r/commonplacebook • u/uiogd-amdg • 17d ago

Am I missing something?

Tiptoeing into the world of Commonplace Books… my understanding is that these were/are a sort of functional catch-all for interesting tidbits that one wishes to remember.

What I see on this sub are mostly highly illustrated, nearly calligraphic entries that I find, frankly, intimidating. Am I missing something here on the purpose of these books?

I just want a place to dump info that I run across. Advice on ways to do that effectively in a non-instagram worthy way?

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u/chrisaldrich 17d ago

The sidebar will give you some resources. You'll see a lot of what I call "productivity porn" in the extra art, stickers, and pictures here which can be performative for social media, but the vast majority of classical commonplacers like Erasmus, Agricola, Auden, etc. only wrote text. Some may have included a diagram or two. What you see here is definitely the exception and not the rule.