"A commonplace book is a place to store thoughts that you might want to
revisit later. They can include letters, recipes, scraps of paper, pieces of
unfinished writing, facts, sayings, vocabulary words, and so forth. What
distinguishes this from a diary or a journal is that the focus is on the items
themselves, not on any sort of chronology. It’s simply a collection of items you
want to think about again in the future.
Sounds like chaos…
They can be very chaotic, or very orderly. My first
attempt at a commonplace book was a small Moleskine notebook I kept in my
pocket, along with a pen. In it, I basically just wrote down any interesting
thought I had throughout the day in a very haphazard fashion: it was filled with
quotes and undefined words and random facts and such all scribbled together.
Very chaotic.
They can be very chaotic, or very orderly. My first
attempt at a commonplace book was a small Moleskine notebook I kept in my
pocket, along with a pen. In it, I basically just wrote down any interesting
thought I had throughout the day in a very haphazard fashion: it was filled with
quotes and undefined words and random facts and such all scribbled together.
Very chaotic.
But that chaos was what made it worthwhile. About once a week I’d leaf
through the pages with a dictionary and some other scratch paper at hand,
defining undefined words and expanding on fleeting thoughts, which would usually
result in a trip to the library (remember, this was before the advent of the
internet) and, if nothing else, an hour of very rich food for thought.
through the pages with a dictionary and some other scratch paper at hand,
defining undefined words and expanding on fleeting thoughts, which would usually
result in a trip to the library (remember, this was before the advent of the
internet) and, if nothing else, an hour of very rich food for thought.
How does one get started?…"
"How to start and maintain a commonplace book"
By Trent Seigfried
Visit his blog, Long Haired Child.
Image: "Random Moleskine Page: by Andrew Jay @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR.
© All rights reserved. Used with permission.
I’ve never thought of using a journal quite in that manner. I think I would still wonder how to find things if they weren’t chronologically oriented.
Hi, I’m the author of the article that’s linked here. In general, I don’t use my commonplace for long-term storage of information. If I think I want to be able to regularly retrieve an idea I conceive of in the commonplace, I store it elsewhere (in my regular journal, in fact). The commonplace is simply a tool to store those little bits of information that I stumble across in a day; waiting a bit and then looking through them again helps me determine which pieces are important and worth keeping and which pieces aren’t. For example, once I look up a word I’ve scribbled in my commonplace, I don’t have any real need to keep it long-term.
That’s exactly what i was thinkin’. I may start a commonplace skine’, with the help of the pointers I read from you blog:)
The idea of a commonplace book is wonderful. It’s something that I do tereasure.