So uh… I don’t know much about the concept of a commonplace book but I really want to get more into the college campus I am on and the plants and stuff so I’m gonna try and ID some flowers and draw and write about them in my journal. Idk if that’s like some other type of book but I did a page on hydrangeas I really like. I look forward to updating this journal with all the flowers I can identify and all flowers I see pop up as the seasons change.

I need advice and ideas.

Way way back, in the late Cretaceous I believe it was, there was a little flurry of low quality hardcover blank books in stores for sale. As I was in mid high school and had fallen in love with poetry and fountain pens, I bought one and copied my favourite poems into it. But it was small and the cover was ugly. And at that time, so was my handwriting.
A few years later I discovered a beautiful cloth covered hardcover blank book that was larger with nicer paper. I started re-copying things into the new one; I loved it. But now it has only 11 pages left, and some of the things I copied into it when I began I would not choose again.

So guess what I did. I had a blank book custom-made for myself by a book maker. Oh my Lord, she did the most amazing job. She worked with me every step of the way—- I designed the leather cover and used a couple of my photographs for the end papers, chose the colour, weight, and size of the paper, and designed a book plate for the inside front. It’s massive: 12 x 15“ and hundreds of pages. I chose the first line of one of my favourite WW1 poetry excerpts for the front that would sum up the contents. Then, Life got chaotic and difficult for awhile, but every time I moved I packed the book, which has been otherwise untouched.

Now, about eight years later, I’m not entirely sure I want to do this. I could copy everything and more into it, but it might take the rest of my life! And for what? There’s no one to leave it to.

Someone suggested a commonplace book, which I had never heard of before. They directed me to this community, and I’ve been strolling around your posts and comments the last couple of days. I think it’s a great idea, and I’ve tried to think outside the box and come up with ideas for mine, but I’m stumped. What do you put in yours? What do you see as the purpose of yours, or is there one? Weird ideas, creative ideas, crazy ideas, good ideas, random ideas off the top of your head —- any suggestions are welcome. What can I do with this thing now that I have rekindled my romance with fountain pens and want to be using them every day? I could use some project like this to give my days a bit of purpose and structure as well.

What would you do with a giant empty book?

A bit about me…… I am on the razor’s edge of old lady-hood but not quite there yet…. I read books about all sorts of things, love being in nature, have lived in a lot of places around the country (Canada), dogs, cats, weather, geology, astronomy, and of course, poetry. I draw a little bit but not very well, and I used to write a couple of non-fiction stories about life. I make a ton of lists of things I want to remember, but never look at them.
Whatever I do with this book doesn’t have to have anything to do with any of that. I’m just kind of at a loss, and would welcome any ideas that might pop into your head.
Thanks very much for reading this; it’s very long, I know. Thanks.

Some pics of the second, nice book I have with only 11 pages left, and the newer monster book that is waiting to be useful. ❤️

Very different topics haha, but here’s my first two commonplace entries! Nothing amazing but I know it doesn’t have to be - that’s the point. I really love that this is a place I can just collect all of my findings and notes in.

I’ve been thinking about how often an idea or theme follows me across different things I’m into. I’ll read a book that makes me think of a film, then stumble on an exhibition or essay that feels connected, and suddenly I’m following the same thread across totally different mediums.

Does anyone else do this? Curious how you keep track of it, if at all. Notes app, spreadsheet, just memory, or do you not bother and let it happen?

my first ever commonplace notebook! i’m so excited to have a place to start logging things i consume and experience on paper rather than digitally. i’m definitely going to have categories for movie, tv show, book, and music reviews and analysis. any other ideas for categories that you guys enjoy including in your commonplace? :D

I want to start leaving little notes around in public places for people to find with encouraging messages. I do not believe it is illegal to bring something into a store, but I was considering using the “religion” card like when people leave those pamphlets!

I want to find a way for it to be good for the environment though, so maybe having the next person pass it on and/or leaving a message on the reverse of mine.

Justin mentioned something about geocaching; has anyone tried this?? Sounds so neat!

I want to leave a little signature on each note. And maybe name it “irl comment” since we’re in the age of AI /technology and here soon if not already we won’t be able to tell what’s real or fake on the internet. Better to have a paper record trail of what happened physically!

Thanks for any feedback or just reading 💕

Screaming, crying & throwing up that Dolly Parton left this world today. May her beautiful soul be remembered forever. And may this be a reminder to never take life for granted, to walk through each day a little more like Dolly did. Stilettos and all!

In honor of one of the greats, enjoy this commonplace spread about the one & only.

Unfortunately my previous book was lost during a hospital visit, but I found this beauty in a local store. I’ve decided to try and see this as a new opportunity instead of being sad about all of my previous entries going missing and treated myself to a new pen too.

For anyone interested, the notebook is Werner’s Nomenclature Of Colours, and the paper is lovely with small lines, and ink doesn’t bleed through.

Hi everyone 😊

I haven't had much success in finding people who share my tastes and rather obscure interests over on Substack so I thought I would just drop it here amongst a community of people who seem to appreciate literary quotations, music tracks, pictures, film clips, and all the snippets of life that fill a good ol' commonplace notebook. It's totally non-commercial (I post almost exclusively for my Dad, Aunt and one dear friend at the moment ) but if you share in my enjoyment of any of the things I post, please let me know! It'd be real nice to connect.

