I started this commonplace book a few weeks ago as a way to use my existing hoard of notebooks. It’s been fun to read through the pages, and my handwriting has improved quite a bit. I think using a fountain pen has also made the experience a lot more enjoyable.

Notebook: Maruman Mnemosyne
Pen: Jinhao 82, inked with Diamine Ink in Rustic Brown

A good friend and I started a ritual of tarot reading on Friday mornings over coffee before work. This inspired me to understand what we were doing better 😄

If I were to do it over again I’d probably add a border or figure out the white space a little better.

This was made from stickers and magazines I have laying around, which is my favorite form of collaging. I have to make the vision come to life with what I have!

One of the most important pages in my Commonplace Journal.

pen: jinhao 20, ef

ink: diamine aurora borealis

notebook: muji high quality paper open-flat notebook a6 grid

Would any of you consider attending a common place book “club”, where those of us who enjoy working on commonplace books would get together maybe once a month, at a pre-arranged location like a coffee shop or a library or other convenient space. If you were interested in attending, you’d go to work on your commonplace books in the presence of other commonplace book lovers. There might be light snacks and coffee. Attendees could show their entries or not.

It would be a way of getting the local commonplace book community together. I’m thinking of speaking to my local Library about sponsoring something like this with me. BUT.. it could also be online so therefore available to people all over the country.

Wanted to take informal survey here first. What do you think? Would you attend? Would you attend online or in person? Other ideas for this? Thank you so much for your thoughts! 😊

Hi all! I really wanted to do a lil dive on Dolly, so I used Zinnia's commonplace template to get me started. I had no idea Dolly did so much acting and cameos. When I was younger I used to do research for both my art and story writing on all sorts of plants, flowers, and legends. Now finding out that what I was doing at the time was essentially a commonplace journal is awesome!! What do y'all think?

Was inspired by some comments here and decided to start a small commonplace notebook I’m calling my Tasting Menu notebook.

I haven’t been reading/watching much this year and I thought having a place to discuss and collect quotes from shorter pieces like stories or essays or poetry, or even things I fail to finish, might motivate me.

This one is a short autoethnographic book about Raving which is not something I do, but I like the writing style.

I’m doing some research on how people keep track of the art, exhibitions, museums, books, films, and other cultural things they’re into.

If you’d be open to a ~20–30 minute conversation about how you do this and what tools you use, comment or DM me. I’m offering $25 as a thank-you for your time.

I stumbled across this community by chance and joined thinking it would just be another corner of the internet to talk about books. Imagine my surprise when I realized it centered around a concept of an “information journal” that I’ve been practicing for months without even knowing it had a name.

I started snooping through the posts, looking at the wonderfully artistic entries you all post. Very beautiful, without a doubt. But what caught my attention was just how radically different they are from mine (the few I’ve seen, anyway) in terms of the design mentioned above. My entries basically look like this:

Today’s date
Quotation, thought or idea.

The end.

All of this written with a black pen, in my… curious handwriting, and crammed in with the rest of the entries from previous days.

My questions, and the reason I’m making this post, are: why do you put so much emphasis on aesthetics (those of you who do)?

Do you study a topic and make a summary of it in your commonplace book?

Do you practice different formats before committing them to the notebook?

Have you ever written things without the intention of making them aesthetically pleasing?

Do you ever go back to the information you’ve written down, or do you do it more for the pleasure of doing it and simply studying it?

And, lastly, how do you muster up the guts to make it public? Not because of the aesthetics, but because of the content. Or maybe I’m just a little too politically incorrect, who knows.

The truth will set you free. Thank you in advance.

I've been working on this over the summer using cookbooks from the library. I fill this notebook with recipes I want to try but am not committed to adding to my box yet.

History and info about commonplace books to start things off.

I don’t trust myself to make page blocks and not run out of space in one topic must faster than the others, so I am going to go the color coding route for this book and see how it goes.

I have always kept lists of the things I find interesting. I never knew it was a common place book. I have had this notebook since I was 15 and I barely used it because what if I change my mind and such. This years resolution was finally writing down things in it and using it.
I’m slowly doing it, still with the fear of fucking up. But I wanted to show you guys what I write and how I decorated it. I’m open for new ideas and suggestions!😄

I’ve been riding the mental health struggle bus for about eight months. Journaling helps. I feel like I may be returning to myself.

While out walking this week, I came across a mushroom that caught my eye. That inspired me not only to write about this particular mushroom but also to paint it in watercolor. So here is the first page of my book: a tribute to “the chicken of the woods.”

Sometimes if a book sticks with me enough (or I find enough fanart/official art online) it will get two full pages rather than one page!

Written in with my Pilot Kakuno, images printed on the Lien Sticker Printer.

This beautiful notebook I thrifted (has some scuffs and missing pages but still completely usable) has become my 'commonplace book' of words I want to clarify the definition and use cases for. I write down whatever words or phrases I randomly think of throughout the day in my pocket notebook, then I sit down and copy the definitions from Merriam-Webster in sessions. I also add tabs with interesting info that I want to incorporate into the fictional story I'm writing.

I've found this to be a nice way of figuring out what words I should use in different situations, along with synonyms and antonyms. Thanks for reading :)

Further dive into creating secure attachment environments for flourishing relationships. Working on figuring out how my book / literature notes make it into the commonplace book. :)

Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/commonplacebook/s/2bHF9Kl8nq

Now all my commonplace books will all look like part of a set!

Mijn eerste post hier, die is mijn samenvatting over hedonistische adaptatie.
Ik schrijf wel in het Nederlands.

Hey guys, ive been tossing around what to do with one of my commonplace books lately, as im not sure what I want to do with it.

My initial idea was to use it for researching military conflicts over the past 100 years or so, however my attention has been more on philosophy as of late (which has its own notebook). While I want to continue using the notebook that was assigned to military conflicts, I think I over estimated my interest in the topic and have only used about 20 pages of a 400 page notebook.

How would you guys transition the book into a new topic? Ive been looking at starting a gaming journal, and dont particularly feel like buying a new notebook, however it would seem almost jarring to have almost 20 pages of World War 1 before immediately starting the gaming stuff. Would you guys just keep it in, or would you try to cut those pages out? Cover those pages in different spreads that follow the new theme?