book comes in. For my particular module, it was recommended that we treat the research project the same as any other design project. So using a sketchbook as a place to collate research and ideas. This method is very similar to the commonplace book. You could almost argue that the only difference is the type of book that the information is contained in. Why Use A Commonplace Book Though commonplace books are extremely useful in an educational setting. There are several reasons why you might choose to use a commonplace book. One of the main advantages of the commonplace book is that it gives you a singular place to save anything which might inspire you. Originally this was intended to be pieces of writing, quotes and passages, but you could also use it as a place to save images which you like. In this way, the commonplace book could be useful for artists and other creatives. Though Pinterest is extremely popular, the advantage of the commonplace book is that you have everything in one place. This way you can go back and look at previous thoughts and ideas, removing the need for you to remember something which could inspire a new piece of art or writing. There’s a very good reason for using a physical commonplace book rather than a digital alternative. Writing is good for your brain. Writing by hand engages your brain in a way which typing on a keyboard doesn’t. There’s a reason why writing can help with mental health. We know now that teaching children how to write helps with brain development. Physically writing ideas and other bits of information into a notebook helps you process that information. In doing so you can create connections between those pieces of information. For me, this helps when writing a dissertation. But this could also be useful if you’re working on a novel or some other type of research project. The Modern Commonplace Book You might be reading this and thinking that you like the idea of commonplace books, but they seem very complicated. This is the interesting bit, chances are if you have a social media account, you are already using it in a very similar way to how commonplace books were used during the 17th century. Human beings are social people and have always looked for ways to connect with others. Twitter and Facebook are simply the newest forms of social media. From a guy on a horse delivering a letter to telegrams and now the internet, people have always looked for ways to connect. The printing press was invented in the 16th century and this created a cultural revolution. Suddenly it was much easier for people to learn how to write because books were more widely available. Ironically the invention of the printing press made writing by hand much more common. And people wanted to use this skill, keeping a commonplace book was just one of the ways they did this. People began to write down poems and other quotes they wanted to remember in their commonplace book. But this is where things got interesting. People began to share those books, so others could copy those poems into their own commonplace book. This became so popular that writers could have their work shared through commonplace books. If you’re starting to think this sounds familiar, you would be right. Social media sites like Twitter and Tumblr work in the same way. Though social media works similarly to how commonplace books were used historically, they are lacking because they are digital. Commonplace books were created as a way to learn from others, a huge part of this system was based on the idea that you write down words by hand. It has been shown that writing by hand aids memory if you truly want to remember something writing by hand can help. Of course, with social media all you have to do is hit retweet, Erasmus would say that this means you’re not giving those words the attention they deserve. Finally I’ve seen lots of people in the past talk about keeping a commonplace book but had never considered the history behind this simple tool. If anything I think I’m really lucky that I get to research topics like this as part of my dissertation. One of the things I find fascinating about the commonplace book is how similar it feels to the bullet journal. There are also lots of ways in which they are different. But I can see how easy it would be to use the bullet journal system in a commonplace book. It’s also interesting how they share concepts. Using Goodreads to save book quotes isn’t the same thing as writing one down in a commonplace book, the fact you have to physically write the quote down is important. And this is the same with bullet journaling, you assess just how important a task is when you intentionally decide to migrate it to a new day. Do you use a commonplace book? Or do you want to try one? Let me know in the comments.

Some of you may have been overwhelmed by the amount of things recommended to include in your commonplace book by the “John Locke” and “Jenny Rallens” methods. I’m here…

November 2015 Procedures of Encounter, or, My Commonplace Log Practice Several years ago I was in a small specialty bookstore and came upon a book with mostly blank pages simply called A Little Com…

What is a commonplace book and how do you use one? This post contains the answers to these questions and has some helpful tips.

I love the idea of living a more productive, organized lifestyle – because who doesn't? But it often feels a little overwhelming to organize your entire life.

In the last post about structuring commonplace books, I detailed Jenny Rallens’ method of organization. In this post, I am going to be giving an overview of English philosopher John LockeR…

I had the opportunity to write for Dirge Magazine while it was still online (Rest in Peace). I learned so much as a writer from the editors, so I wanted to make sure I was able to save my favorite …

A trove of beautiful commonplace books by Lewis Carroll, Nancy Cunard and more, selected by The Harry Ransom Center. Plus, Kelsey McKinney says writers have been aggregating, storing and sharing information through commonplace books for centuries—it’s only the technology that’s changed.

For centuries, authors and thinkers have kept commonplace books: focused journals that serve to collect thoughts, quotes, moments of introspection, transcribed passages from reading — anything of…

Enchanting illustrations bring to life “a book that has to be experienced rather than fully understood.”

