How To Turn Minor Frustrations Into Opportunities

Neera

This new age that we live in provides us with medicines, mobile phones, streaming services and much more.

But with all these advances in technology can come a whole range of problems — and problems mean frustrations.

Modern life is frustrating, and it’s usually the small, seemingly insignificant things that, over time, all add up to an even bigger frustration.

These small things have a knock-on effect for the day ahead — another reason they can be so annoying.

A late train might make you late for a meeting, or your phone running out of battery could mean you can’t reply to an important message.

We all cope with many little frustrations every day.

A new study has revealed the 40 things we find most annoying about modern life.

They range from:

  • advertisements without a ‘skip’ button
  • tangled earphones
  • calls from unknown numbers
  • running out of phone battery or data
  • a cracked screen
  • intermittent Wifi connection
  • forgetting passwords
  • late trains
  • paying extra for luggage on flights
  • autocorrect on your phone
  • speed cameras
  • not being able to fast forward the live TV and
  • someone nabbing the social media username you wanted.

Not having enough leg room on a journey, a crying baby on the plane, websites with contact forms instead of email addresses and bars or shops which no longer accept cash payments are also featured on the list.

How many times do you complain on a typical day?

The study also found that during a typical day, adults will complain an average of three times.

Not only that, they almost half admitted to enjoying a whine or moan over the inconveniences modern life throws at them.

Nearly a quarter reckon complaints come from those who enjoy the attention.

Some said it is their national trait to moan and groan. While the study was done in Britain and three in four thought, it’s a typically British trait to have a moan or a groan about things. I am sure if you are an American or an Australian, you are a moaner and groaner too.

People like to whine because it’s easier to whine than find solutions.

It seems like some people have a low frustration tolerance.

What is Low Frustration Tolerance?

Low frustration tolerance (LFT), is a concept used to describe the inability to tolerate unpleasant feelings or stressful situations.

It stems from the feeling that reality should be as wished and that any frustration should be resolved quickly and easily.

People with low frustration tolerance experience emotional disturbance when frustrations are not quickly resolved. Their behavior is then directed towards avoiding frustrating events, which, paradoxically, leads to increased frustration and even greater mental stress.

There could be many reasons for LFT, such as one’s mental makeup. ADHD has been closely linked to low frustration tolerance.

Your expectation levels are also a contributor. But it is the slow build-up that causes the scale to tip.

You can tolerate your partner’s phone notification going off at full volume a few times, but when it goes on day after day, late in the night, and your loved one refuses to do something about it, can get on your nerves.

Low frustration tolerance manifests differently in different people:

  • Habitual procrastination of tasks or activities that cause frustration.
  • Impatience
  • Need for immediate gratification
  • Easily gives up when challenged
  • Easily irritated by everyday stressors.

How To Build Frustration Tolerance

  1. Accept them. Things will go wrong, even those that shouldn’t go wrong. Life won’t always be easy. “Shit happens!” Forrest Gump rightly concluded. So suck it up.
  2. Take a few deep breaths. Breathing helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system — the calming part of the nervous system. It slows down emotional reactions to the triggers and helps you calm down.
  3. Frustration is the emotional reaction to thoughts. Change your thoughts and manage your reaction.
  4. Turn them into opportunities. Take action. Fix the source of frustration, as Malcolm McLean did.

Malcolm Mclean owned a trucking company in the early nineteenth century. His job was to transport goods to the shipping yard for shipping abroad. Once, he got the contract to transport cotton bales to the port of Hoboken.

He brought the cotton bales but had to wait almost an entire day till dockworkers could load the crates full of cotton onto the ship.

Dockworkers and longshoremen would load and unload crates and barrels by hand. It was a slow, slow process.

So out of frustration, McLean asked himself: why can’t they load entire trucks onto the ships themselves?

And he realized why.

Because it was impractical for a truck owner to lose his truck for weeks at a time while the ship was sailing the seas.

Also, the trucks were heavy and would lead to unnecessary weight being added to the ships.

