Inspiration
Self-care express: The Commonplace Book
You may already know of the commonplace book. It’s been in use since antiquity, far pre-dating movable type, index cards, bullet journals, and, of course, Pinterest (a platform with some overlap in function). But I did not get interested in this small-but-mighty tool until I saw some sexy French influencer do a show-and-tell about hers on Parisian Vibe. (You don’t say, said no one.)
A (single) place for everything.
What is a commonplace book, you ask? It is not, as its name suggests, some bestselling thriller from the Little Free Library. Nor is it a journal or even necessarily a chronological project.
Its name comes from the Latin locus communis, meaning not humdrum, but a shared location for passages and quotes copied out from your purposeful reading.
The practice comes from a time when a book was a far more rare and precious object. Darwin, Linnaeus, and Mark Twain are among the best-known users, but many notable and perhaps more artful examples of the form come from non-famous gentlewomen who recorded important takeaways from their studies.
Some uses for a commonplace book.
- it’s a nice way of keeping track of your reading
- the act of making analog entries helps consolidate your learning
- if you have a flexible system, you can group by subject matter, which obviously is good for sparking new ideas and deepening your knowledge in an area
- but the opposite is also true—having unlike things together and reviewing them can also spark new ideas and unexpected connections
- a commonplace book allows you to make more use of the public library, or to declutter books with a lower density of takeaways. Just copy and preserve the material of highest value to you! (Obviously I am not suggesting you apply this method to every book in your collection—you will always have many keepers.)
- but say you have a large number of self-help books, a genre known for being 82% too long. (Not my book of course!) Just go in there and grab that 18%, the core of wisdom.
- and it goes without saying that the commonplace book would make an excellent repository for your collected self/care knowledge: the Basics! Your Emergency Kit!
What to use.
There really aren’t any hard rules here. I like a standard Midori MD lined A5 notebook with its heavier horizontal line on each page—gives a nice subsection. Or get something without lines if you like to include drawings and other embellishments. The Leuchtturm 1917 (which you can get here in some new and fabulous colors) is a good pick, as it comes printed with page numbers and includes an index for you to populate. You could also find a small three-ring binder or some other system that would allow you to group pages as you see fit.
One thing’s for sure: if you’re a reader and a learner, you’ll fill your commonplace book quickly, and it will be something you treasure.
I am keen to know how many of you have you already been using a commonplace book. If you have, please tell us in the comments below what you’ve noticed about the practice. What do you like about it, and what are its challenges? Has it changed your reading? The quality of your learning? And if you haven’t been using one, do you plan to?
Image credit: The Letter Writer, ‘F. van Mieris fecit Anno 1680,’ Rijksmuseum. Used with permission.
I have quotes and such in mine, also topics or ideas I want to study more deeply or random things to look up later. I definitely prefer A5 size. My favorites are from Peter Pauper Press, they have dozens of beautiful designs and the paper doesn’t bleed through. I also have two A5 binders, one for work and one for home, for brain dumps and to-do lists. Those are more like a bullet journal, but not exactly.
Oh my goodness! Peter Pauper Press is amazing!! Thank you 🙂
I use whatever scrap paper is handy. It then clutters up the space until I want to refer to it – never to be found – in spite of pulling everything apart looking. And then there are the almost unused journals/notebooks sitting on the shelf.
I have a section in my Bujo just for quotes, words that spark a response in me. There isn’t any organization to them other than the subtle chronology of one after the other – beginning with the first one of 2025 and closing with the final one. Which I suppose provides its one reference point for reflection on the year.
I began an index card file in college with quotes and phrases etc. easy to sort and categorize. Probably should dust it off and begin adding again! I didn’t know it had a name!
As a lover of all things stationary; journals, stickers, cards, good pens, I have quite a collection of these in my home.
I’m also a voracious reader and copy out text I want to remember all the time. I have them on library cards, index cards, in skinny journals, all over my house !
Maybe I’ll focus on a universal notebook to compile them in for 2026. It’s nice to find others, like knitting, that enjoy the same practices as I do! So glad to learn it has a name!
I use a BUJO for everything – my to-do lists, my reading record, theological reflections complete with personal art, quotes, books to read, goals, fitness records. All this is just chronological with no organization. That might be the Achilles heel of my commonplace books. Maybe I should look into clever ways of sorting the stuff.
