March 2024

Explore

3/25 - Commonplace, Thematic Space, and Focused Journal

今天在Medium看文章，看到一篇讨论笔记的文章：The Commonplace Book as a Thinker’s Journal

这篇文章提到了一个对我来说颇为陌生的旧词：Commonplace Book。查看了几篇文章，发现，其实就是主题日记的另外一种说法。

收录一些相关链接：

The Commonplace Book as a Thinker’s Journal

Why keep a commonplace book today? When we are inundated by information through social media and our digital devices, it’s easy to overlook what drives and intrigues us. Keeping a journal helps, but keeping a focused journal is better, even if that focus is on self-fulfillment.

⁠

https://medium.com/critical-margins/the-commonplace-book-as-a-thinkers-journal-4d65231f30ec⁠

⁠

A commonplace book helps you process, understand, and retain anything that’s valuable to you. Ryan Holiday (

“How and Why to Keep a Commonplace Book,”⁠

Thought Catalog) defines a commonplace book as “a central resource or depository for ideas, quotes, anecdotes, observations and information you come across during your life and didactic pursuits.” In other words, a “thinker’s journal.”

Writers like Virginia Woolf and Samuel Johnson kept commonplace books, and the practice is alive and well today. Do a quick Google search of “commonplace book” and you’ll find examples of how people use their commonplace books on paper and on apps like

Evernote⁠

⁠

https://medium.com/critical-margins/the-commonplace-book-as-a-thinkers-journal-4d65231f30ec⁠

⁠

Woolf wrote about the practice in her essay

“Hours in a Library”⁠

Let us take down one of those old notebooks which we have all, at one time or another, had a passion for beginning. . . . Here we have written down the names of great writers in their order of merit; here we have copied out fine passages from the classics; here are lists of books to be read; and here, most interesting of all, lists of books that have actually been read, as the reader testifies with some youthful vanity by a dash of red ink. (Virginia Woolf,
“Hours in a Library”⁠
)

What else can a commonplace do for you compared to keeping other types of journals? I’ve kept a commonplace book for a few years now and it’s become a routine. Here’s what I’ve gained from the practice.

24 页的小书

Hours in a library Hardcover – January 1, 1957

Virginia Woolf⁠

(Author)

First edition. Kirkpatrick A33; Luedeking and Edmonds B64 for Leonard Woolf contribution . Essay describing Virginia Woolf's attitude towards the library and books. With a note by Leonard Woolf. Greetings card from publisher signed in ink by two of the at the publisher loosely inserted. Library presentation bookplate. 24 pages

⁠

https://www.amazon.com/Hours-library-Virginia-Woolf/dp/B0007DW7OM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=critimargi-20&linkId=47ec347788d66c4166106d1294c2b4b0⁠

⁠

When I read, I keep in mind the things that interest me most or that I think will benefit me long term. I mark these things and then add them to my commonplace book. I try to do this daily or weekly. As a result, my reading practice has changed: I read in part to find things that can keep me mentally flexible. By that I mean I purposely seek out contrary ideas or things I don’t know already or want to understand better. The best of what I discover goes into my commonplace book. Over time, what I’ve collected begins to tell a story about how I view the world and how I understand things I don’t agree with or won’t need to know later.

我在这里留言了一下：

Hi Kevin, thanks for sharing the amazing experience. How do your review these "items that I think will benefit me long term"?

When do you capture their "benefits"?

I am working on researching knowledge curation which is about turning pieces of ideas into a meaningful knowledge creations.

I want to know the value of commonplace book in the journey of knowledge curation.

⁠

https://oliverding.medium.com/hi-kevin-thanks-for-sharing-the-amazing-experience-1fed46fb3ee4⁠

⁠

Strategies to Keep a Commonplace Book

2018

kevin eagan

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 to learn.

My strategy is simple, and it comes from three core principles:

Where is content located?

What is in each notebook?

How does the content relate to topics and what type of content is it?

My solution for all three principles:

Number each notebook page

Keep a table of contents in the first few pages of the notebook

Keep an index in the back of each notebook

⁠

https://medium.com/critical-margins/strategies-to-keep-a-commonplace-book-f5652fd8eef5⁠

⁠

A Leuchtturm 1917 Notebook

If you don’t want to number each page or if you’re worried you’ll forget, I recommend buying a

Leuchtturm 1917⁠

notebook, which includes a table of contents section at the beginning, and each page is numbered. That’s what I use right now, but I’ve used all types of notebooks in the past.

⁠

LEUCHTTURM1917 - Notebook Hardcover Medium A5-251 Numbered Pages for Writing and Journaling (Black, Dotted)

⁠

https://www.amazon.com/Leuchtturm1917-Medium-Size-Hardcover-Notebook/dp/B002TSIMW4/⁠

⁠

How And Why To Keep A “Commonplace Book”

By Ryan Holiday, August 28th 2013

⁠

https://thoughtcatalog.com/ryan-holiday/2013/08/how-and-why-to-keep-a-commonplace-book/⁠

⁠

Wikipedia - Commonplace Book

⁠

Commonplace bookLast edited: Fri, Feb 16, 2024 Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are similar to scrapbooks filled with items of many kinds: notes, proverbs, adages, aphorisms, maxims, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, prayers, legal formulas, and recipes. Entries are most often organized under systematic subject headings and differ functionally from journals or diaries, which are chronological and introspective. See more en.wikipedia.org

⁠

John Locke - A New Method of Making Common-place-books

1706, 80 pages

⁠

https://archive.org/details/gu_newmethodmaki00lock⁠

H. P. Lovecraft's Commonplace Book

⁠

https://www.wired.com/2011/07/h-p-lovecrafts-commonplace-book/⁠

⁠

-That being said, I don’t think the “book” part is all that important, just that it is a physical resource of some kind. If you do want a book,

Moleskines⁠

are great and so are

Field Notes⁠

-I use 4×6 ruled index cards, which Robert Greene introduced me to. I write the information on the card, and the theme/category on the top right corner. As he figured out, being able to shuffle and move the cards into different groups is crucial to getting the most out of them. Ronald Reagan actually kept

quotes on a similar notecard system⁠

The Notes and Commonplace Book

H. P. Lovecraft⁠

· 2020

⁠

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Notes_and_Commonplace_Book/8DB2zQEACAAJ?hl=en⁠

⁠

The Notes and Commonplace Book of H.P. Lovecraft Perfect Paperback – January 1, 2020

H.P. Lovecraft⁠

(Author)

During his lifetime, HPL kept a listing of story ideas, concepts, and other elements which he might at some point include in his stories. He called this his "commonplace book". In 1938, just after HPL's death, his friend and literary executor, Robert H. Barlow printed HPL's commonplace book in an edition of just 75 copies. We thought it was high time for a new edition of the Commonplace Book, and here it is. Working from high resolution photos of an original in the Library of Congress, we've created a typographic replica of the 1938 edition. To make it even more fun, we've also included materials Lovecraft wrote after he gave his manuscript to Barlow and which were not included in the 1938 edition. HPL also wrote plot summaries for more than fifty classic horror stories which were similarly omitted and are reproduced here for the first time. This volume also features an Afterword by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Fans of HPL will see here many of the initial ideas which Lovecraft later used in the full version of his tales. They'll also gain insights into the creative process of the father of gothic fiction and master of the weird tale, H.P. Lovecraft.

⁠

https://www.amazon.com/Notes-Commonplace-Book-H-P-Lovecraft/dp/1645508722/⁠

⁠

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.