The Ultimate Commonplace System:

How to Turn Your Ideas into Money

and Work from Everywhere in the World

© Copyright
2016
Ludvig Sunström

All rights reserved. None of the material in this book may be

copied or redistributed by any third party——except for brief
questions in articles or critical reviews——without the express
consent of the author.

Each digital copy of The Ultimate Commonplace System is unique

and traceable. If you did not purchase this manual I will
personally send you an official copy in exchange for you telling
me where and how you got your hands on an illegal copy.

1
From:

Greetings, friend and soon-to-be commonplace master.

Thank you for purchasing The Ultimate Commonplace System.

You’re going to learn how to build a damn powerful commonplace.

Before we begin, here’s an overview of all the material:

Table of Contents:
Section 1:
Context to Commonplacing

Section 2:
How to Set Up Your Commonplace in a Robust Way
That Scales over Time and Makes You Much More Effective

Section 3:
Choosing Your Ideal Medium and Method for Commonplacing

Section 4:
How to 10x Your Learning by Using These 8 Commonplace Systems

Section 5:
How to Raise Your Creativity and Turn Your Commonplace
into a Spawning Pool of Valuable Insights and Ideas

Section 6:
How to Use Your Commonplace to Set
Your Personal Development on Semi-Automation and
Ensure Your Continued Progress and Prosperity in Life

Section 7:
Addendum

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 Bonus Content:
You will find all the bonus content as separate pdf files. Not inside the manual.

1) A List of Recommended Resources. Here you will find the different resources
I’ve mentioned throughout the entire manual. The list is short and helpful.

2) A Super Actionable Summary—over every actionable step inside of the TUCS

manual. Consider it your training wheels. If you want to get straight to the
actionable stuff, you should skim it over before reading this entire manual. It’s
worth many hundred dollars in itself. Print it out.

3) The Automated Templates I Created for My Systems of Self-Reflection and

Planning. (My Daily Lessons, Weekly Summaries, Monthly Overviews, Yearly
Summaries, and Weekly Planner). I have created these templates by combining
Evernote with the website IFTTT. You can easily modify my templates with HTML
inside of the IFTTT ―recipes‖.

4) My Personal Document of Evernote Best Practices. This is the RAW and

UNEDITED 29-page compilation of material I created from over 30 hours of
immersive studies—after scouring the best material available online, free and
paid—to use as my training wheels for mastering the various functions of the
program Evernote.

5) A Simple and Effective (but Neglected) Tip That Anyone Can Use to
Become Healthy (and Remain That Way). I won’t spoil it here, but it’s
deceptively easy. It does require having a small amount of money though.

6) My Phone’s Commonplace Setup (That Gives Me a Sweet Extra 10+ Days

Per Year). In the manual you’ll see the commonplace systems I set up for my
podcast, which let me do most of its work over the phone from anywhere in the
world. In this bonus, I’ll show you the rest of the commonplace system from my
phone. This could easily add an extra 5-30 days of ―free time‖ to your life
(compounded over the course of a year).

7) A Few Examples of Potential Lists for You to Make. These are examples to
get you started with coming up with your own lists of highly organized (and
valuable) information. You’ll be inspired to create your own ones.

8) 4 Simple Commonplace Systems That Only Take You 10 Minutes Apiece to

Create, but Can Save You Several Days of Time, Plenty of Pain, and Help
You Sleep Comfortably at Night. And it takes no technological know-how to do
this either. It’s very easy and everyone should do it. This bonus is particularly
important if you work from your computer.

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 Why Creating a Commonplace is Important
Without further ado, I’ll immediately tell you what just may be one of the most important
takeaways for many people who will read The Ultimate Commonplace System. Namely,
that:

There is a Tremendous, Cumulative

“Hidden” Cost for Wasted Brain-Space!

Most people don’t think in terms of opportunity cost, and even among those who are
familiar with the concept, many don’t apply it consistently. Fewer still, are the people
who apply that same concept for their thinking.

Today, implementing superior ideas is what’s most valuable. To do this best, you have
to become a comprehensive thinker and a rational decision-maker.

