A nice little piece in the New York Times about keeping a commonplace book, by Charley Locke:

I’ve never been a journal person, though not for lack of trying. A monogrammed duffel bag in my parents’ basement holds many old diaries — a furry leopard-print one from elementary school, Moleskines with unbroken spines from college — each with an optimistic entry or two. But the habit has never stuck. That’s partly down to a lack of discipline, but I think it’s mostly self-consciousness. I can’t help reading whatever I’m writing as some future-me would, rolling her eyes, condescending from the other side of whatever dilemma I’m going through.

But there is one notebook I’ve kept up regularly for a decade: my commonplace book. The slim red book is filled with quotes, lines from books and songs and poems and conversations that stuck with me. Nothing is my original thought, but all of it struck me as meaningful when I wrote it down.

I’m just the opposite– I’ve always thought I should write down more quotes from my reading, but I usually forget. Or more often, I find books more interesting to think about as whole concepts, rather than being struck by individual quotes. But the article has me wishing I’d collected quotes more often, and kept them all together. It would be a very different record of the past than my own thoughts and logging of events. This is an interesting way to think about it:

Thrumming beneath the pages is a shifting self-image. When I read them, I recognize the past me who saw herself in these quotes, but I don’t roll my eyes at her. With others’ words as intermediaries, the harsh light of hindsight softens. If keeping a journal would be a way to look in the mirror and make an honest appraisal of myself, keeping a commonplace book is more like looking at myself out of the corner of my eye.

Read more: Commonplace Books Are Like a Diary Without the Risk of Annoying Yourself