How I Turn a Pocket Notebook Into a Thinking Space

Can you really think inside a pocket notebook?

I mean real thinking. The kind that brings clarity. The kind that might shift the direction of your life. Can that happen on a page that’s 3.5 by 5.5 inches?

Yes. One hundred percent, yes.

I want to show you how I do it. Not the idea of it, but my actual notebook and what happens every time I open it.

Three tools, two best friends

My setup is simple.

A pocket notebook. I use Field Notes, but any pocket notebook will do. I like these because they’re thin, and the cover makes me want to open it. I’m learning that I love notebooks that invite you in. A good notebook feels less like a tool and more like an open door.

A source. I made a little booklet called Think on These Things. It holds 20 ideas to sit with: quotes, passages, and poems from people who thought deeply a long time ago. You can open it anywhere and stay as long as you like. One idea could hold you for a month. Can you imagine staying with one quote for a month?

A pen. Obviously.

The notebook and the booklet are best friends. The booklet is a deep well. The notebook is where I draw from it. Both fit inside my cover and ride in my front pocket everywhere I go.

Here’s the thing I most want you to hear: I almost never start with a blank page. About 95% of the time, I start with somebody else’s words. A blank page asks, “What do you have to say?” A good quote asks, “What do you notice?” The second question is much easier to answer.

Four rhythms

Every page in Think on These Things has a quote on the left and four rhythms on the right. These are the moves I make every time.

1. Linger. Read it three times, slowly. Stay with the words before you do anything else. I think of it as staring. I just sit there and stare, and in the staring I start to notice things.
2. Keep. Copy it by hand into your notebook. Call it a commonplace book, a pocket notebook, whatever you like. The pen slows you down in a good way.
3. Relate. What does this instantly remind you of? A memory, a story, a book, another quote. Write it down. This is where ideas start to connect.
4. Reflect. Each page has its own questions tied to that quote. For Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers,” one question asks where hope has kept singing for you, even without words. Another points out that hope never asked her for a crumb. What does that tell you about hope?

All of it is there to do one thing: stir your thinking.

Inside a real session

Let me walk you through my most recent pocket thinking session. It started with Seneca:

“You must linger among a limited number of master thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind. Everywhere means nowhere.”

Say it back in your own words

The first thing I wrote down was this: For ideas to stick, go narrow and deep.

That’s me staring at the words and then telling them back to myself. Seneca says “win firm hold in your mind.” I say “stick.” Seneca says “a limited number of master thinkers.” I say “narrow.” He says “digest their works.” I say “deep.”

This is called narration, and it’s one of the most powerful ways to understand anything. After you read, write what it said in your own words.

Then I wrote: Ruminate on their words. Their works are whatever they made. If you admire a painter, digest the paintings. If you admire a woodworker, study the staircase they built. If you admire a writer, chew on the words.

Follow the word that catches your eye

The word limited stood out, so I highlighted it and wrote: It forces choice. Yes to a few, no to a lot.

Link back to an older page

Next I drew an arrow and a date, 11/3/26. That points to an earlier page where I’d copied this from Marcus Aurelius:

“Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.”

Seneca reminded me of Marcus. That’s the Relate rhythm at work. And the two together raised a new question: if the soul is dyed by our thoughts, what’s the source of those thoughts? Who are the few you’ve chosen to shape you? Who are you reading? Who are you listening to? That’s what sets the color of the dye.

Let your digital notebook join the conversation

Sometimes I take a photo of what I’ve written so far and drop it into Ember, my digital commonplace book. Ember reads the text in the photo. Then I tap Kindred Sparks, which shows me other notes I’ve saved that relate to what I’m thinking about.

This time it surfaced a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes that my wife Amber shared with me about a week ago:

“A man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”

I’d forgotten all about it. But because I saved it somewhere I could find it again, it showed up right when it was useful.

Keep going back and forth

With Holmes in the mix, I wrote: The thinkers you linger around will color your mind. That’s how new colors show up. Ideas bump into each other and blend into something new. I highlighted one line: The mixing of thoughts forms a new shade of an idea.

This is how a session usually goes for me. Write what I’m thinking. Go back to the quote. Read it again. Write something else. Back and forth, back and forth.

Find the definition you didn’t know you needed

The last word I wrote was linger, and it brought G.K. Chesterton to mind. I couldn’t remember the whole quote, but I knew it was his:

“There is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.”

I can’t think of a better picture of what it means to linger. To linger is to look at something 999 times, and then dare to look one more time, so you can finally see it for the first time.

So much depends

So, can you think inside a pocket notebook? On November 6th, I found some clarity, a few insights, and some surprising connections. All of it on two small pages, with a good source and a few simple rhythms.

The day before, I’d written about William Carlos Williams’ poem: “so much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow.” I wrote that my red wheelbarrow is my morning walk. So much of my day depends on it.

Now I see that so much of these pocket sessions depends on something too. You need a spark. Something to stir the thinking. I think of it as an arrow that pierces through the noise and goes straight to your heart. It moves you, and then you have something to sit with.

That’s why I start with someone else’s words. Find your arrow. Linger with it. Let it color your mind.

If you want a place to start, Think on These Things, Volume One is ready for you, and I’m already working on Volume Two. Grab a pocket notebook, any one will do, and give it a try this week.

Prefer to watch? Check it out here.

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