A digital commonplace book
A commonplace book on a phone is still one notebook of other people's lines. You collect an item. Later it returns as a recollection.
You type digital commonplace book because the paper one stayed on the desk. The line was in a book you were holding in a queue, or on a page you had already closed. You wanted it in your pocket.
What comes back is usually a notes dump, a second brain, or a vault of files. Those are cabinets. A commonplace book is smaller. One notebook. Other people's words. Kept so they can return.
Digital does not mean a graph. The unit is still an item: the text, its source, and the date you collected it. You are its keeper, not its author. A short annotation about why it stayed is enough. Skip the annotation if the line is enough. Later, once you have half-forgotten it, the item returns as a recollection. Search is not the point. Return is the point.
A paper commonplace book is the same practice with slower hands. A digital one is the same practice in a pocket. If the app never brings the line back, it is only storage.
How to keep: collect the item while the line is in front of you. The source goes with it. That is the whole practice, on paper or on a phone.
If that is the search, start here: How to keep a commonplace book
Opuss is that notebook, for iPhone. Free on the App Store.
You collect an item. You can add an annotation. Later it returns as a recollection.
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The letter
Read issue 1. Ten we kept this week, and how to keep your own. Or start with how to keep.