In the Notes on my phone. And take a picture of any section I want to remember or share with friends. I have a commonplace book too, but it’s never nearby when I need it. And old ones have gone to thumb drive never to be seen again when computers died. Regrettably.
I actually keep this type of thing in my notes app on my phone iPhone, which fortunately syncs to my iPad.
What i like is you can sort them, add pictures to the notes, and if you are feeling incredibly lazy, dictate them. You can also share them.
Some of my note topics are:
Medications and list of doctors
Books to read
Books read (with a grade)
Inappropriate curses (i.e., may you come back as a cat in Korea)
Sibs and kids (6 siblings, 24 nieces/nephews and a plethora of greats …. this also includes birthdays, anniversaries and sadly, passings)
Plus you can password protect each individual notes.
You topics in your notebook are great and sparked ideas for me.
The thing that I’d like to quibble with is that someone who’s dictating is lazy – as someone who’s recovering from hand surgery, I love the dictating feature of my iPhone. Also, I can talk faster than I type so dictating again can be a home run for me.
My handwriting also blows, so dictating is extra wonderful from that regard.
I’ve never been much of a journaler but this sounds right up my alley! I’ll give it a try in 2026
Old school here. I created my own tiny notebook for quotes and inspirational thoughts in the 1960s after reading. A Pocketful of Proverbs by Joan Walsh Anglund. She was best known for her iconic illustrations of little children with expressive eyes. Something that perhaps the Precious Moments artist may have unconsciously used for inspiration.
I still have that first tiny notebook and have created others through the years, although in the last decade, I utilized commercially created ones to record events from grandchildren, knitting and weaving patterns, and a host of memories.
Me, too! I create new ones, mostly paper, as needed and occasionally reread them, sparking many memories.
A gift for my friends and for me!
Since 1983, I have kept a list of titles and authors that I read. I enter each book as I complete reading it. I use a yellow narrow Rhodia pad to record the titles.
Every ten titles, I note the new total. During my active career years, I managed to reach my goal of 100 titles annually. Now, in retirement, it is at least 120. I am there for 2025!
I have kept one for years after cleaning out my desk at work and finding thousands of loose Post It notes stuck together with quotes, books to look up, and sudden, short inspirations and connections from reading. To catch up. I placed a post it on the left hand page of a fresh journal and reflected on what the scribble was / (might have been) about and I keep a second journal for current place-keeping – instead of found Post Its, I try to illustrate what I want to record on the left hand page and write about the drawing / photo / cut out picture etc., on the right hand page. Wonderful to look back on occasionally, but dangerous as this could start a THIRD commonplace book. 🙂
Ha…I didn’t know there was a name for what I did. I have been making commonplace books for many years now. The act of writing things I have learned, in a journal, helps me to absorb what it is I am reading. Sometimes I copy what I have read, the important or interesting parts, and sometimes I try to rewrite in my own words. I also have many collections of poems,sutras,songs and quotes that I love. Recently I have been creating a book with mixed media collages, drawings and paintings inspired by the words. It’s been a fun and creative way of saving the words that are so meaningful to me. Thank you for this post.
My father kept a commonplace book, and it was a lovely way to remember him after he passed away. So many quotes made us (his children) remember the things he held important and that he tried to teach us.
I have sticky notes EVERYWHERE with quotes and notes. Usually I put them on a bulletin board- a Commonplace book sounds delightful. I think I’ll try this! Thank you, as always, for your wonderful ideas.
I’ve been doing this for years – I just didn’t know it had a name. When I look back at some of t he early ones, I see how much I have accomplished and what I did that I didn’t think I could do.
I appreciate this article very much as it has given me new ideas as to this process.
I use my iPhone. The books section. I enter excerpts, documents, comments diagrams, photos etc. I file, add category and label each. Easily retrieved.
I use Readwise sort of the same way. It’s an app that keeps track of your kindle highlights and stores them for you. Then every day it sends you five random highlights from all your reading, in an email. You can also look at all your highlights from one book, to review the book quickly.
I’m not opposed to analog journals, though: I have two handwritten ones as well in ordinary sketchbooks going at all times. One of these is a bullet journal with drawings in it, and the other holds my Morning Pages, three pages of handwritten stuff for every day. The Readwise app is just really useful for keeping track of your reading. I don’t have room for any more books so the Kindle is very useful to me.