Sitemap
Press enter or click to view image in full size
By Beinecke Flickr Laboratory — [Commonplace book], [mid. 17th c.]Uploaded by Edward, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11825444

Member-only story

This is the Most Powerful Productivity Tool You Need for the New Year.

More useful than any app, device, or habit — guaranteed.

4 min readDec 28, 2021

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.

Press enter or click to view image in full size
Created with a Pilot Parallel Pen

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?”…

--

--

Gray Miller
Gray Miller

Written by Gray Miller

Gray is a former Marine dancer grandpa visualist who writes to help adults figure out what they want to be when they grow up.