How And Why To Keep A “Commonplace Book” (Thought Catalog)
Some of the greatest men and women in history have kept these books. Marcus Aurelius kept one–which more or less became the Meditations. Petrarch kept one. Thomas Jefferson kept one. Napoleon kept one.

Was ist ein Commonplace Book?

A commonplace book is a central resource or depository for ideas, quotes, anecdotes, observations and information you come across during your life and didactic pursuits. The purpose of the book is to record and organize these gems for later use in your life, in your business, in your writing, speaking or whatever it is that you do.

Klingt nach einer guten Idee!

Zeitlose Notiztechniken für Studierende und Schüler - Evernote auf Deutsch (Evernote auf Deutsch)
Studierende und Schüler gehen heutzutage ganz neue Wege, wenn es um das Lernen und Erfassen von Informationen geht. Hier findet ihr erprobte Notizsysteme, die ihr in eure modernen Lerntechniken einbauen könnt.

Ich bin zwar kein Schüler oder Student, finde das aber trotzdem interessant.

In her blogpost Mapping what I’m learning, Sacha Chua ponders about using mapping to get an overview of what she is learning and of what she knows. She already captures knowledge in sketches, blogposts and Evernote notes. For her,

Mapping is about organizing topics so that I can see the relationships, find the gaps, and keep moving forward.

This post is a reminder for me that I do not capture enough of my knowledge. I have a private wiki (as recommended in „Pragmatic Thinking and learning„) but I rarely use it. It is also a reminder that „text“ is just one option to capture knowledge. There are more graphical options like topic maps and mind maps. They tend to let you use both of your brain hemispheres whereas „text-only“ is „left hemisphere“ heavy. I try to use mind maps more these days.

Sacha mentions „How to read a book“ by Adler and van Doren. It’s looks interesting and there appears to be an online full-text „pre-view“ on Google Books. A pointer to get more out of books.

In the comment section there is a reference to IBIS (Issue based Information System) which basically is about recording issues (questions), positions (ideas) and arguments in order to preserve important decision making processes in addition to recording just the results. The overview mentions IBIS as a tool to capture design rationale. I think I read about it several years ago. It might even have been a paper about  Questions, Options and Criteria (QOC). So this is a pointer from personal knowledge management to organizational knowlege management.

So thanks for the nice post. It got me thinking.