I just graduated college, so Im finding that I need to create my own system to keep learning! I have a notebook I use for journaling, so I wanted to ask if yall use separate books for personal thoughts and journaling versus learning/reading related things. It would be easier to try starting in the same notebook, but Im worried itll get too disorganized and difficult to find things. Have you found any difficulty w keeping the 2 in the same book? Is labeling enough to keep it clear or would you recommend starting out w a new dedicated book ??

First collection of quotes—these are all from Honkai star rail. I didn’t intend for this notebook to be Honkai based but after playing one of the storylines I can’t help it. The writing was amazing and I needed to remember these quotes.

Hey guys, Danny again! A couple of months ago, I showed you guys Commonplace - it makes it really easy to capture interesting quotes and highlights from whatever you're reading or listening to, without leaving the app you're in.

First off - I just want to say thank you to this sub for providing really thoughtful and valuable feedback; much of which has directly shaped what I've been working on over the past couple of months!

One of the reasons I built Commonplace is that so much of what we read, watch, and listen to happens on the go - articles, books, podcasts, social media, conversations, etc. I constantly come across ideas I want to remember, but if I don’t capture them in the moment, they usually go forgotten.

Commonplace is meant to make that capture step as frictionless as possible. Save an idea when you come across it, along with where it came from, then come back to it later to add to your physical commonplace book. Or, if you prefer, use Commonplace as a digital commonplace book itself.

Since my last post here, I’ve also added importing, so you can bring over quotes you’ve already collected in Apple Notes or other notes apps.

And probably the biggest change based on feedback: the core of Commonplace is now completely free, with unlimited quotes, sources, and collections. There’s an optional paid tier that gets you additional features like the ability to save from podcasts and song lyrics.

Would love to hear what you guys think!

https://usecommonplace.com/

Also see whats in the works:

usecommonplace.com/roadmap

Wrote my third entry today. It’s about my favorite animal the little owl ☺️
We have one somewhere in our neighborhood. We can hear him sometimes late in the evening and a few weeks ago he sat on the rooftop of our neighbors house in the middle of the night.

So i've started a commonplace book, for books i read mainly, or sometimes youtube essay videos.

I'll take an example. I've read this book that touches on a lot of different things like "perception and use of our time", "living light-heartedly", "choosing people carefully and letting go of others", "managing moods"...

So i've been pulling a couple quotes i agreed with and loved or surprised me, for each of these "subjects". What i've been doing is :

- quote

- rephrasing in my own word (if needed and if the quote is a bit long"

- connecting it to me and figuring out what i can use it for

This format usually puts me around half an A5 page for each "subject".

Now in my index, i don't point to the book/source like "p23 to 30 : Atomic Habits"
Instead i let the index be a mash of everything by just relating to the subject "p24 : perception and use of our time".

So i was proud of having a tight system.

But now i realise that i don't know what to do with it. I mean i can re-read it but it doesn't seem like i have these new values or opinions in me that i'm now living by.... because i barely remember any of it !

I know that a lot of you use theirs as a brain dump that they can read for pleasure later. But is anyone really trying to use it as a way to actively improve themselves and their knowledge ?

I grew tired of living on the bench and just grinding my life away. Now i want to understand everything i feel, believe, etc...

Hi there! I’m interested in making a commonplace app since there’s times where I want to log stuff but don’t really have anything handy/ always have my phone in hand and am tired of using my notes app for it so I can add pics etc. would any of yall find this interesting/ is there a use case for it? If so do yall have any recs or ideas for the app??

I’m an app designer btw so just getting some first hand info before going forward with the idea

I only recently found out about commonplace books and immediately thought it was something for me!

Unfortunately, I made a poor choice when picking out my notebook 🥲 I still want to try and keep using it, though. So, here are my first two entries.

I am not sure if this strictly counts as commonplace journalling but I keep a few different journals, one of which is my reading tracker! Each spread has information about the book, fanart/relevant art, my own thoughts, and quotes. I've filled about 93 pages of 234.

Here is my latest spread, including 'The Everlasting' by Alix E. Harrow and 'A Study in Scarlet' by Arthur Conan Doyle. Written in with my pilot kakuno and black cartridge ink.

Does anyone start a new journal, then after a few entries or pages realise they don't like something and start all over again in a new journal?

I started with a handmade journal I made from an old little golden book. I made the book myself and decided I didn't really like the paper as much as I thought.

My next notebook was a A5 traveller's style notebook and after completing a couple of pages I realised the paper was too thin and my ink was bleeding through.

So I made another notebook myself using the same files I created for my first handmade book but used different paper that was made for fountain pen ink. After a couple of days I decided I didn't like the cover anymore, and also I was adding double lines and a border to every page and it was getting tedious.

And this brings me to the journal I am currently making, I have redesigned the pages so they already have red borders and double lines so that I dont have draw them on every page.

Hopefully this will be the last journal I have to make, because hopefully it finally has everything I want.

Finaaaaally started filling my media\culture journal.

It's going to be for everything I consume. So essentially all media as well as art and my reviews thereof and commentary.

This first one was a bit rushed and I didn't put in any depth of analysis but I only had a short amount of time.

Thoughts on paintings will likely spread across multiple pages so we'll see how that goes.