Commonplace Books: Where Writers Keep Their Nuggets of Wisdom

6 days ago

6 min read

We all have had those moments when we’re talking to others and want to share something that we’ve learned. But sometimes, in the moment, we have forgotten what we wanted to share, who we learned it from, or how to explain it. Those “nuggets of wisdom” that we want to share, just sort of disappear from our minds at the drop of a hat.

The same thing happens when we research for a book. We save a link or jot a quote on scrap paper, and when it’s time to write, we can’t find it or remember where it came from.

In this blog, I share with you how a system has changed my memory recall and has helped many others dating back to ancient Greek and Roman times.

As writers, we can apply the commonplace book system to help us collect and organize our content over a period of time. As we are learning something, this book helps us sort through our research.

WHAT IS A COMMONPLACE BOOK?

What is commonplacing? Well, it’s a place to store knowledge, quotes, or just about anything you research or that interests you. Commonplace books are little books that you create to help you recall information when you are learning. They are a collection of “nuggets of wisdom,” bits of knowledge, pieces of advice, or invaluable insights.

You can think of your commonplace books as a quick reference guide, or even your personal encyclopedia.

THE HISTORY

Throughout history, scholars like the Greek philosopher Aristotle and the Roman speaker Cicero taught students to gather ideas under “common places,” or topics they could come back to. During the Renaissance, students, scholars, and merchants kept notebooks of quotes and ideas they wanted to remember.

Philosopher John Locke developed a system for organizing. In 1685, he published a method for indexing a commonplace book by subject. It was later published in English in 1706.

COMMONPLACE BOOK OR COMMONPLACE JOURNAL?

Some people use the terms commonplace book and commonplace journal for the same thing. The way I see it, a commonplace book focuses on collecting bits of information and recording them down by theme or topic. A commonplace journal is where you might record your own thoughts and inspirations from what you’ve learned.

NAME	WHAT GOES IN IT	HOW IT CAN HELP WRITERS
Commonplace Book	Quotes, facts, research notes, links, and the sources they came from.	Writers can keep a commonplace book for each project. It can be organized to your choosing.
Commonplace Journal	Your reactions to what you’ve collected, and the ideas they spark for your book.	A place to reflect on what you’ve learned and see where your ideas connect.

HOW WRITERS CAN USE ONE

Nonfiction Writers

Commonplacing is a great way to perform your research for your book. If you are a nonfiction writer and need a way to collect and store your research and what you’ve learned, you can create a separate commonplace book for your project. This has helped me in the past.

It will help you organize your resources and the content that you might want to include. If you’ve done some personal journaling as you research, you’ll be able to pull the content that you’ve learned and turn it into something powerful.

Fiction Writers

Think of your fiction commonplace book as your “Story Bible.” It’s the place where you can use the technique of commonplacing when you collect information for your fiction book writing. You can capture your characters, your settings, your worldbuilding, any research you had to do, ideas, notes, quotes, or anything that you will find useful to collect to write your book.

When you can get creative with your research, it may inspire you more to do it and actually enjoy it.

HOW COMMONPLACING HAS HELPED ME

My Learning

When I am trying to learn something, I find that reading through the content, repeating it out loud, and jotting it down helps me to fully understand it and remember it. But, where I learned it from and what’s most important for me to remember sometimes gets lost in my brain. So, recording the information down in a separate notebook of my own, helps me to retain and memorize it.

I may look up information on a topic that I am interested in, write about it in digital format, and then forget about it later. I find myself overwriting on the computer. But when I write it by hand in a notebook or journal, I’ve realized that I am able to retain the information longer.

In the Workplace

I’ve worked in numerous roles throughout my career, and for each new one, I would bring along with me on day one, a new notebook. I’d give it a title, a start date, and create an index of contents that I knew I’d have to focus on.

In reality, what I was doing was keeping a commonplace book for what I needed to remember for each job. I still have all of the notebooks I had made, which in turn were compiled into SOPs or technical writing for the jobs I was doing.

WAYS TO ORGANIZE YOUR COMMONPLACE BOOK

There isn’t just one way to organize a commonplace book or journal. You may also combine methods to suit the way you work.

John Locke’s Index Method: Locke kept an index at the front of his book and filed each topic by its first letter and the vowel after it. This helped him find any entry again quickly.
By Topic or Theme: Give each page a header for its topic or theme. When you look at the headers, you know what the page is about.
The Zibaldone: Italian for “a heap of things.” Collect information without sorting it right away. When you hear something interesting, jot it down.
Hashtags: This is one of my own techniques that I’ve been using for several years. I put a hashtag (#) on each page for its main theme and add it to my table of contents, so I can see what I write most and flip right to it.
Digital to Physical: In my own experience, I’ve kept my commonplacing digitally, in spreadsheets and OneNote. But it can be transferred into a physical notebook, so I can carry it in my bag when I’m out and about.

Try a few and see which ones you like best. If you’d like more ideas for setting up your own, Emily Rudow’s simple guide is a great place to start.

HOW TO START

Here’s how I would start a new commonplace book or journal:

Pick Your Topics: Find the themes or topics you want to research for your book.
Ask Yourself Why: Why does this topic interest you, and how does it connect to what you’re writing?
Narrow What You Want to Learn: Choose a few questions to focus on. If you’re writing a book about cats, you might start with what foods you should never feed a cat.
Decide Where You’ll Get the Information: It might come from books, articles, videos, or conversations with others.
Choose Your Notebook: Some people keep all of their topics in one book. I personally prefer one notebook per topic, but that is not always feasible.
Set Up Your Index or Key: Leave the first few pages for your index and decide on any symbols or hashtags you’ll use.
Prepare Your Pages: Make margins on your pages using a ruler. I like to create a 1” side margin on each page to record my sources, and a ½” bottom margin to list my hashtags.
Gather and Record Where It Came From: Write down what you learn and who you learned it from. That way, you can find it again when you’re ready to write.
Come Back to It: Revisit your entries and use them in your own writing projects.

Don’t overthink it.

KEEP YOUR NUGGETS OF WISDOM

As our habits and technology have changed over the years, we can still apply the core concept to our research and writing. Whatever method you choose, you’ll have what you need when it’s time to write.

So, the next time you find an empty notebook lying around, choose a topic for your next book and designate it for your research.

Grab my Commonplace Book Guide for supplies, collection ideas, and page layouts to help you set up your first book. And once you start adding your own thoughts to the pages, you’re on your way to annotating, which I’ll cover in the next blog.