But McLean didn’t want to keep on putting up with the wait.

He wanted to find a solution.

Not long after, a solution came to him — divide the truck. Break the container from the wheels.

That was it. McLean invented the shipping containers that changed the face of world trade.

What is frustrating you at the moment?

How can you turn it into an opportunity to invent a solution?

Is it not being able to write every day? How can you turn that into an opportunity?

Is it calls from unknown numbers? How can you address it so that they don’t annoy you or waste your time?

Is it the amount of data on your phone? What can you do to keep it under check?

Once you find the solution, you can help several people who are frustrated by the same problem.

You might change the way things are done.

One of my sources of frustration is digital clutter. Here is what I have been doing to tackle it.

  1. Folders and Documents: Once a week, I will spend half an hour deleting old files and documents.
  2. Emails: Delete the ones I don’t want, archive the ones I want to keep, and act. Although I would love to have a zero-email inbox, we all know that strategy doesn’t work. The next best strategy is to organize them in folders. That is what I have been doing. I do them by the sender’s name. This way, I can mass delete emails from Twitter, Medium, LinkedIn, and sources like that.
  3. Newsletters: Like everybody these days, I subscribe to several newsletters. But I have unsubscribed, most of them only keeping the ones I read regularly.
  4. Images: I have removed all duplicated images, made physical photo albums of travel pictures, and saved the ones I want to keep in cloud storage.
  5. Social Media: I have restricted social media to once a day, usually at night, while my energy levels are low.
  6. Phone Apps: Each quarter, I go through phone apps and delete any I am not using anymore.
  7. Backup: All my files are backed up on cloud storage.

All these measures have helped me save time, reduce stress, and improve productivity.

Notes On Inspiration

Neera

What is Inspiration?

The Oxford dictionary defines it as:

“the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.”

Or

“a sudden brilliant or timely idea.”

Inspiration is not a skill.

It can’t be learned or mastered.

It is divine.

You could call it God, you could call it the Universe, or you could call it your super-conscious.

Once you accept that, you can learn how to tap into it.

You think you came up with a brilliant idea for that book, or for that song, or you were the genius who came up with the invention, but you did not.

You were simply the conduit.

There is a higher power, and that higher power has been whispering in your ear. She’s been telling you and pushing you and inspiring you to make that happen.

That is Inspiration.

Michael Jackson woke up at three in the morning and called his manager. “Butterflies, Butterflies.” Michael cried.

“Michael, what the hell is going on? It’s 3:00 AM,” said his manager in a sleepy voice.

“I got this idea for a song. It’s about butterflies.” said Michael, “I have got to write it.”

Exasperated, his manager said, “Michael, it is three am. Can this wait till tomorrow morning?”

“No, if I don’t write it now, Prince will.”

Inspiration comes in the form of intuition.

When you show that you have the intention to listen to it, and you’re going to start moving toward whatever is beckoning you, Inspiration removes the roadblocks.

So you don’t set goals. Your goals are not coming from society. They are not coming even from you. But they are whispered to you.

You hear whispers.

You have these little intuitive nudges you feel when you are showering or waking up in the morning. Bang! An idea for that next blog post. Or an idea for that next product. The idea for the next course. It just hits you.

This is Inspiration.

When we are inspired, we feel a deep sense of connectedness with all life and with all human beings.

With this sense of connectedness, we open up to intuition.

What is Intuition?

If you ask any high-performing CEO or any entrepreneur — how did you come up with an idea, they would say it was just my intuition. I just had this feeling in my gut.

So for many people, intuition is a sort of elusive gut thing that can’t be explained.

How did they know something?

How do you know something intuitively when no one else does?

Intuition is one of these words that gets thrown around a lot, but not many people know how to cultivate the skills to be able to hear their intuition on a daily basis.

— Emily Fletcher

And here’s the reality.

If you don’t have a daily meditation practice, it’s very hard to tell the difference between your critical mind and your intuitive mind.

