As early as the 15th century people have been writing down snippets of wisdom, bits and pieces of knowledge, quotes they wanted to remember. These collections became known as Commonplace Books. Or Commonplaces for short. In 1685 the philosopher John Locke wrote a lengthy essay, in French, detailing his method of keeping a commonplace book. The treatise was translated into English in 1706 with the title A New Method of Making Common-Place-Books. Locke suggests that when we “extract anything out of an author which is like to be of future use, we may be able to find it without any trouble.” I know exactly what he means. When you read a lot, it is often difficult to put your finger on just where a particular quote came from, or where again to find a piece of information. Our brains process and store and yes, retrieve instantly a lot of information. In general we can rely on the amazing recall most of us have. However, if you are like me and read a lot on specific s...