In this manual, we’re concerned with what comes before implementation; that is,
becoming the sort of person who can spawn superior ideas and be capable of great
insight. To become such a person, you must:

1. Practice learning until you can proudly proclaim yourself an autodidact.

2. Practice creativity until you consider yourself an artist.
3. Practice organization until you think like a manager.
4. Practice self-reflection until you know your natural talents (and weaknesses).

The Best Way I’ve Found

to Practice These Things
is to Create a Commonplace

Think of your commonplace as a tool that—if you know how to use it—will augment and
amplify every major area of your life. It’s pretty sweet.

So how do you build this awesome tool? That is what you’ll learn in this manual: how to
build the ultimate commonplace system.

First you build your commonplace, and then you use it. Once you experience first-hand
how much easier commonplacing makes your life, and how much more productive you’ll
become, you’ll never want to stop using it.

—Commonplacing will be a lifelong practice to you. And when you have this attitude, it
won’t take long until you…

Become Someone Who Can

Turn Ideas into Money!

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 Should This Book Have a $5,000 Price Tag?
I’ve been commonplacing consistently for 4-5 years now…

…so, that’s a lot of trial and error I’ve gone through to arrive at the knowledge I’m now
going to impart to you. For years I’ve streamlined my process, to make commonplacing
as easy-to-use and effective as possible.

The reason it took me a long time to learn this is because. . .

There is No Other Formal Guide

Out There for How to Do This Stuff!

You’re now reading the world’s first known manual on how to create a modern, multi-
purpose commonplace.

—That, my friend, is why it took me a long time to figure this stuff out. There was no one
out there to teach me. I had to learn it all from scratch. I was forced to experiment and
innovate (which is cool to do, but also very time-consuming!)

Knowing This, Why Did I Not Release

The Ultimate Commonplace System Earlier?

Over the last two years I’ve received hundreds of emails asking me how to start
commonplacing.

At first, I ignored most of those emails because I figured people were just lazy. I
thought, ―you just $!?#!& get off your ass and DO it….”

But eventually, I changed my mind.

I realized that this is not something that you ―just do‖. Especially not if you want to build
a powerful and robust commonplace; one that improves over time, like a fine wine.

The truth is, putting together such a commonplace does require a little bit of time and
thinking on your part (although you don’t necessarily have to get off your ass to do it).

—But why shouldn’t it? Nothing good in life comes without some modicum of effort.

Building a business takes some effort.

Creating a great physique takes some effort.

Becoming smart and well-read takes some effort.

So why should this be any different? You’re about to create a tool that augments every

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other significant area of your life AND increases in value over time, like a lucrative
investment. That’s not small potatoes.

Would you expect something that potent to come about immediately, without any effort
on your part?

I’m guessing: ―No,‖ you probably wouldn’t, right?

Well, friend, you’re in luck, because:

You’ll Learn How to

Create Your Commonplace
a Heck of a Lot Faster Than I Did!

I’m going to teach you all the fundamental principles of commonplacing, so that you
don’t have to go through all the time-consuming guesswork I had to go through, or make
many of the annoying mistakes I made.

Before Putting Together

The Ultimate Commonplace System
I Personally Instructed
Only a Select Few Close Associates
On How to Set Up a Commonplace
—And Guess What?

They all had the very same reaction:

“This is such an obvious idea! How did I not think about this earlier?”

That was when I changed my mind.

That’s when I realized that this was a classic case of the curse of knowledge on my
part. Meaning:

1. I failed to remember what it was like before I had my commonplace and knew
how to use it.
2. I failed to realize just how useful and valuable this knowledge was to other
successful people.

Long story short, after I showed em’ how it’s done, they all took MASSIVE action and
went to work at implementing the fundamentals as a foundation to build their own
commonplace systems (to fit their lives, crafts, businesses, hobbies, etc..)

Because…

They Knew the Value of a Good Idea

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The more successful a person is, the more valuable a commonplace system is.

Even though I’d told these associates of mine for free (because we’re friends and all
that) they still treated it like paid advice to the amount of at least $5,000.