Our left brain, the critical mind, is always screaming at us.

And it’s very hard to hear your intuition or your critical mind screaming at you.

Because your intuition doesn’t scream. It whispers.

But if you are tuned in, as you do during meditation, you can hear your intuition.

This intuition gives us inspiration.

And inspiration leads us to our intention.

And when we start following through on an inspired idea, luck comes to our side. Inspiration clears the way for us.

But we got to be listening. Our antenna needs to be attuned to hear the whispers. Whispers can come in any form. As an idea in the shower, or a nudge in a seminar, or as a YouTube video.

You never know.

You got to be ready.

When we are constantly going, I suck, I suck, I suck. Why I don’t have 1000 subscribers still? Why am I making no money? Why is my book not a bestseller? We can’t listen to the universe’s whispers. We are too busy listening to the chatter in our own heads.

Meditation is how you tap into intuition.

And so what meditation does is that it starts taking our right brain to the gym every single day.

Your right brain is the piece of you that is in-charge of intuition.

Think about intuition and creativity as a Wi-Fi network, and our right brain is the router. Our right brain is the piece of us that allows us to connect to the collective intelligence of the left brain is the actual computer. Right.

You could have the fanciest computer, you could have the most developed intellect, and you could have such an incredible life experience. But imagine how much good a computer is going to do you just sitting there not connected to the internet.

Now, imagine you connect that computer to the internet. How much smarter it becomes. How much more capable does it become because you’re exchanging ideas? You’re able to sense other people’s desires. You’re able to hear how nature actually wants to use you to deliver your fulfillment.

You could be naïve enough to think “writing” is the purpose of your life, but it may not be so. The universe might have something completely different for you and writing is just a medium.

The universe will reveal your purpose to you when it’s ready. And when it thinks you’re ready.

You got to learn to accept it.

And you got to learn to wait. To keep your antennas attuned to the universe so that you could hear its whispers.

The universe doesn’t shout. Neither does it issue job descriptions or duty statements. It whispers. It says, write that book. Start that business. Here is the melody. And you need to be attuned to it to hear those whispers.

Recap

There is a bigger, never-ending source from where all creativity comes from.

We all could tap into this resource.

This resource is Inspiration.

Inspiration speaks to us in whispers.

We need to be tuned to it to be able to hear it.

You do that through meditation.

Those who hear it regularly call it intuition.

This inspiration gives us the intention to create.

And when we accept its invitation, it clears the way for us.

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

We have the extraordinary ability to evolve emotionally, mentally, and spiritually throughout life, taking on new ideas, thoughts, philosophies, and ways of being and living.

How To Write An Article In An Hour

Neera

For a long time, I have been struggling to write an article in an hour or less.

An hour is all I have in a day to write an article, that too in snippets.

In the past few months, I have been trying a strategy.

Now that I have nailed the process, I am ready to share it.

Keep in mind that it may not apply to longer articles (1000–2000 words) or researched based articles, but it works like magic with 750 words articles.

It’s a four-step process and it’s divided into fifteen-minutes blocks.

Without much ado, here it is.

First 15 minutes

I select a topic from the list of topics I have been collecting over the week or, if a brand new topic comes to mind, I pick that. For m, the trick is to pick a topic where the energy is.

I put a timer on and write uninterrupted for 15 minutes on a notepad.

Strictly on paper and strictly for 15 minutes.

This gives me an opportunity to put out whatever I know or feel about a topic.

I normally do this first thing in the morning when my mind is fresh.

This is my first draft.

Having the draft done first thing in the morning is a great feeling. My day is set now.

I will leave it now for a few hours before I can get back to it.

Second 15 minutes

Around mid-morning or in the afternoon, I set the timer again and go back to
the draft and type it.

While doing that, I refine the sentences and add new material to it. Throughout the day, my subconscious is thinking about the article. It is digging examples, stories and other related information to enrich the article.

I race the clock again and finish it within the allocated 15 minutes.

