My commonplace book system, in full
Eleven years, one notebook a year and an index box. Everything you need to start one this week.
A commonplace book is a notebook of other people's words: quotations, passages, ideas and facts you want to keep. People have kept them for centuries. I have kept one for eleven years, and it is the most useful thing I own. This is my whole system, from the notebook to the index, so you can start one this week.
What goes in
Anything I read, hear or think that I want to find again. A line from a novel. A statistic from a report. A recipe my aunt told me on the phone. The rule is not "is this important?" but "would I be sad to lose this?"
