I forget almost everything I read the first time. Even when I’m taking diligent notes, my memory fails to retain the material, and almost all of what I previously read, is lost. It’s only when I circle back later, rereading my notes, do I remember the content. Schopenhauer once said that “repetition is the mother of study,” but for a long time, I was so egotistical, believing that my brain would naturally remember everything on the first go.
I needed a system to not only retain what I read, but make it easy to retrieve what I was looking for when I needed it. Whether for my writing practice or for practical and personally meaningful ways to live better, I wanted a little pocketbook to refer to when I was faced with difficult situations, to quickly find quotes for my articles and creative projects, and to cement important information into my long term memory.
Over the last few years, I began an active reading habit: highlighting specific passages, jotting down notes in the margins (marginalia) and marking the pages with sticky notes. These notes contained quotes, ideas, themes for future creative projects, or recommendations for books to read next. After I finished reading the book, I’d let it sit for a week, allowing the ideas to marinate in my brain before transcribing the book notes in my journaling app, DayOne. Each entry was tagged with a specific keyword like creativity, philosophy, writing, life advice, etc. This tagging system allowed me to sift through my digital book notes by entering the keyword, recalling the quote and source, and retrieving the page number. The system worked for a while, but I wanted to find something more tactile. I remember things better when I physically write them down. I don’t love e-readers; I much prefer the experience of interacting with a physical book. I don’t want to just passively absorb the information, I want to interact with the text, study it, and find ways to apply the information to my life. It takes more effort, sure, but the reward is retaining a hell of a lot more.
I went on a hunt for a new, more analog system to capture, and organize my notes. One method that caught my attention was the commonplace book. The commonplace book isn’t the latest and greatest, cutting-edge organizational system; it’s actually quite old. It roots trace back to ancient times, known as “Loci communes” or ‘common places”, where ideas, sayings, and knowledge were stored via writing. Virginia Wold, Mark Twain, John Locke, Francis Bacon, Ronald Raegan, Marcus Aurelius, among many others, all kept their version of a commonplace book. Despite the various styles, the goal was similar: capturing, organizing, and easily referencing important information.
Artist and creativity coach, Julie Fei-Fan Balzer explains that the primary purpose of the commonplace is, “to create a resource that supports your intellectual growth, inspires creativity, and enhances your overall learning journey.” I love this definition, but think the purpose of keeping a commonplace is what you make of it. To actually use it on a regular basis, you’ll need to determine your own personal motivation for keeping one—an intention that is strong enough for you to put in the effort to actively use it. You can keep a myriad of materials: conversations with friends, business ideas, random thoughts or ideas, quotes from movies, conferences you attended, or lines of lyrics you love. You can also contribute an artistic flair, adding sketches or collages. There’s no set formula; the important thing is to tailor it to your unique preferences. Be creative, have fun, embrace the messiness. There are no rigid rules. Add recipes, advice your mom gave you, or a drawing of your dog. Include whatever is personally meaningful to you, that you want to store, remember, and refer back to at some point.
Organizing Your Commonplace
Capturing quotes, ideas, and snippets of wisdom. seemed straightforward to me. Open the notebook, jotdown the quote and source—simple, right? Well, that’s a great start, but after accumulating hundreds of passages, how are you going to refer back to them easily? How does one even begin to sort through this wealth of information? During my research on how to create my own commonplace, I stumbled upon philosopher John Locke who wrote a whole treatise on his system for organizing a commonplace. I read the first few pages of his treatise, got confused and decided that this method was not for me.
I needed something easier and straightforward. The more difficult and complicated it was going to be to organize, the less likely I would use it. I gotta be real with myself. So I turned to good ol’ YouTube to review more modern ways to organize one.
After reading several articles and watching videos on how other people organize their commonplace, I pieced together my own system—one that’s simple, easy to use, and makes me feel like I’m living in the olden days. I’m going to share my system as a guide—you can copy it exactly or find your own way.
Step one: Choose a notebook. Some ‘commonplacers’ recommend a size no longer than a passport, ensuring portability, so you can jot down when inspiration strikes hot. I personally chose this one because I love the antique look and beautiful paper.
I think it’s important to move away from choosing one that looks like your regular journal, day planner or calendar. A commonplace should look and feel special. It’s worthwhile to invest in a notebook that you really love. I bought mine for $27.99 off Amazon and it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever owned. After the notebook came, I stared at it for a week, trying to figure out where to start. I didn’t want to mess up the pages or make mistakes so I just did nothing. After I made the decision that I could always buy a new one if I screwed this one up horrifically, I decided to just go for it and got started.
Step two is to create our index.
Indexing for Fast Reference
Like I mentioned, it’s one thing to jot down the content, it’s another to figure out a way to find it quickly and easily. To stick with the antiquity theme, I used latin words to organize my entries into major “themes or categories”. You can think of this as my table of contents, but the contents are scattered all over the place. I added the following categories to the back two few pages, but left some extra pages blank to give me the opportunity to add more categories as I go.
My Index
Vita [life]
Creativitas [creativity]
Scripturam [writing]
Lectio [reading]
Philosophia [philosophy]
Amare [love]
Mors [death]
I then bought some tiny little colorful stickers to place beside each theme so that when I’m trying to look for specific quotes, I can skim the pages for specific colors. I could make it more complex, but again, I needed to keep it simple, otherwise, I would not use it.
I organized my content by a) theme and b) page number. As I contribute to the commonplace book and add theme categories to various passages, I then add that page number beside the respective “theme” in the index. The image above doesn’t contain the page numbers yet (this photo was taken shortly after I created my index), but beside each theme, you’ll have several page numbers so you can easily look up quotes or passages that match the theme.
So if I’m writing a post where I want to draw some important wisdom on creativity, I would reference Creativitas in the index and visit the page numbers indicated under that category. I could use the source verbatim in the book or go back to the real source where I pulled the passage/quote from to find more on the topic. In the left margin of each page, I include the following information:
- Theme name
- Author name
- Book name
- Additional pages of book for reference/context (if applicable)
I saw some really nice ones with drawings beside the quotes. Just make it your own. Your first commonplace book might not be perfect. You might change the way you organize it after you decide it’s not really working for you. That’s okay. If you make this into a lifelong practice, you’re not going to have just one commonplace book, but several over your lifetime. You gotta start somewhere so just have fun with it. Position your first commonplace as an experiment and you’ll be more inclined to use it.
The ability to take notes and capture the important stuff from the vast amount of information we receive daily is truly a skill. Ever since I adopted the practice of commonplacing, I’ve noticed a significant improvement in my ability to recall what I’ve read. When I’m in the midst of writing an article, I find more relevant ideas and quotes effortlessly pop into my head. What makes commonplacing so effective is its personalized nature—you can adopt the practice to your own individualized needs. This practice has stuck around for a while and for good reason. Happy commonplacing 🙂