Let’s be honest, traditional methods of journaling are extremely hard to keep up with. I feel like every time that I try and start including journaling into my daily schedule, it feels like a task rather than something encouraging or exciting, although it might have started out that way. Despite this struggle, I did still want to get to know myself on a deeper level. This is when I found commonplace journaling: a practice that redefined my previous experiences and left me feeling fulfilled.
What is commonplace journaling?
Commonplace journaling is the practice of recording interesting quotes, factoids, events, or pieces of information as a personal reference book. Stemming from the middle ages, commonplacing gave scholars a way to return back to “ideas, arguments, and rhetorical turns of phrase for later use,” according to Dr. Watson. Some people make commonplace journals just to log their reading practice: books that they’ve read and rated, quotes that stuck out to them, or characters that feel like they align with, in order to better understand themselves as readers. For me, I made a commonplace journal in order to return to the things that brought me joy so that I could better understand myself and my personality.Â
How can I set up my own commonplace journal?Â
There is no right or wrong way to set up a commonplace journal, which was a big factor in its appeal to me; whatever catches your eye goes into the journal. It can be messy and make absolutely no sense like mine, or it can be meticulous and organized. When I set up my commonplace journal I selected a few colored page tabs and wrote a key in the front of a small pocket sized notebook that I had to associate a color with a type of entry. In my journal I collect snippets of quotes, reviews, learnings, experiences, ideas, and trends. I carry it everywhere with me and jot down random things as they come to me. I also find that it is a great resource to actually engage with the activities, trends, or recipes that I find on TikTok that would otherwise be lost in a sea of other saved videos. I have made it an activity of mine to catalog all of my saved posts on Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok and put them into this commonplace journal so that I can actually do the things that I am interested in rather than get caught up in the constant scroll.Â
Fun things I have encountered about myself since commonplacing.
Since I began commonplacing I have learned so many cool things about myself that have surfaced because of this practice. I learned that I have an interest in words that sound like something completely different than what they actually mean, that I return to the same smell of candle almost every time that I buy one regardless of the brand, and that I tend to gravitate towards people who are overly honest and blunt.Â
What is nice about commonplace journaling is that it materializes the self so much that you are able to perceive things about yourself through the patterns that arise in your noticings, likes, and dislikes. As an external processor, I often struggle to determine what it is that I align with when thinking silently to myself. When I see it written in front of me, however, I am that much more able to pick up on these traits of mine and grow closer to my true self.