How I Create Notes in My Commonplace Book
My favorite tool for learning and creativity
Hi everyone! I have a lot of new subscribers after my appearance in Jillian Hess’s article featuring my commonplace notebooks, so today I wanted to share with you my process for commonplacing. You can also find this information and more visuals on my YouTube Channel here:
A Knowledge Seekers Tool
I’ve been a note-taker for a really long time. I probably didn’t realize I was participating in the practice called commonplacing until a few years ago after discovering Jillian’s work. I do believe her work helped lead me back to taking notes on paper again and especially in a more formal practice. I have a vast, messy repository of digital notes from over the years. I also have random notes scattered in the pages of my old bullet journals. But I really wanted a more useful way to take and collect notes and interact with my notes.
So this year I started using a ring binder system to organize atomic note pages, much like we did in school (full circle)! Before we jump in, I’d like to clarify how I view my commonplace book and what its purpose is for me.
I see my commonplace book as a tool for learning and creativity. Collecting information and thinking about it deeply, adding my own thoughts, and making connections between things is my primary task and the aesthetic of the pages comes after.
Things I like to commonplace on are books, art, articles, media, copied text/information, song lyrics, and really anything I find inspiring. I’d say the majority of my notes are on books followed by random things I like to learn about.
So now I’ll walk you through the way I structure my pages.
Metadata
All notes have some kind of ‘metadata’ that goes along with them which is basically the things that help you find notes or information again. It’s the ‘organizing information’ aspect of Jillian’s book. I’ve noticed contemporary practicers often use a colored dot notation system to help organize their notes and I actually tried this in the past with little success. I kept obsessing over what the categories should be and changing them. This is part of what led me to the rings system because I find it more useful to be able to reorganize my notes on the fly depending on what I’m working on.
The main things I include in my metadata is a title of what the note is about, which might just be the book title if it’s on a book. I also like to include the source of the information like book, article, or TV. And I will sometimes put a tag for what the topic is.
My best advice is not to waste too much time on tagging and organizing at the begginning and focus on creating some notes first and then you can review the types of notes you are taking and see what an appropriate way to tag or organize them is. If you use a bound notebook solution, leave space and review your notes when the notebook is full and decide how to tag them if appropriate.
Magic Margins
The next aspect of my commonplace notes is the margin. To me, the margin is the core of the system and what makes commonplacing magical. This is the place where your thoughts live and grow—the evergreen area that expands anytime you refer back to your notes.
I always leave a margin on the right side of the page, and this is typically the place where you note your own thoughts on the subject matter and it can also be really useful for referencing other notes that connect to the ideas.
Even if you don’t add anything in the margins when you first create the note, part of the purpose is that when you look back at your notes, sometimes with new experiences or a more… seasoned life, you will have new ideas or insights to add to the information. This is the magic where really interesting creative connections happen!
Organization
Finally, let’s talk about organization. For my rings approach, I use a ring binder with small rings so that I can easily write in it as well as only have the notes I’m working on at the time or using for a creative project. This helps take away the immediate need to organize, it’s simply either in progress or a note I keep with me for some reason. Make notes, organize later. Which then leads me to how I archive these notes when I’m done with them.
Archive
I have larger ring binders that I use to archive my notes. This is where the flexibility of organizing takes place. For example, right now I have a tab divider section for book notes. As my notes grow, I may create an entire archive binder simply for book notes and may have more granular tab dividers like fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, etc.
The fact that the notes are atomic sheets that can be moved around lets your organization system change over time and grow with your notes. This has origins in early commonplace methods that used notecards.
Evidence of Deep Understanding
So that pretty much sums up how I approach taking notes in my commonplace book. Here I wanted to share with you some more of my notes that were featured by Jillian. I love these notes as evidence of what makes this approach so special. I believe these notes are evidence of a deeper understanding I gained about the work of Milan Kundera through exploring the text deeply with my notes. This is the real magic of commonplacing for me!
Advice for Getting Started
If you’re just trying to break into this practice and are feeling intimidated, I want you to know that you probably already have the skills necessary! It’s common to do things like book reports in your primary education, which actually has roots in historical commonplacing. The concept of reading a text, copying some part of that text, and using it to create an argument or discussion is typically necessary for book reports, and the practice of commonplacing is not dissimilar. The only part that’s different, and the part that makes it much more enjoyable to commonplace, is that the goal of commonplacing is simply for you to collect and explore things that are personally meaningful to you.
So grab a notebook or sheet of paper and start writing down quotes and information that resonates with you; don’t forget the margin! Then all of a sudden, you’re commonplacing!
My favorite tools for Commonplacing:
Plotter Small Ring Binder: https://plotterusa.com/
Knox Band for Ring Binder: https://amzn.to/40j4GXz
Linen Archive Binders: https://amzn.to/48lcxpu
Tomoe River Loose Leaf Paper Sheets from GoodInkpressions: https://goodinkpressions.com/en-us/collections/tomoe-river-filofax
Divider Tabs for Organizing: https://amzn.to/3ND1G0P
Mildliners for highlighting (my favorite one is Olive!) : https://amzn.to/3YDUSpZ
I love seeing how others organise their notes and I loved this insight into your commonplace book! You might be the first one I've seen using a ring system.
I’ve been devouring all sorts of articles about commonplacing and this is the one that really clicked for me. Using a ring binder is genius. I’ve been caught up on how to actually organize and archive a bound notebook but this system seems flexible and it takes the pressure off of having to organize in the moment so you can focus on the notes themselves!
Thanks so much for the inspiration!