Why? Because they understood what I told you before: that the opportunity cost of
wasted brain-space is tremendously large when you’re playing in the major leagues.

But None of Them Had

Given Serious Thought to it
Before I Came Along!

That’s when I realized that sometimes people just need a reminder, even really
successful people.

We have a tendency to get so busy and immersed in optimizing what we’re already
doing, that we forgot to consider more important actions or ideas that we could invest
our time into.

So, even though you only paid a small amount of money for The Ultimate
Commonplace System, I hope you will not make the error of mistaking price for value.

If you also take massive action on this information, it’ll be worth a lot more than $5,000.

In fact, if you’re already successful, just by reading through the Super Actionable
Summary (bonus item #2) you should be able to create a commonplace that’s worth
more than $5000 to you—in just a few days.

So if you’re a busy guy, start by doing that. Then return here to read all of The Ultimate
Commonplace manual.

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 Section 1:
Context to Commonplacing

8
This introductory section provides a context for commonplacing, before we get into the
real practical stuff, starting in the next section. You will learn the prerequisites for being
someone who can turn their ideas into money—and how commonplacing fits into that.

9
 “Why Are They So Angry?”

"Yeah mate, I'm stage-diving and crowd-surfing

still grinding, my playtimes are about working.”
—Shotty Horroh, I Swear

[Location: On a plane, flying from Frankfurt to Bangkok.]

Hello there. I’m out of The Gauntlet now, sitting on a flight to Bangkok.

It’s been a long flight, something like 8-10 hours. While I managed to write two full drafts
of podcast episodes and read 50 pages of a business book, the rest of the passengers
managed to watch a Russian-dubbed movie starring Owen Wilson and a dog.

I think we all deserve some credit for that. So I got a vodka cranberry drink (they are
free) and started chatting with the guy in the seat next to me. He’s an older gentleman,
around 50 I would guess, dressed in a fancy suit carrying a shiny black briefcase.

He’s an interesting guy who’s been in business for himself for about 15 years. He has
two businesses: one that’s like a hobby and another one that’s his main business—that
sells high-end audio/video equipment to rich people.

―That’s cool,‖ I say. ―You learn something new every day. Great to meet you.‖

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He says: ―Keep paying attention and you’ll make it big one day. Before you know it,
you’ll know more than others about something—and then you can profit from it.‖

I say:

“I’ve Never Heard About

Anyone in That Niche Before…”

The businessman appreciates my curiosity and enthusiasm. He decides to indulge it.

He ends up telling me a little bit more than he perhaps should about his business. Like,
the exact reason he’s able to stay in business despite being just a fly in the wind
compared to Sony or other big audio equipment manufacturers.

He explains, ―Mainly, it’s the inclination among my clientele to want the newest thing,
especially with audio, video, home theatre, and high-tech stuff. I’m exclusive. My stuff
sells itself. I rely mostly on word-of-mouth referrals.‖

I see the drink cart coming down the aisle. When it arrives, I say I want another vodka
cranberry and some white wine. The businessman beside me says he wants the same.
But. . .

. . . to our great surprise, we are both DENIED it!

The stewardess, who is a 40-something blonde wearing a heavy layer of make-up, tells
me ―you’ve had enough,‖ and angrily motions to her colleague on the other side of the
aisle—who is about to serve the businessman—not to serve him.

“Why Are They So Angry?” He says.

Before I’m able to reply, he interrupts me: ―Don’t answer answer that, it was rhetorical.‖

He continues, ―There is no point in bickering with that bitch. Just fly with another airline
next time. If I owned this airline, I’d fire her ass fast.‖

He’s right. You don’t fix what’s broken, you improve on what’s already working. Who is
this woman to decide what’s right for us? We’re paying customers and those drinks are
priced into the offer.

Why is she so angry?

Well, I Guess Everyone Can’t Have the Good Life

When you don’t like what you do for a living, it’s natural that you get fed up with life and
turn into a passive-aggressive bitch, looking for strangers to take out your aggression

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on.

