This is the Most Powerful Productivity Tool You Need for the New Year.
More useful than any app, device, or habit — guaranteed.
It’s hard coming up with a good gift as a Grandpa, but this year I nailed it.
I gave my progeny a superpowered magical technology that will help them sleep better, get healthier, realize dreams, and conquer the world*.
That is to say, I got them all commonplace books: blank notebooks hand-calligraphed with their names, each with an insert explaining the history and power that this awesome tool would give them in the new year.
The ironic thing is that I almost lost the idea for this post — because I didn’t write it down in my notebook.
The Uncommon Power of a Commonplace Book
This is not a journal. Those are chronological and introspective. Commonplace book entries may be dozens in a day, or just a few times a year.
Does that make it a scrapbook? Not really. I asked an expert, Kristin Tweedale of the Awesome Ladies Project, “Is there better name for this particular kind of notebook?”…
