How to Read Your Own Mind Through Your Commonplace Book

This article began in my commonplace book app, Ember. If you want to start actually thinking about the ideas you save, give it a try.

“I’m keeping a commonplace book to record quotes that resonate with the present me, so that the future me knows where he’s been.”
Jim, Field Notes newsletter

I found this one tucked away at the bottom of the 37th Field Notes newsletter. I almost scrolled right past it.

The quotes we save aren’t random. They catch on us for a reason. Maybe it’s the season we’re in. Maybe it’s something we hold dear. Either way, they leave a trail.

If you’ve been saving a lot of quotes about friendship, maybe you’re craving it. Or maybe it’s just really important to you right now. Either way, it’s been on your mind, and your notebook knows it before you say it out loud.

Isn’t that funny? What we save reveals.

Blazing the trail

Picture yourself wandering through the woods. Every time something strange catches your eye, you carve a mark into a tree. Hikers call that a blaze. You’re not trying to map the whole forest. You’re just marking what stopped you.

Then one day you turn around and look back. And there it is. A line of marks winding through the trees, showing exactly where you’ve been.

That’s a commonplace book. Every quote you save is a blaze. Over time, they show where you’ve walked intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally.

Save everything, or save what stops you?

Jack London had his own advice:

“Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up in your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter, and lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.”

I love that. London wants you to catch everything, and he’s right that your brain is a leaky bucket. But here’s the thing. If you blazed every tree in the forest, you’d never find the path. The trail only shows up because you picked. You marked the trees that stopped you and walked past the rest.

So slap it in there, like London says. Just slap in the ones that resonate. That’s what makes the story readable when you look back.

Try this

Next time someone asks, “What’s been on your mind lately?” don’t guess. Open your commonplace book. Flip back through the last few months. Notice the themes that keep showing up. The words you keep circling. The ideas that won’t leave you alone.

You might be surprised by what you find.

What your blazes might be telling you

A few questions to sit with as you look back:

• What might your commonplace book reveal about what you’ve been avoiding, or haven’t fully faced?
• What if your next adventure is tucked away in a book of words you’ve curated?

And maybe the biggest one: what if the decision you’ve been agonizing over is already hidden in the sentences you’ve saved?

Go look. The trail’s already there.

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