The businessman tells me not to ―let these people infect you with their disease‖. Not to
allow them the satisfaction of an emotional reaction. Don’t feed vampires.

When you like what you do, work has inherent value. When you’re making money on
your own terms you don’t have anyone to bitch at except yourself. You are responsible
for the results. And when your work is of a creative nature, and it’s done in the mind,
you can work from anywhere because you can get ideas everywhere.

—Not everyone can do it. Not right away, at least. But. . .

. . . if you know the formula, you might get there faster.

Ludvig’s 3-Step Formula to Making Money on Your Own Terms:

1. You must understand your part of the whole (unlike the rude stewardess).
You have to reflect on what’s going on to see how you fit into the big picture,
and then play your part to perfection, like Arjuna.

2. You have to figure out how to scale your talents. You have to know what
you’re best at doing and practice it until you can do it better than others. Most
people don’t know what they’re good at, let alone do they nurture and refine
those talents over time.

3. And you need to be learning all the time. You have to feed your brain with
high quality information so that it churns out cool ideas on the regular.

This is not a get-rich-quick scheme by any means, but it’s still a simple enough formula,
isn’t it?

Well, I’ve known about it for some time now, and it’s taken me about three years to get
to where I’m at.

Yes, patience and practice pay off, but. . .

Commonplacing Will Help You

Do These 3 Things Better & Faster

Consider the practice of commonplacing as a prerequisite for turning ideas into money.
If you’re not there yet, it’ll help you get there faster.

And, if you’re already in a position where you’re able to turn your ideas into money, a
commonplace will provide you with the structure and organization to do so better and
faster.

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 You Can Find Me in The Fortress
“Lounging, never lost it
built their own fortress.”
—AZ, Livin’ the Life

After arriving at the airport and getting things sorted, I take a cab to central Bangkok to
meet Oskar at our new HQ, The Fortress.

This is what happens when you graduate from The Gauntlet: You build a fortress and
surround yourself with fellow knights and lieutenants. Then you fortify it from enemies
and set out to conquer a kingdom.

That’s what we’re doing now—just not at this particular moment. Because, today it’s
Sunday and I’m tired from traveling. So we’re chilling by the pool. . .

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Now, for something different:

How to Become a Paid Thinker

Somerset Maugham has been a big inspiration to me. . .

. . . not because he was the best-paid writer of his day, but mainly for his bold choice of
lifestyle, and for his pragmatism in going about its attainment.

Maugham was one of those rare individuals who had the intelligence, integrity, and
diligence to match his talents and interests with his career choice in such a way that he
did not have to compromise.

The same thing can be said about fellow author Michael Crichton.

Both Maugham and Crichton defied the traditional path by quitting Med school. As
writers, not only were they able to produce highly sophisticated works of art, but they

14
also managed to sell it to the mainstream without having to dumb it down to make an
extra buck (like Malcolm Gladwell1).

Maugham Lived the Life of a Renaissance Man;

He was a flaneur2 in every sense of the word.

Maugham was essentially a well-paid thinker-scholar. He spent most of his life reading
books that fascinated him, learning new languages, traveling places, experiencing new
cultures and philosophies. He then skilfully synthesized all of those experiences into
great literary work that smart people still read to this very day.

Like Maugham, I’ve strained my brain to think ahead and plan out my life as much as
possible. The life of the average person has never appealed to me.

When people say, "it just happened", this has always seemed to me more a despondent
rationalization for failure, than a jubilant remark used to explain their serendipity.

I don’t want that in my life, so I plan ahead.

Like Maugham, I’ve always wanted to be a paid thinker, a renaissance man, and a little
bit of a flaneur.

Now I Am Those Things

—And commonplacing has had a lot to do with it.

1
Whose books give the masses confirmation and make them feel clever without actually having to become clever.
2
A fancy French word for a learned man who strolls around, pondering the complexities of life.

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 ABL—Always Be Learning

But it didn’t happen overnight…

I had to go through The Gauntlet first.

But if You Think That What I’ve Done is a Fluke

That You Could Not Possibly Duplicate,
Then Think Again!

