Should I create a brand new Commonplace book?

[Optimized Life]

So ... I have known intuitively since I created the thing that it would 100% fail if I didn't strategically structure it in a way that is efficient, seamless and enjoyable to use. 

I tried, but failed ... I have been taking notes into my commonplace book for about 18 Months now. 

• The structure just doesn't work 
• I haven't gained any value from it (Despite taking thousands of notes) 
• I actually have 2 Commonplace books (1note 16 and 1note for windows 10) 
• I mostly use 1 note for windows 10 > for no logical reason other than a stubborn habit, but it's actually pretty fucking awful 

I've been telling myself to "restructure my notebooks" like again and again over time, I've even spent hours of study trying to think how to restructure it, all to no avail, I wasted hundreds or even thousands of hours with this note book ... Now I realize maybe the only solution is to just start fresh. 

So I have tried reorganizing it but it's a pain in the ass ... I'm thinking to keep it all the notes there and then I can take what I find most useful and paste it into the new one. 

The problem for me is that ... I find a more blank looking notebook way more attractive to use, and I don't like having tons of book notes, video notes, random journals in there when I know that 90% of it is just noise.

I think being minimalist and perhaps even keeping all the "book notes ect... " type of stuff all to my old notebook instead of lumping all this together as distinct sections and tabs ... because my brain fucking hates seeing like 20 different sections ("goals daily journal quick notes hobbies book notes exercizes blah blah ...."

So making my 1 main new notebook completely about my life  : max 3 - 5 sections like personal goals, biz ideas, relationships,  finances ect... because ultimately that is the highest priority.

I think this also saves brain energy as well because if the entire notebook is dedicated to my personal life, it's more intuitive to form & see links between my relationships, finances, business, ideas, personal goals ect.. Whereas visually hovering between completely unrelated sections like "my goals" to "misc" to "self help books" is just annoying & confusing, even if they're all sperate sections, it's just seeing it all there together is annoying.  

So I want to create a new commonplace book (1 Note 2016) and start fresh, now I can only write necessary and important stuff in there (For example my life goals, but this time not just write any random trivial goal, but write only what actually counts). 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Optimized Life

[TheWatcher]

filter out and extract all the golden nuggets from your last journal and keep only the valuable information compacted by category. Leo has done a few videos on journals and commonplace books. OneNote does the job for me, be sure to abuse the meta meta categories they offer to group and sort information. also use Tags (great for searching) 

[itachi uchiha]

Obsidian is the best common place book

[Optimized Life]

On 5/17/2022 at 4:31 PM, itachi uchiha said:

Obsidian is the best common place book

Too overcomplicated, it's just too much for me. 

 

On 5/17/2022 at 2:46 PM, TheWatcher said:

. also use Tags (great for searching) 

Yes tags are such gem that I've overlooked. 

I "used tags" but in a messy way basically ruining the point of them with my old journal. 

This time I will decide to internalize a tag system in my mind and lay it out, spend hours just thinking about this 1 thing.  this is like the most important feature tbh. 

Quote

be sure to abuse the meta meta categories they offer to group and sort information

What do you mean by that? Like section groups? or ..

[UnbornTao]

Which categories will you be using?

For me it's either OneNote or Obsidian. Right now, I built a fairly simple structure on Obsidian, and I'm happy with that as it is efficient.

Local file saving is key. Obsidian uses a text-based format, readable by any computer. To start from scratch, I'd make an Archive page, transferring all the old content into that folder.

The book is going to evolve as time passes. You could also change your software at some point, that's a possibility to consider. Start with something good and go from that.

Edited February 22, 2024 by UnbornTao

[StarStruck]

Your common place book is not structured because your brain is not structured. The common place book is just a second brain. So read stage yellow books especially Ken Wilber. 

[Ayham]

Software

I highly recommend using obsidian, i used to think it was complicated too, until I decided to give it a try for a period of time, see this very short beginner series:

 

pros of obsidian:

1.  it is future proofed, everything is in markdown format so even if the app disappears, you can open anything in it with just the notepad app.
2. it makes linking very easy, which makes the making of new original ideas very easy too.
3. it has any feature you could ever want, the obsidian app has tons of features, and anything that doesn't have a feature, there is probably a plugin for it you could download, since there is a very active community for plugins,  so you aren't limited by features.
4. it is locally stored on your computer, yet you can also enable sync with mobile device, i think you have two options for this, a paid option and a free one.

cons of obsidian:

1. it has a bit of a learning curve.

 

Organization System

In the field of personal knowledge management, the two most respected systems are the Zettelkasten and the PARA system, these two have many details I wont go into, but I have tried both, and I will tell you the big picture of each.

