Skip to content

antipaucity

fighting the lack of good ideas

first experiment follow-up

Posted on 3 May 20149 December 2014 By antipaucity 4 Comments on first experiment follow-up

I’ve been attempting a “reactive”/”consumptive” reading experiment recently.

The first book I tried it on was the Henry Petroski’s horrid To Engineer is Human (my review). That turned into a failure as I couldn’t stomach his writing, and so “reacting” to it was going to pretty much be an exercise in futility.

So I’ve ditched that book – maybe someone else will not find it so poor a read.

Many of the books I read (and review) I get from my local library. All of which, therefore, are poor candidates for consumptive reading in the sense Ryan Holiday used the term in his blog post.

But as I dove through his writing a bit more, I saw his mention of a “commonplace book“.

“A commonplace book is a central resource or depository for ideas, quotes, anecdotes, observations and information you come across during your life and didactic pursuits. The purpose of the book is to record and organize these gems for later use in your life, in your business, in your writing, speaking or whatever it is that you do.”

Specifically, he was taught how to do one by Robert Greene (author of Mastery, The 48 Laws of Power, etc), and he cites various individuals in history who have maintained them. It’s also something that Roald Dahl mentioned obliquely in his book The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (one of my favorites by him (PDF)) in “Lucky Break” – namely, that he always keeps something on which to write nearby (a notebook, a scrap of envelope – even the dust on his car bumper) so that whenever an idea strikes him, he can jot it down in case it was good enough to actually write about:

“Sometimes, these little scribbles will stay unused in the notebook for five or even ten years. But the promising ones are always used in the end. And if they show nothing else, they do, I think, demonstrate from what slender threads a children’s book or short story must ultimately be woven. The story builds and expands while you are writing it.”

This got me to thinking about how I might integrate the idea myself – though, of course, in a slightly different way. And that’s where I am progressing to now: instead of “consuming” all the books I read, ones I find interesting I’m taking notes on in a composition book (specifically a quad-ruled one, as those are my favorite). I’ve found so far it’s helped form better reviews. It’s also not the only place I’ll keep those notes – many will end up on this blog. Others will end up on Twitter. Others maybe in email signatures, or Facebook posts, or wherever.

In our amazingly digitized world, writing by hand seems, well, old-fashioned and trite. Or hipster-ish and cool. (Depends on who sees you doing it, I think.) Sometimes I’ve already found my notes being done electronically – via SMS to myself, or draft blog posts, or just a quick Notes session on my laptop.

Anyways, where I’m going with all this is instead of always being a mere passive consumer of writing, I’m trying to be a bit more “thoughtful” about it πŸ™‚

books, ideas, insights, personal, update Tags:books, experiment, reading, writing

Post navigation

Previous Post: coolidge by amity shlaes
Next Post: programming your home by mike riley

More Related Articles

effective error messages ideas
wedding plans cool
redecentralizing school commentary
the new coop personal
the art of war by sun tzu books
bglug meeting move! bglug

Comments (4) on “first experiment follow-up”

  1. David Glendinning says:
    3 May 2014 at 06:35

    I saw the term ‘commonplace book’ and its description and said to myself “Oh… you mean Evernote…” πŸ˜‰

  2. Warren says:
    4 May 2014 at 10:50

    Haven’t yet used Evernote – heard good things about it … But it doesn’t solve the note taking issue when no power is available πŸ˜‰

  3. David Glendinning says:
    4 May 2014 at 11:47

    In addition to my computers, I have Evernote on my smartphone. If I’m in a place where cellphone usage is prohibited or discouraged but I can still take notes, I will jot down the note and take a picture of it later on and send **that** to Evernote. πŸ˜€

  4. Pingback: antipaucity » steam by andrea sutcliffe

Comments are closed.

May 2014
S M T W T F S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
« Apr   Jun »
  • Patrick Henry 23 March 1775
  • Reincarnation by Wallace McCrae (adapted by Warren Myers)
  • Famed was Beowulf
  • Fuzzy Wuzzy (anonymous)
  • One bright morning in the middle of the night (various)

Books

  • Debugging and Supporting Software Systems
  • Storage Series

External

  • Backblaze
  • Cirkul
  • Digital Ocean
  • Fundrise
  • Great Big Purple Sign
  • Password Generator
  • PayPal
  • Tech News Channel on Telegram
  • Wish List

Other Blogs

  • Abiding in Hesed
  • Chris Agocs
  • Eric Hydrick
  • Jay Loden
  • Paragraph
  • skh:tec
  • Tech News Channel on Telegram
  • Veritas Equitas

Profiles

  • LinkedIn
  • Server Fault
  • Stack Overflow
  • Super User
  • Telegram
  • Twitter

Resume

  • LinkedIn
  • Resume (PDF)

Services

  • Datente
  • IP check
  • Password Generator
  • Tech News Channel on Telegram

Support

  • Backblaze
  • Built Bar
  • Cirkul
  • Digital Ocean
  • Donations
  • Fundrise
  • PayPal
  • Robinhood
  • Wish List

Copyright © 2023 antipaucity.

Powered by PressBook Green WordPress theme