This Genius Note-Taking System Ends Writer’s Block (For Good)

Main Ideas

A commonplace book is a personal collection of quotations, observations, and ideas organized under topics, or “commonplace” headings. The practice has a long history: the video traces it from Roman readers and writers, who collected excerpts for speeches and writing, through Renaissance education.

A commonplace book can make writing easier by building a useful store of research before a project begins. Its benefits include:

• A ready reference bank: Gathered material gives you something concrete to work from instead of facing a blank page.
• More attentive reading: Looking for passages worth keeping encourages closer focus.
• New connections: Comparing excerpts can reveal links and nuances between ideas.
• Better retention: Hand-copying passages can help you absorb and remember them.
• More mental space: An external record reduces the effort of trying to hold ideas in your head.
• A foundation for future work: Over time, the collection can become a personal research library for articles, videos, books, and other projects.

The narrator emphasizes that maintaining the system takes time, so it helps to have a clear reason for keeping one. The goal is not simply to accumulate impressive quotations, but to build a collection that supports work you intend to create.

The Three-Step Method

1. Annotate While Reading

• Mark passages that stand out, resonate, or seem likely to be useful later.
• Choose a method that suits the book: highlight or underline, mark the page, or use sticky notes if you want to keep the book unmarked.
• If a passage is too long to copy, identify its central idea or most important sentence and record the page number for later reference.

2. Let the Book Sit, Then Select

Wait roughly one to two months before deciding which marked passages to copy into the commonplace system. Revisiting the markings after the material has had time to feel less new can help distinguish lasting insights from passages that were exciting in the moment.

Be selective: copying and organizing notes takes effort, so prioritize material that serves your purpose.

3. Record and Organize the Notes

The narrator recommends using index cards, especially larger ones. Cards can be rearranged and added to without requiring you to predict how much notebook space each topic will need.

Keep each card focused. A short quotation, a few sentences, or a concise note is usually enough; the limited space encourages selection. At the top of a card, include:

• A main heading for the broad topic.
• A subheading, if useful, to narrow the subject.
• The author or speaker.
• The source and page number, so the passage can be checked and accurately cited.

Make clear which words are quotations and which are your own notes. The narrator’s personal method uses quotation marks and different handwriting styles or fonts to distinguish them.

Maintain an index or dividers listing the categories in the card box. When beginning a project, pull relevant cards into a temporary project file, then return them to their permanent categories when the work is done.

Additional Habit

The narrator also carries a pocket notebook as a quick-capture and reflection tool, partly to avoid reaching for a phone. It is a loose collection rather than a fully categorized commonplace book. The narrator records interesting excerpts and their sources there, then later transfers selected material onto organized cards.

The overall advice is to start small: use a stack of index cards and add a note regularly, even just one at a time. The collection can gradually become a useful, well-sourced base for future writing and creative projects.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Video narrator: Zacc Rowlands, explaining his own system and examples.
• Robert Greene: Discussed for developing a note-card research system while working on The 48 Laws of Power.
• Ryan Holiday: Discussed for using the card method; the video quotes his view that the process’s difficulty is part of why it works.
• Cicero and Shakespeare: Mentioned as historical figures associated with the broader tradition of collecting and using ideas.
• Pliny the Elder: Cited for making extracts while reading and for the saying that no book is so bad that it contains no worthwhile passage.
• Erasmus of Rotterdam: Discussed in connection with organizing excerpts under headings for writing and argument.
• Carl Linnaeus: Discussed for using index cards to organize a large body of research.
• Roland Allen: Author of The Notebook, the source cited on one example card.
• Jillian Hess: Author of a Substack article used in another example card.
• Martin Luther King Jr.: The subject of an example card; the excerpt’s cited source is Jillian Hess’s article.