Zettelkasten: this is a very old system, originated  from the sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who thanks to this system, wrote over 70 books and published 400 scholarly articles, of course he didn't use the system digitally, since there wasn't digital stuff back then, but it can be done digitally or physically.

the anatomy of the system is that he keeps 3 types of notes (make those into folders in obsidian), fleeting notes which are just thoughts/ideas/insights/reflections (you can activate the daily note plugin, and write your thoughts on your daily note each day), literature notes which are brief summaries you take on any resource after you consume it (books, videos, articles, etc.), and finally permanent notes, these notes are atomic, which means they contain only one single idea, you usually write those with literature notes as your source, or maybe a fleeting note turns into a permanent note.

so your workflow is to take fleeting notes, if something is worth being a permanent note, you make a permanent note, you also take literature notes, and see if you can make a permanent note out of it, I recommend having an inbox folder, in which you take literature and fleeting notes, and you ideally process them once a day, read through them, try finding new ideas and connections, you will be surprised about the new original ideas you will develop.

the problem with this system is that it is just note taking, you don't manage projects and different areas of your life.

 

that's where the PARA system comes in:

4 folders, projects, resources, areas, and archives, I got burned out from typing a lot on Zettelkasten so sorry i don't feel like going into details, but it is obvious, check out the work of Tiago Forte for more.

 

 

i found that this system gets confusing since everything seemed to belong to different categories, and it was  a pain to manage, yet the Zettelkasten doesnt use sub folders and categories, since it ruins the whole idea of the Zettelkasten, you can use tags though, after your Zettelkasten gets after lest say 150-200 notes, you should start using maps of contents, or MOCS, which you can look into when that happens.

 

my recommendation is that it depends on your values, do you want new ideas, do you want a tool that manages your life.

i think a digital Zettelkasten with a physical journal to manage my daily life and goals is the best for me.

[Optimized Life]

I HAVE NOT REALLY FOLLOWED UP ON THIS POST 6 MONTHS LATER. 

I was busy working and doing whatever distracting STUPID stuff. 

Now I am ready again!!! LETS FUCKING GO!

I WAS CLOSED MINDED. MENTAL FLEXIBILITY IS CRUCIAL. I ONLY CONSIDERED ONE NOTE? WHY? HAS IT WORKED FOR YET? JUST COZ LEO RECOMMENDED IT BUT IM NOT HIM? MAYBE 1 NOTE JUST FUCKING SUCKS? DO I KEEP USING IT SEAMLESSLY? NO STILL GOT TONS OF NOTES UNSTUCTURED. 

EXPERIMENTATION AND FLEXIBLITY REQUISITE VARIETY OPEN MINDENESS PERSISTANCE TRY FROM EVERY ANGLE. 

• I still need to create a brand new one note & extract golden nuggets from the old
• I should try out obsidian and give it a go .... dude I didn't even try it properlly wtf? Maybe that's better for me
• I should consider more simple note technologies like google keep
• I should consider finding an integration & continuity system betwee multiple of these? > G keep or voice reorcder > 1 note > obsidian ect.. 
• Maybe each app has it's own benefit for different contexts. 

This last post by @Ayham I didn't even try your suggestion dude! WTFFF 

I DIDN'T EVEN LISTEN. 

TIME TO CHANGE THIS. 

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Edited November 3, 2022 by Optimized Life

[Thought Art]

This is a great thread. 
 

I’m current if using OneNote and my remarkable tablet. Though, I honestly have a lot of anxiety about losing my work. I’d like to learn more about and install the proper systems so my commonplace book can last my whole life.

[r0ckyreed]

You don’t need a fancy software like OneNote. All you need is your Notes app on your iPhone. Keep it simple. 

[Rigel]

I just use a big nested folder of text edits and it works great.

[StarStruck]

8 hours ago, Thought Art said:

This is a great thread. 
 

I’m current if using OneNote and my remarkable tablet. Though, I honestly have a lot of anxiety about losing my work. I’d like to learn more about and install the proper systems so my commonplace book can last my whole life.

If it is on the one-drive cloud you can’t loose it unless you get hacked or something 

Edited November 3, 2022 by StarStruck

[LordFall]

 

5 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

You don’t need a fancy software like OneNote. All you need is your Notes app on your iPhone. Keep it simple. 

If your knowledge and education are important to you, this is a horrible idea.

I highly suggest Notion. It's both super simple and powerful. Much better organized than OneNote so you can have subsections/categories that intersect very well with eachother and are easy to search. Since I switched I haven't really opened OneNote ever again. Very convenient to use, I use it daily to take notes on videos or things I find interesting. 

Looks like this:

 

[LordFall]

@Optimized Life Lol I didn't fully realize what was on the page but yeah I don't think these things are too self-evident since most people really can't figure them out. I like to break them fully to really master it and get superhuman results. Its fun, I get high and take notes and then can easily access them if I need to make a video or debate someone or have a discussion. 

[Optimized Life]

13 minutes ago, LordFall said:

@Optimized Life Lol I didn't fully realize what was on the page but yeah I don't think these things are too self-evident since most people really can't figure them out. I like to break them fully to really master it and get superhuman results. Its fun, I get high and take notes and then can easily access them if I need to make a video or debate someone or have a discussion. 

No you're right I love it, it was 1 of Leo's videos (or several) that introduced me to the idea of not overlooking the simple, especially with words. 

Playtime for me is just looking up definitions of words I already know (Intuitively but missing deeper distinctions) ... maybe I'm a nerd & wasting my time doing that, I tend to believe in it, whatever happens to the economoy or world war 3, I can always hold onto the brain & spirit that I built when I'm in the trenches!

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by Optimized Life