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Virginia Neely's avatar

I have several of these, though I just call them notebooks. I categorize a notebook by general subject matter. For instance, I have one for art (quotes, idea, methodologies), one for writing, one for general interest, one for home and garden, etc. I do have a Commonplace one for quotes specifically, but little in it. And yes, indexing is tough in analog versions. The space shown in the photo is woefully inadequate. A half-page per letter is often not enough.

Adam Ming's avatar

Notebooks is a good word, I have too many notebooks, scattered and repetitive and contradictory, I suppose I’m attempting something like a serious notebook, I know it’s ultimately futile, but I endeavour on!

Dave Gray's avatar

I just have my fingers crossed that someday I’ll be able to throw all my analog notebooks into some kind of digitization scanniwomple reading and tagging machine and they will be transformed into a perfect searchable database of my intellectual life

Virginia Neely's avatar

And then it will be scraped by AI and all your thoughts and interests will be added to your digital profile. And speaking for myself alone, I'd rather have a notebook I can carry around and refer to without a gadget.

Adam Ming's avatar

I’ll print this whole thing out for that same purpose!

Dave Gray's avatar

My psyche will be pixelated, parsed, tagged, and distributed across the digital universe!

Dave Gray's avatar

For a digital commonplace book I’ve found tags can be helpful. Then, instead of an index, you only need to keep an index of your tags.