Third 15 minutes

I set the timer on for the third time and do the following:

    • Add an image and the footer,

    • select the tag words and

    • write an SEO description.

The article is now 80% ready for publication.

Now I will leave it for a day, allowing my subconscious to mull over it.

Fourth 15 minutes

The next day (or week), I come back to the article and line edit it, making sure it reads fluently, all the arguments are there, and I have connected the loose ends.

Last but not least, I will make sure the heading is appropriate and enticing enough so that it invites the readers to read it.

Sometimes, I will pass the heading through the headline generator apps to refine it.

Then I schedule the article or publish it straight away.

There it is, my four-step process to write an article in an hour.

Closing Remark

The magic is in racing the timer.

The more you learn to race with the clock, the better you will get at it.

Let me know how you go with it.

Notes On ‘The State Of Being’

Neera

Last week, in My Commonplace Book, I wrote Notes On Four Levels Of Consciousness, a concept I learned from Vishan Lakhiani’s book “The Code of Extraordinary Mind.”

This week I want to continue with it.

Just to recap:

First Level Of Consciousness

At the first level of consciousness, we are a part of the Culturescape. Our goals are given to us by the society and the culture that we are part of. “Get good grades.” “Get a good job.” “Become a doctor.” “Make a lot of money and live comfortably.” “Invest, build a portfolio.”

As we are achieving those goals, at some point, we question society’s norms. We question other people’s expectations of us, whether they are our parents or spouses or bosses.

We question religion. And we realize we don’t have to follow what we have been told all our lives and that we can choose our own experiences in life.

That is when we move to the second level of consciousness.

Second Level Of Consciousness

At level two, we look for a purpose for life, a way to contribute to this universe. This is when our goals come from inside us.

Third Level Of Consciousness

At level three, we discover we are a part of a greater whole. We see everyone else as part of us.

We begin to see things differently, act differently, and react differently. We experience ourselves in a brand new way, a way that can change our lives forever.

We start re-coding ourselves, and we find ourselves at the fourth level of consciousness.

Fourth Level Of Consciousness

Everything changes at level four. When we work from the fourth level of consciousness, our goals come from a completely different place.

They come from a higher source called — the Inspiration.

Some call it God, or Universe, or Supreme Being, or Higher Power.

But when we realize we are much more than just a body, Inspiration becomes our unlimited source of creation.

We become a part of the ‘whole.’

When we feel connected to every living being and become a part of the universe, Inspiration starts whispering to us.

It talks to us in the form of intuition.

When you get an idea of a book in the shower or a theory in the bathtub, or a complete melody in a dream, it is not you; it is the Inspiration talking to you.

You need to make sure you’re tuned in when Inspiration whispers because if you are not, it will go to someone else.

And if it finds you listening and up to the challenge, it will give you the Intention (courage to act)

It will remove all the roadblocks.

That is the state you want to be in as creator.

I have covered these concepts in my previous two articles.

Everything Changes When You Start Working From The Fourth Level of Consciousness

How To Make Sure You Listen To Inspiration When It Whispers

There is a connection between the concept of ‘Being’ and the concept of ‘Four Levels of Consciousness.’

What Is The Concept Of Being?

In his book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle talks about a concept called ‘Being.’

There is an eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad of forms of life that are subject to birth and death. Many people use the word God to describe it; I often call it Being. — Eckhart Tolle

‘Being’ explains nothing.

Nor does the word God.

According to Eckhart, ‘Being’ has an advantage over the concept of God. ‘Being’ is an open concept.

It is open because it does not reduce the infinite to a finite entity.

God has been given several forms already. Each religion has given it some symbol, shape, or image. In many mythologies, God looks like humans.

But it is impossible to form a mental image of ‘Being’ because ‘Being’ is not a noun but a verb.

So what is ‘Being?’

According to Eckhart, ‘Being’ is your very presence. It is your true nature. Your own deepest self.

It is accessible to you all the time.

It is accessible to you now as a feeling of your own presence.