Because you can probably get there faster than me.

The first step is to use or modify the many commonplace systems I’ll show you in the
upcoming sections of this manual.

Maybe you (currently) don’t have a business, a website, a podcast, an audience, or

even the time to read and study every day. Like I do. Well, do you think I had those
things when I first began?

Hell NO!

I built each of those assets individually and separately. I had to work hard on it. I had to
do the brain-work to understand not only how to get those pieces, but also how to piece
them together in an elegant latticework.

And guess what?

All of That Brain-Work Was (and Still is)
Done Inside of My Commonplace

—From ingestation to implementation.

It all starts with my commonplace, and that’s where it ends as well.

I built my commonplace to support everything else in my life. And, as a result, it has

now become a valuable asset in itself; consisting of large amounts of organized
information to help me make better decisions and systems to make me more effective.

Maybe you have different ambitions and inclinations than I do and you want to do other
stuff. That’s fine. But you should still…

Start By Creating
Your Own Commonplace

Because when you do that, it’ll become that MUCH easier and faster to achieve the
following steps—whatever those steps are.

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Your commonplace is the tool you use for shaping your brain and giving order to your
life, helping you string everything else together in a synergistic manner.

Look at this way…

Wherever you want to go, you first have to make a journey to get there. Wouldn’t you
prefer riding a car over walking a muddy road? You’ll still get where you want to go, only
a lot faster—and without sullying yourself.

A commonplace will let you do just that.

—But first you have to build it!

So, you will learn to build one cog at a time. Eventually, you’re going to wind up with a
well-oiled machine; a commonplace that augments your ideal lifestyle—and, if you
want—lets you turn your ideas into money.

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 “Ideas Make Money; Just Not Instantly”
“Over here, it’s only been a year
I was dirt broke, now I’m ballin’ like a sphere
I’m the man of the year.”
—Logic, Man of the Year

Throughout these sections, as I talk about commonplacing, (and draw on inspiration

from my own commonplace system) it is important that you remember that this is *my*
way of commonplacing.

This entire manual is meant to give you the know-how and the inspiration to create your
own commonplace, and craft the systems to go along with it. But, please keep in mind
that. . .

There is No One Right Way to Commonplace!

It’s all about finding a way that suits you.

Even though I recommend you to copy a number of the most fundamental building
blocks of my commonplace, you’ll want to keep in mind that your commonplace should
be ever-evolving, in sync with your thinking, acting as a tool to scale your thoughts,
ideas and interests.

As you make the commitment to starting your own commonplace and you learn how to
use it in a seamless and natural manner, you’ll soon see rapid improvement in many

18
areas of your life.

You’ll become more systematic in your thinking, better at hacking away at the
inessentials, able to eliminate many routine tasks. You’ll also have more ideas, become
more creative, and capable of learning things faster. And it’s all because of what I call. .

“The Magic of Commonplacing”

. . . and what it does to your brain; how it teaches you to think in new ways and hone
your pattern recognition. That is where the real magic resides, in commonplacing as a
tool for shaping your brain.

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 The Magic of Commonplacing
Have an idea (or find one).
File it away.
Dwell on it.
Achieve synthesis.
Find the idea whenever you need it.
Apply the idea or continue working on it as required.
Turn said idea into money—applying your expertise.

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 Why No One Can Do What I Do
(The 2 Paths to Specialization)
“I'm at a level where I be amazin' myself
I better finish at a level with a black belt."
—Kendrick Lamar, Look out for Detox

No one can do what I do but me.

But just what is it that I do?

How I Got to Where I’m at. . .

(and the Process Behind it)

I try to base everything I do around:

1. How I can scale my strengths.

2. How I can protect myself from my weaknesses.

By using many of the commonplace systems you’ll learn later, I’ve been able to figure
out how to do this at an early age. This has helped me learn faster, be more creative,
and eliminate many routine tasks from my life.

Let’s talk about money and power.

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To make money with your ideas, you do need a certain degree of specialization, but not
nearly as much as many people seem to think. While it’s true that specialization is
important for traditional career purposes, it’s even more important to keep in mind that. .

