The idea of a “commonplace book” is not new at all. Early examples date way back to the second century, but apparently they reached the height of their popularity during the Renaissance of the nineteenth century. Artists, scientists and philosophers used them to gather up and preserve all their learnings and ideas in one central place. A kind of scrapbook muse.

But then, sometime in the early twentieth century, the term all but disappeared from use. So the concept was new to me when I first heard it mentioned by Brad Dowdy (AKA The Pen Addict). And it was like a light went on. I immediately and instinctively knew that this was the solution that I desperately needed.

My Notebook Nightmare

Perhaps you can identify with my problem: I just had way too many notebooks. They were spread throughout the drawers of my desk and bedside table, in closets, and were taking up valuable space on shelves. I gleefully started each one of them, but most were only partly filled; some had only a few pages written in at all. I didn’t consider any of them “abandoned”, because I always thought I’d need to write more in them one day soon (if I could just remember to).

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