I was visiting Cawdor Castle, Scotland, two years ago (once again) and I bought a book titled Thistle in Aspic – Leaves From the Commonplace Book of Hugh Cawdor by the dowager countess. First of al…

3 years of quotes piling up and talking to each other

Keeping a work journal can increase the chances of your success. In this post, I break it down and provide a downloadable template.

Here's a look at 8 amazing planners and journals and how this best planners and journals review can make you happier and more productive.

Recently, my parents moved house and I received a stack of my old notebooks, kept safe in the attic of their garage for over a decade. As a teenager, I had journaled pretty much daily, keeping the notebook down the side of my bed, writing late into the night. I remember these books as my closest friends, somewhere I could express, analyse and confide. I remember the joy of coming home to write about a good day at school and the catharsis of feeling the pressure release as the details of a bad one spilled out from...

In past blog posts we’ve written about keeping a commonplace book, a kind of information journal where you write down facts, quotes, instructions, reference information, and other ideas that are interesting or meaningful to you—a personal reference book filled only with information that you find useful or meaningful. It’s a great organization tool for the things you want to remember. Our first post in this series was all about what commonplace books are and how to use one. Our second post was about how to create a commonplace book using the Hobonichi Techo, which has a detailed index that makes it easy to organize the information in your notebook. But you don’t need a built-in index to create a commonplace book of your own. If you have a favorite notebook that you love to write in, you can use that for your commonplace book too! In this post, we get into the fine details of indexing and share three methods for turning any notebook into a commonplace book. Method 1: Create a page-by-page index This is perhaps the most involved method of creating a commonplace book, with the most work up front, but it results in a complete index that includes every page of your notebook. This method gives you the most detailed reference for the contents of your commonplace book, with space to write the subject of each entry. It’s a bit like using a Hobonichi Techo with its yearly index, but you can do it with any notebook of your choice. To create a page-by-page index, start by counting the number of pages in your notebook (you may be able to find this information online, though it can be worth double-checking if you have the patience!). In the opening pages of your notebook, you’ll begin to create an index. Make a skinny column for writing page numbers (leaving room for multiple digits as the numbers get higher), and a wider column for writing down topics in your index. Begin writing the page numbers in the skinny column. Each time you begin a new index page, subtract 1 from the total number of pages in your notebook. That way, the index pages won’t be included in your final page count. Your index will most likely cover several pages. When you reach the end of your index, number the remaining pages in your notebook. If you’ve subtracted the index pages from your total page count, the number of pages left in the book will match the number of pages you listed in the index. For this commonplace book we used an MD Paper A6 grid notebook. The notebook has 176 pages, and we laid out the index to cover the first 8 pages, so the notebook pages are numbered 1–168. When you write an entry in your commonplace book pages, you can list the subject of the entry in the corresponding index row. If an entry covers several pages, you can simply list the subject in the index row where the entry begins, then leave the following index rows blank. This method works best with lined or grid notebooks that are NOT numbered already. The lines or grid will help you create a neat index with rows for each page number. But you can also use a ruler or template to draw your own index chart in a blank notebook. The entry pages are numbered, corresponding to the index. Method 2: Use a margin-and-index system This method is adapted from a very old system of commonplacing: John Locke’s method, which he described in his 1685 treatise A New Method of Making Common-Place Books (published in English in 1706). It requires a little less prep work than the page-by-page index. The result is a slightly less detailed index where you won’t be writing the subject of each individual entry, but where you’ll still create a handy reference for looking things up by subject. John Locke’s original system involved making an alphabetical index page at the beginning of the commonplace book, subdivided by vowel. On the entry pages, you’d create a margin where you wrote the main header or subject of each entry (e.g. “Poetry”). Then in the alphabetical index under “P(o),” you’d write the page numbers of any page where you recorded a poem. If the first letter of the header word were followed by a consonant (e.g. “Creativity,” you’d file it by looking for the first vowel following the first letter of the word (C(e) in this case). Locke’s method is systematic and space-saving, but subdivision by vowel is a little convoluted. More problematic, we find this method makes it difficult to look things up later, because it requires you to remember exactly what header you used to classify each entry. Instead, we prefer adapting and simplifying his method slightly. In this method, we create a simple alphabetical index (no extra vowels involved), and write the header word in the index along with the page numbers. That way, you can easily find a subject in your index (Poetry) and look up any pages where you’ve written poems. Each time you add a new subject to your commonplace book, record it in the index under the first letter of that subject. Each time you add a new page related to the subject, just write the page number after the subject header in the index. The hardest part about this method is deciding how much space to devote to each letter in the index. We recommend adding more space than you think you need, especially for your first commonplace book. If you discover that you regularly write about certain subjects, you can always adjust the amount of space in future notebooks. As with the previous method, you’ll create your index first, and then number the remaining pages of the notebook. (You can also use this method with an already-numbered notebook.) Decide how much space to give to each letter in your index. If your notebook has lines, you can count the number of lines and then use a ruler to subdivide the page by letter. This notebook (the Life Vermilion A5 notebook) has 30 lines per page, so we divided the page by 5, allotting 6 lines to each letter of the alphabet. For more space, we could also have divided the page by 3 or by 2, giving 10 or 15 lines to each letter. You get to decide how big your index should be! On the entry pages, use a ruler to draw a margin on each page. Record the headers of your entries in this margin so they’re easy to browse later. You can even write multiple entries on different subjects on one page, using the headers in the margin to differentiate. Use a ruler to create margins on the entry pages of your commonplace book. Then write the subject headers in the margins. Method 3: Color-code by theme This is the simplest method of indexing your commonplace book and requires the least amount of prep work. It’s a visual method that allows you to browse your book easily by subject. This method won’t let you look up specific entries by page, but it’s easy to implement and can even be used to organize the content of your notebook after the pages are filled out. To color-code your notebook, all you’ll need is a couple of blank pages at the beginning of the notebook to create a color key, and page margins where you’ll color-code each entry. Reserve a page or two at the beginning of your notebook for the color key, then use a ruler to create thin margins on the sides of the notebook pages. This method works well with blank, lined, or grid notebooks, and you don’t need to number the pages. Each time you make an entry in your commonplace book, use a colored dot sticker or a colored marker/pencil/tool of your choice to color-code the entry in the margin. For example, you could use a yellow dot for quotations, a blue dot for entries about astronomy, and a purple dot for recipes. Each time you start writing about a new subject in your notebook, choose a new color for that subject and add it to the color key at the beginning of the notebook. If you’re not sure how you want to divide up your entry subjects, you can even wait until your notebook is filled out and then look for themes. You might find five or ten or twenty common themes in your entry pages, and you can go back and color-code them and create your color key after the fact. The index for this method is a simple color key. Colored dot stickers are simple to use and carry around in your notebook, or you can color-code with highlighters, markers, or any other tool of your choice. Corresponding colored dots in the margins of your pages let you browse your commonplace book by subject. This is a very visual and easy-to-use method.