Most People Don’t Have the DNA

for Becoming Hyperspecialists!

I don’t have it.

I'm a natural comprehensivist, and in the kind of market economy that we have today,
you have to reach beyond a certain level of specialization and expertise if you want to
become self-sufficient (which is different for each field).

After you become good enough at what you do3 to become self-sufficient, only then can
you transition into living in a way that fits your nature--your comprehensivist genetics,
that is. This requires some up-front sacrifice.

To accomplish this, I basically locked myself in a room for the last 1,5 years.

All I did every day was work, read, practice, and go to the gym. My life was like one of
those action movie training montages. Social life? I went on 3 dates in total.

The Two Paths for Achieving

the Initial Level of Specialization
That You Need to Become Self-Sufficient

This initial period of specialization is imperative, because without it, you’re not going to
be able to lay down a foundation sturdy enough to branch out from, and transfer that
skill set to other areas of life.

Without a foundation, your movement as a professional becomes restricted, and your

means of making money are basically limited to employment within a small area of
competence. Employment being the key word of that last sentence.
This is no way to live life.

After this initial period of specialization, you can still continue down the line to
hyperspecialization, if you wish.

Regardless of what you want to be—a comprehensivist like me, or a hyperspecialist like
some others—you still NEED to lay the foundation, and there are two paths you can
take for doing this:

1. The Traditional Path

2. The Gauntlet

3
Preferably in a new field of knowledge with relatively few experts and lower competitiveness. Good examples
include programming, Internet marketing, and small barely-known-of niches.

22
Choose the one that fits your situation and psychological inclinations.

The Traditional Path

(You already know this. . . but, here’s my take on how to do it in the least stupid way.)

You get a job someplace where you’re able to learn as much as possible. You practice
your craft. You build up a network of useful people, and so on. . .

Unfortunately, most corporate jobs don’t fit this description, and, even if you stay
focused on this goal, it’s probably going to take you several years to reach it.

The traditional path is the slow way to success and self-sufficiency.

It’s less risky, but (far) more psychologically appealing to most people. You might even
enjoy it. And that is the problem: You might enjoy it so much that you give up on the
plan. In your head, you might be thinking: ―What? Never me.‖

But don’t be so quick to pass a judgment. I’ve seen it happen to many people who I
previously considered to be perfectly capable, intelligent, and rational. They gave up on
their ambition and settled. I no longer talk to those people.

The biggest problem with the traditional path is that most people become too
comfortable with a steady pay check and too attached to their colleagues to want to
leave.

The Traditional Path is like Napoleon’s march on Moscow; it starts out with good
intentions, but goes too far.

The Gauntlet

The Gauntlet is the fast path to success, but it’s also riskier. I’m not going to judge you if
you don’t take it. It requires brass balls.

You put yourself through a period of deep and focused practice. This allows you to
condense what might otherwise take many years, possibly decades, into a period of a
few years.

This entails sacrificing just about everything else in your life, and still there’s no
guarantee of success. But if you do make it out, it’s GLORIOUS.

When Joseph Campbell locked himself in a shed for five years straight to read nothing
but history books and the classics, he went through his version of The Gauntlet.

If you do get a job, it is only for putting food on the table and supporting the continued

23
practice of your craft; not to build a career or to advance in a hierarchy built by someone
other than yourself.

In The Gauntlet you’re a squire. Perhaps a brave squire, but a squire nonetheless.
When you make it out—if you make it out—you’re a KNIGHT.

A knight doesn’t have to serve a master—unless he wishes to. If King Arthur wasn’t
such a brilliant fellow, Lancelot would leave and do his own thing.

How to Graduate from The Gauntlet

You’ll have to make many sacrifices along the way, like living cheaply and having a
minimal—if any—social life. This is not the easiest thing to do for a highly-sexed man in
his prime, but if Mike Tyson could do it, and I could do it. . .

Then why can’t you?

Even though I graduated from The Gauntlet, I’m not going to pretend like my passing
was preordained. The truth is: It was pretty hard.

