The Ultimate Commonplace Book
How I use Trello to Capture Everything
I’m a reader. My wife calls me a hoarder. I’m probably somewhere in-between.
There are two problems I have when it comes to reading books. Storing them and remembering the interesting things I find in them.
I can highlight, annotate and underline like the best of them, but I struggle with taking the gems I find with me. I’ve tried taking notes in the front of the book. I’ve tried summarizing them. I’ve tried reviewing them periodically. If there’s a strategy to taking nuggets out of a book. I’ve probably tried it. None of them have worked for me.
It wasn’t just books. It was anything that I found interesting or noticed.
I carry a notebook with me and capture stories, notes and other oddities, but stuff gets lost in there. I fail at the habit of reviewing and applying all the goodness that “Getting Things Done” has to offer.
Then I stumbled across the notion of a Commonplace Book. It’s been covered extensively on Medium. Ryan Holliday has a couple good posts about how he applies the concept. My oversimplified interpretation of this “Book” is an indexing system for you to use for whatever you’re working on.