Which is only a small step from the word ‘being’ to the experience of ‘Being.’

It is a hard concept to understand.

If you try to understand it with your logical mind, you may not.

If you try to give it a form, you will not be able to.

Because ‘Being’ can’t be seen, it can only be felt.

That too, when your mind is still, and your intention is fully in the present.

‘Being’ is not only deep within but also beyond. It is in every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence.

‘Being’ is also the pathway to gaining enlightenment. Enlightenment is not some superhuman accomplishment. It is simply your natural state of oneness with ‘Being.’

To regain awareness of BEING and abide in that state of feeling-realization, is enlightenment. — Eckhart Tolle

So ‘Being’ is a state of connectedness with something big. Something that is essentially you, and yet it is much greater than you.

It is you. Your true nature, beyond the name and form.

So what is the connection between the concept of ‘Being’ and the concept of ‘Four Levels of Consciousness.’

At the fourth level of consciousness, when we feel connected to every living being and become a part of the universe, Inspiration whispers to us.

So when we are in the state of ‘Being,’ we are connected to the Inspiration.

Eckhart says it this way.

When your consciousness

is directed outwards, mind and world arise.

When it is directed inwards,

it realizes its own Source

and returns home into the Unmanifested.

In this state of inner connectedness, you are much more alert, more awake, and fully present.

As you go deeper into this state of pure consciousness, you feel your own presence with such intensity and such joy that all thinking, all emotions, your physical body, as well as the whole external world, become relatively insignificant in comparison.

Yet it is not a selfish but a selfless state.

It takes you beyond what you previously thought of as “yourself.”

That presence is essentially you and at the same time inconceivably greater than you.

So Being is the higher state of consciousness, and you can reach this state by simply incorporating a practice of focusing your attention on the ‘Now.’

By feeling your very presence.

By connecting to your true nature.

By connecting to your own deepest self.

By connecting to the universe.

A commonplace book is basically a scrapbook where you collect things that fascinate you. It could be quotes, proverbs, poems, letters, recipes or anything. I have several such scrapbooks.

Recently I realised there is so much good stuff lying in my bottom drawer.

I was looking for a way to share my commonplace book.

I was thinking of publishing it in book form. And then I realised a Medium publication would even be a better idea.

Notes On Four Levels Of Consciousness

Neera

In 1968, Alan Watts, a British writer, speaker, and Zen master, appeared on CBS with a group of students to teach a unique zen philosophy.

He asked the students three questions:

  • Who am I?
  • What do I desire?
  • What do I know?

The three questions sound simple enough, but they go very deep.

According to Alan, if you ponder these questions long enough, they will unlock many new meanings in your life.

Your answers to these questions depend on what state of consciousness you are in.

Vishan Lakhiani, a writer and CEO of Mindvalley, explains in his book “Code of Evolution” four levels of consciousness.

At each level of consciousness, you react and shape the world in different ways. — Vishan Lakniani

Level 1 — Culturescape

Culturescape is the tangled web of rituals and beliefs, and ideas that come from the culture. Whether we live in a tribe in a developing part of the world or in modern tribes such as a corporation, all of us are part of Culturescape.

We believe in what our parents, teachers, priests, politicians, media, advertisements, authors, books, and thought leaders tell us. But we don’t see it just like fish swimming in water.

The rules by which each tribe lives do not apply to everybody, but they apply to that tribe. The problem with Culturescape is that it feels real. We become a victim.

At this level world happens to us. We suffer breakups, business failure, being hospitalized, book launch failure, newsletter failure, not-being-able-to-build-a-subscriber-base failure. You get the point.

A vast majority of people exist at level 1.

At this point, we give this kind of answers to Alan’s questions:

Who am I? — I am a writer. I am a three-book author. I am a bestselling author.

What do I desire? — I want to get better at writing. I want to make a living from writing. I want to write a book. I want my book to be a megaseller. I want to earn big royalties.