Here are some of the main challenges anyone going through The Gauntlet will face:

● Doubt: Even though The Gauntlet is the ―fast‖ way to success it still is an
extreme act of delayed gratification. And, as such, it can be hard to stay
motivated when there are times—as there will be—when you don’t see steady
progress. Sometimes, you may not feel like you’re making ANY progress. Also
add to this that you see friends and former peers making money and getting
ahead, while it feels like you’re at standstill, risking everything to get nothing.

● Loneliness: I would guess that only 1 out of 1000 people enter The Gauntlet. So
it’s easy to feel alone and peerless. ―Normal‖ people (including family) may try to
get you to quit what you’re doing (out of concern for your well-being, or because
they don’t want you to be the crab that gets out of the bucket).

● Fear. Then there’s the deeply-rooted fear of ostracism. This may be the hardest
part for most people. The fear that failure will result in being forever shut out of
(1) one’s social circle and (2) the job market. This is why having a minimal—or
no—social life may be easier than being surrounded by normal people.

Then there’s also the aspect of risk. You have to be able to sleep at night and not get
too stressed out about the realities of your situation (and its inherent uncertainty).

The philosophy of Breaking out of Homeostasis (and my persistent practice thereof)

enabled me to build up the mental toughness to cope competently with these
psychological challenges, under which most men will falter.

24
 How Napoleon Prepared Himself
for His Rapid Rise to the Top

Most other successful people—whether free agent knowledge workers, entrepreneurs,

or historical figures—have gone through a similar, Gauntlet-like process. To stay the
course and get through it, they either had the knowledge intuitively or they had gained it
through extensive studies. For Napoleon, it was the latter.

When Napoleon suddenly, and by fortunate circumstances, was granted command of

the Italian Army at the age of 26, he was intellectually prepared for the task.

Not only was he a military specialist, but he had also devoted several years to the
careful study of history, learning from the mistakes of the most successful generals and
statesmen before him. Despite his young age, Napoleon had been able to condense
years of hard work by practicing his craft in a Gauntlet-like process.

The Biggest Mistake of Charles Munger’s Life

Was in Following the Traditional Path

In studying Munger’s chronology, it is clear that THE biggest mistake of his life was that
he went with a drawn-out version of the Traditional Path, rather than taking a Gauntlet-
type approach to success.

This decision resulted in an enormous opportunity cost (to which extent we’ll never
know, but probably 20+ billion).

Munger did not devote himself entirely to business and investing until sometime during
his late 30s to early 40s. Contrast this to his business partner, Warren Buffett, who
walked an almost straight path to mastery—beginning in his early teens—within the
fields of business and investing.

Buffett, because of his early sacrifices4, (and they were many) was able to get a head-
start of a decade—and this sort of thing compounds like crazy over an entire life.

4
If you are not primarily driven by money, becoming financially independent or successful means you can do
spend more time doing what you love later in life. And you don’t have to worry about petty stuff when you’re old.

25
 Section 2:
How to Set Up Your Commonplace
in a Robust Way That Scales Over Time
and Makes You Much More Effective

26
What you routinely put in your commonplace will largely determine how valuable it
becomes to you over time.

In this section you’ll get inspiration for what sort of information to collect and
systematize to achieve more scale in various areas of your life.

You’ll also see the systems I use for 25 Minuter, the popular Swedish podcast I do
together with Mikael Syding, decorated as the European Hedge Fund Manager of the
Decade.

The bottom line is: The more you can find information that scales and come up with
systems, the more effective you become.

27
 Why Your Commonplace
Should Be Based on Systems
(and How This Makes You Effective)
“Chillin' on the deck, brainstorming on the check
You don't see the bigger picture, you just see the silhouette…”
—Jadakiss, Oil Money

I just got back home from a lunch buffet with a girl I’m seeing. It was fun and we tried
lots of different foods.

The restaurant we went to is part of a franchise biz, owned by the Oishi Group. Their
concept is quite brilliant, and I want to tell you more about it.

