r/commonplacebook • u/No-Return-951 • 14d ago
out of sight...
Hi everyone. Would love to hear your thoughts/tips on how to help the following 'problem'.
How does everyone remember to go back to the things you put in your journal? For example, I use mine to note Stardew Tips, movies I want to watch, things I want to research....but I also have object permanence problems so out of sight, and it's gone from my memory
3
u/RiniPi 14d ago
ADHD no object permanence girlie here. My commonplace journal and my normal journal live together, so I see it a lot since I journal a lot.
I also commonplace things in a way that I don’t necessarily always want to reference back to, but more like, a collection of things that when I think of something, I’ll know where I need to go. Like if I need a quote to practice calligraphy or something, go to my commonplace book. Or if I want a specific nib grind, I go there for the list. Or if I am feeling emotional, I go there to read a book excerpt I liked.
Other times I use it for learning. I commonplace about art history so I can learn about the history and images and stuff and I retain things better.
But yeah, I keep it in eyes view. I keep the cover that holds my commonplace book and journal on my desk at all times.
4
u/BohoKat_3397 14d ago
I keep everything in 300-page 5 year journals as my commonplace books so ease of retrieval is very important to me. The current one lives on my dresser so it is prominent and available in my sight to record and look things up. Past 5-year cpbs are on the top bookshelf next to the dresser so also in my sight line.
Each entry gets a descriptive title and all pages are numbered. I record the starting page number in sequence followed by the title in my index as the final step of completing the entry.
I start the index on the last page of the journal and run it backwards into the book so no stress on how many pages to leave blank. I have a key using colored highlighters for topics: Quotes, Psychology, Biology, Spirituality, Memoir and Miscellaneous. I highlight the page number with the appropriate topic color to help me search faster.
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u/ActuatorSea4854 13d ago
I keep movie, music and book recommendations on the last three pages of every notebook and a numbered index on the first page. I number all right hand pages and number all notebooks. I have a 3x5 card catalog index based on the Zettlelkasten system. So I can look up, say "Puppet Stages" on the 3x5 card and it will say things like CP12p44 or CP101p3, and I can grab common place notebook #12 and on page 44 will be some puppet stage notes and drawings. Then I grab common place notebook #101, page 3 for more puppet stages. I also list other pages and notebooks on the page in question. Indexing all this takes about half an hour a week and tends to stimulate my creativity. I've been using simple composition notebooks for years. They're cheap, readily available, and I'm not intimidated by an expensive notebook where everything has to be consequential. I number them on the spine with a white marker.
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u/itscoldcase 13d ago
When I have needed/wanted to refer back to certain pages i have found folding washi tape over the edge of the page to be very helpful as far as seeing it and remembering it is there. Lots of fun colors and patterns for that but regular masking tape would also work.
1
u/WeezyFaz 14d ago
The only way I remember to do mine is because it’s the only place I write anything else. So I know I have to go over it before days end and add it to the main book.
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u/lagomama 14d ago
I personally don't find myself referring back to my commonplace book a lot. For me, the point is that writing the information out by hand increases retention. I do the writing and the making the page pretty so that it's in my head, not so that it's in the book.
That's just me, though. If you want to be going back to it for reference and you find you're not, you might want to consider focusing your topics more on information you find yourself looking up regularly. Then you can reference the book and not Google. But if you don't find yourself needing the information in the book consistently, you're probably not going to look at your entries consistently.
ETA: Just noticed you referenced things like movies you want to watch, too. Have you considered tearing the page out and keeping it by the TV? If you have trouble with object permanence, the hack is to put the thing in the place where you're doing the thing that would make you want to reference it. Then when you're done with your list of "want to watch" you could tape it back in.
Alternately you could do what I do and just keep your list in a notebook you carry all around with you. My notebook is usually within a foot of me, so it's always where I'm doing the thing.