Commonplacing

Thomas Jefferson. Charles Darwin. Isaac Newton.

These monumental influencers and thinkers had something in common: the practice of commonplacing. Everywhere they went, these titans of history brought a little notebook with them. Whenever inspiration struck, or whenever they saw just about anything interesting, they wrote down the event right then and there.

By actively engaging with information they would collect by observing things, and then by organizing and reflecting upon it later on, deliberately and consistently, thinkers during the Renaissance began a trend that continues to the present day in various forms.

Leonardo da Vinci wasn’t officially a commonplace practitioner, but that’s mainly because he was pretty far ahead of the trend. His notebooks certainly exemplified a similar desire for knowledge collection and personal intellectual exploration—perfect examples of the Renaissance spirit of inquiry and learning.

Although Leonardo's approach was more eclectic and less structured compared to the commonplacing tradition that developed over the next couple of centuries, his notebooks were unique in their integration of art and science, and in their combination of personal, observational, and theoretical content.

photo: Alan Levine

Leonardo’s notetaking probably didn’t lead to commonplacing, though. He was too private, and only a few folks saw what he was working on during his lifetime. He wrote in Italian instead of Latin, and he wrote in a mirrored script, so these notebooks were clearly not for public consumption.

Nevertheless, Leonardo was part of a larger cultural shift towards observation and recording. The Renaissance paved the way for this concept of writing things down as they happened, before the idea could leave your head, and then analyzing the idea later on.

Reason and science were in the air.

By the time of Isaac Newton (1642-1727), commonplacing was… well, common, by now deeply ingrained in the academic and intellectual traditions of the time. Collecting, organizing, and reflecting on information was a crucial method for the advancement of knowledge, particularly in the scientific revolution that Newton himself was a part of.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) used commonplacing to record thoughts and observations that led to the drafting of the founding documents of the American nation. Jefferson would often read several books at a time, and his appetite for knowledge and understanding was a thread running through his entire lifetime. Writing down these ideas and studying them later was an important part of this process.

In the 19th century, the practice of commonplacing continued to evolve. Sorry, that’s a bit of a dad joke, because I’m talking about Charles Darwin. Here’s a picture of me making an even worse dad joke, having a conversation about evolution with a bronze effigy of our favorite commonplacer:

Darwin's engagement with this practice was a pivotal element in his intellectual journey, profoundly influencing the development of his theory of evolution by natural selection. As Darwin traveled aboard the HMS Beagle, he captured sketches in the vein of Leonardo, along with plenty of vivid details—and hypotheses about why things were the way they were.

Darwin was meticulous in recording his observations, but even more importantly, he went back and put two and two together, often juxtaposing his notes with reflections and questions.

Observation wasn’t enough; the habit of regularly revisiting and reassessing his notes allowed Darwin to perceive patterns and connections that might otherwise have remained obscured. Over time, these accumulated entries coalesced into the groundbreaking insights that formed the backbone of On the Origin of Species.

Today, there are all sorts of tools that allow you to do some form of commonplacing. For me, writing here on Substack is more or less this process.

The idea repository is my commonplace notebook. Any time I read, hear, or see something that makes me curious (or answers a question) that might be useful, I write it down. Later on, I circle back and try to write about that idea, event, or person.

Writing involves plenty of research in real time—I certainly don’t want to get any facts wrong, so even if I think I understand a subject, there’s tons of fact checking and reminding myself of the facts. Revisiting a moment of inspiration helps me to connect that concept to other things I write about, and I write about almost everything I think about.

The internet itself is like a vast commonplace notebook in a way. People are constantly jotting down ideas and observations by way of making social media posts, text messages, and quick emails. All of these forms of “note taking” add up to an enormous body of information that’s out there, waiting to be consolidated and reviewed.

Do you practice some version of commonplacing? Do you know of any other folks who followed this practice, historical or otherwise? Let me know in the comments. Let’s think!