I had the opportunity to write for Dirge Magazine while it was still online (Rest in Peace). I learned so much as a writer from the editors, so I wanted to make sure I was able to save my favorite …

A commonplace journal is not complicated and doesn't need to be fancy. It is simply a place where notes and quotes from our reading are kept. The simpler

I have collected and filled notebooks for years, mostly recording things I was learning, other times journaling or Morning Pages. Beginning in my teens, I continued sporadically, and by my late twenties, I was deep into yoga and yogic philosophy, filling several notebooks with wisdom. I didn't know there was a name for what I…

A commonplace book is, according to Wikipedia, a compilation of knowledge gathered into a book. When I moved to Vermont in 1994, I began to collect quotes that I found interesting, along with notes on my non-fiction reading, in a pale yellow papered notebook. I wrote some notes on bits of paper that I had at hand at the time, others I copied directly into the book. I soon became less rigorous in my notetaking and abandoned the book. Because of my blogging, I pulled the notebook out from the shelf recently, using it to record quotes from the filmmaker Abbas Kiorostami, who I wrote about here. I went back through the book, finding quotes I'd used for lectures on my painting: "When tillage begins, the other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization" Daniel Webster, 1840. "I think what one should do is write in an ordinary way and make the writing seem extraordinary. One should write, too, about what is ordinary, and see the extraordinary behind it." Jean Rhys, in Difficult Women by David Plante. "Pavements, holes, trenches, mounds, heaps, paths, ditches, roads, terraces, etc, all have an aesthetic potential." Robert Smithson, from his article "The Monuments of Passaic", Artforum, December 1967. It was a joy to rediscover these ideas and to go over some of my other notes. So I've re-started my commonplace book, gathering phrases that I'd like to have at hand. Some recent gems: "...the world is neither significant nor absurd. It 'is', quite simply. That, in any case, is the most remarkable thing about it." Robbe-Grillet, For a New Novel, 1963. "You must find your own quiet center of life and write from that." Sarah Orne Jewett, in a letter to Willa Cather, quoted in Willa Cather: a Critical Biography, by E.K. Brown. "...after seventy, when you have lived out your life, you begin another." from Margaret Oliphant's novel Hester. From the blog Each Little World, a poem by Matsuo Basho, posted today, with beautiful photographs: Winter Solitude – In a world of one color The sound of wind.Also today, picking up Samuel Beckett's trilogy of novels (I'd just seen the film of "Waiting for Godot" and wondered if I would be interested in reading these), I noticed this beautiful sentence, now recorded in my commonplace book, where I can retrieve it easily: "To restore silence is the role of objects."

october in my commonplace