What do I know? — I know I am a kind person. I know God is on my side. I know if I put in 10,000 hours, I will get better at writing.

But at a certain point, people start waking up. That is when they go to level 2.

Level 2 — Awakening

At this level, people start going back to the childhood nature of questioning. They question their parent’s expectations; they question religion; they question the social- norms, and they realize they can choose their own experiences in life.

Life doesn’t happen to them, but it starts happening from them. It emerges from them. This is when they start creating their own rules.

They don’t follow society’s so-called normal professions and start following their passion. They do that because it is fulfilling. They might become a coach, or set up a business. They still identify themselves by what they do, but their desires are in line with their inner being.

At this level, they really start embracing personal growth.

When they do that enough, they go to level 3 — Recoding Yourself.

Level 3 — Recoding Yourself

This is when you realize the world is not just outside you; the world is inside you as well. And you start paying attention to your inner world. You start listening to that tiny little voice inside you.

When you start going within yourself, you start recognizing that you are more than just a physical body.

At this level, the big shift happens at question #1.

The answer to that question becomes:

I am a soul having a human experience.

Level 4 — Becoming Extraordinary

As soon as you go within, it opens you to level 4.

And level 4 is when you become extraordinary. An important shift happens that really transforms how you live your life. It puts you in 1–5% of human beings who are truly fulfilled and happy.

You realize you are so much beyond your body. “You” extend to all other human beings and all the life on the planet. “You” become a part of a great “whole.”

The more you expand your circle of compassion to other people, the greater the opportunity the universe gives you.

At level 1 our society teaches us to have goals and the goals are given to us by Culturescape. At level 2, the goals come from our souls. But when we get to level 4, the goals come from a completely different place.

According to Vishen Lakhiani, they come from Inspiration.

Call it Inspiration or God, or Universe, or Supreme Being, or Higher Power, but when we become a part of the “whole,” Inspiration leads to intention.

Inspiration leads to intention.

We might think we came up with the brilliant idea for that book or that song or that business, but we are simply a conduit.

When we say we got inspired, what we really mean is Inspiration whispered in our ear.

When someone gets an idea in a dream (John Lennon) or in the bathtub (Archimedes) it was the Inspiration whispering. And when Inspiration has your attention, and you are receptive, it clears the roadblocks and starts moving you towards it. It gives you the intention.

That is how inspiration leads you to intention.

But you got to be listening. Your antenna needs to be attuned to hear the whispers. Whispers can come in any form. As an idea in the shower, or a nudge in a seminar, or as a YouTube video. You never know.

You got to be ready.

As soon as you show you will take the nudge and act on it and you have the confidence to make it happen, luck starts being on your side.

The Inspiration doesn’t just whisper to you. It clears the way for you.

Your job is to listen.

And if you chose to ignore it, the Inspiration goes to someone else.

Four Levels of Consciousness are like a roadmap for growth.

At levels 1 and 2 we keep looking for a purpose for life, a way to make a contribution to this universe.

At level 3, we look for that purpose inside us.

Most of the time, we have no clue what that purpose is. So we pick one thing, something we like and enjoy and declare that this is the purpose of our life.

At level 4, our purpose is assigned to us by a higher power.

That is the state we want to be in.

A New Way To Revive Commonplace Books

Neera

I first learned about the Commonplace Book from Shuanta Grime’s article, the Commonplace Book Project — An Experiment back in 2019.

Since then, I have kept a commonplace book with me. In fact, I have several now.

A commonplace book is basically a scrapbook where you collect things that fascinate you. It could be quotes, proverbs, poems, letters, recipes, or prayers.

They differ from journals or diaries, which are chronological and introspective.

History of Commonplace Books

People have been keeping them from antiquity, however, they became very popular between the Renaissance and the nineteenth century.

Marcus Aurelius’s “Meditations” is often considered a precursor to the commonplace books, where he recorded his thoughts and quotations.

Erasmus Darwin, a noted physician (and Charles Darwin’s grandfather) kept a commonplace book between 1776 to 1787, which was later used by Charles Darwin.

Erasmus Darwin’s Commonplace Book, pages 58–59: Source: British Museum

In 1685, the English Enlightenment philosopher John Locke suggested a technique for entering proverbs, quotations, ideas, and speeches in commonplace books, which he published as A New Method of Making Common-Place-Books.

John Locke, A New Method of Making Common-Place-Books (London: J. greenwood, 1706), Image Source

He advised arranging material by subject and categories, using such key topics as love, politics, or religion.

John Locke’s double-page index, as printed in the English translation of New Method for Common-Place Books (1706) Image Source

Following the publication of John Locke’s work, many publishers printed empty commonplace books with space for headings and indices to be filled in by the users.

Which is not different to what Ryder Carroll used for the Bullet Journaling method.

By the early eighteenth century, the Commonplace books had become information management devices just like the Evernote and other notes taking apps are for us.

Scientists and other thinkers used the Common Place books in the same way that a database might now be used.

“A collection without order, drawn from many papers, which I have copied here, hoping to arrange them later each in its place, according to the subjects of which they treat.”

Published Commonplace Books

The practise of keeping a Common Place book was particularly attractive to authors. Many, such as, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mark Twain, and Virginia Woolf kept messy reading notes that were intermixed.

Both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were taught to keep commonplace books at Harvard University (their commonplace books were published later).

Over time, commonplace books of many eminent people got published. Wikipedia has a long list, here are some examples:

  • Lovecraft, H.P. (4 July 2011). “Commonplace Book”.
  • E.M. Forster, Commonplace Book, ed. Philip Gardner (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985).
  • Francis Bacon, The Promus of Formularies and Elegancies, Longman, Greens and Company, London, 1883. Bacon’s Promus was a rough list of elegant and useful phrases gleaned from reading and conversations that Bacon used as a sourcebook in writing and probably also as a promptbook for oral practice in public speaking.
  • John Milton, Milton’s Commonplace Book, in John Milton: Complete Prose Works, gen. ed. Don M. Wolfe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953). Milton kept scholarly notes from his reading, complete with page citations to use in writing his tracts and poems.
  • Mrs. Anna Anderson, A Common Place Book of Thoughts, Memories and Fancies (Longman, Brown, Green and Longman, 1855)
  • Robert Burns, Robert Burns’s Commonplace Book. 1783–1785. James Cameron Ewing and Davidson Cook. Glasgow : Gowans and Gray Ltd., 1938.

Ronald Reagan, also kept a commonplace book with traditional commonplace headings and used index cards which he kept in the plastic sleeves of a black photo album. His notes were published as the book The Notes: Ronald Reagan’s Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom (Harper Collins, 2011).

W. Ross Ashby, a psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, started a commonplace book in May 1928 as a medical student. He kept it for 44 years until his death. At which point it occupied 25 volumes comprising 7,189 pages. It was indexed with 1,600 index cards.

The British Library created a digital archive of his commonplace book which has been published online with extensive cross-linking based on his original index. http://www.rossashby.info/index.html.

Of the modern writers, Austin Kleon kept his commonplace book online. His whole blog is his commonplace book.

My Humble Commonplace book

I too have been keeping a commonplace book for a few years now and they are increasing in volumes.

I collect excerpts from books, newspapers, magazines and online reading. It has cuttings, sketches, mandalas and even some watercolour paintings.

Recently, I was going through my commonplace books when I realised there was far too much good stuff for them to just lie in the bottom drawer of my desk.

Image by the author.

That is when the idea of compiling them in a book started germinating in my head.

Having them in book form will mean that the material will be easily accessible.

Another benefit I can see is that in order to arrange them in a book will mean I will go through them and read them once again. Which will be a joy in itself.

With self-publishing so easy, it is a project I am considering spending some time on.

I am interested to know your thoughts.

Do you have a commonplace book?

Do you take it out and read it occasionally?

Would you consider publishing it?