I'm not going to nerd out and do a full-fledged analysis of why I think their concept is
fantastic—both from a customer and a business standpoint—but I do want to highlight
one thing that you'll find interesting:

It's Their Rigorous System-Orientation!

What I mean by ―system-orientation‖ is that they—(like most other successful franchise

businesses)—have a system for everything they do, and leave very little to chance.

The beauty of having systems is that it ensures a steady and reliably output and

28
enables even someone with an IQ of 70 to do the job with roughly the same quality as a
normal person.

We are gonna talk a lot more about systems in this manual.

For now, all you need to know is that:

1. It is important to internalize a systems-oriented mindset, and that…

2. This is not hard to do.5

For example...

Check out This Neat Food-Placement System From Inside the Restaurant:

The colored marks show the employees (who work inside the kitchen) where to place
their dishes on the conveyor belt. It also ensures a consistency in the variety of dishes
for the customer (as opposed to getting 5 plates of chicken in a row).

This is genius.

Western restaurants should copy this formula. I would do it myself if I had even the least

5
Certain systems can be super advanced and may be tricky to fully comprehend, but to understand the purpose of
having such system is super easy: the system is just there to enable a higher consistency of good results.

29
talent or interest for the food industry. So, I filed this away as a future investing idea in
my commonplace. Who knows when it may come in handy? Maybe I’ll meet someone
who can do it for me when I have more money.

Do You Think This is a Hard Idea to Come Up With?

It doesn't take a genius 10 years of concentrated research to think this up, does it?

Well, I certainly don’t think so.

I think it's just about getting into a systems-oriented way of thinking.

I want you to start looking at the world from this perspective, starting with the
commonplace systems you’re going to set up as you keep reading this manual.

Because, a significant portion of the future value of your commonplace will come from
the systems you have in it, and use regularly.

In each of the following sections I will go into some of my systems; all of which have
been very useful to me.

However. . .

The BIG Long-Term Value

Will Come When You
Think Up Your Own Systems!

The employees in that cool restaurant I went to? They cannot do this.

That’s why they’re working there…

But, I'll bet you a million bucks that their management knows how to do it.

30
 How I Deliberately Apply The “Systems-Mindset”
in My Own Life and Commonplace Practice

I think things through carefully.

If something does not contribute in some viable way towards my grand strategy, I
probably will not do it. I don't want to do things that are not easily. . .

Transferable, Replicable, or Scalable.

(This is very important: Read that 3 times to sear it into your memory.)

If I can’t find an easy way to turn something into a long-term process and stick to it over
time, or use the thing in multiple areas of my life, then I’m not interested.

This is my code. And it means I’m pretty picky about what I do. But, when I do do
something, it leads somewhere. I’m not looking for shortcuts; I’m actively searching for
sustainable competitive advantages. And only that.

Commonplacing—in itself—is the ultimate meta-example of this principle.

I can use my commonplace for improving upon just about everything else in my life. So
it made sense that I invested a little time into perfecting my method for doing it while I
was still young, and the potential impact for doing so was at its peak.

When you have the ―systems-mindset‖, and you become used to thinking this way, it
becomes easy for you to come up with ways for doing things more effectively. Like

31
organizing your own life and work or managing other people.

My podcast system is a good example of how this sort of thing pays off nicely. . .

32
 How Just One of My Commonplace Systems
Pays for My Living Expenses and More…
“How does it feel?
To count dollar bills,
that I found off…skills.”
—Slaughterhouse, My Life

I am referring to the commonplace systems I’ve set up around my podcast with Mikael
Syding, 25 Minuter.

On my computer—in my Evernote commonplace—I have plenty of notes, tags and

shortcuts linked together. And on my phone, I have a folder dedicated specifically to
everything podcast-related. The ―system‖ is in how all of these come together. . .

. . . and enable me to do the work faster and better than if I hadn’t sat my ass down to
think it out when we first started.

As you’ll see, the beauty of this is that it makes work near-effortless. No drudge work.
Just the cool, FUN, creative stuff that builds your brain.

Pretty sweet, right? I think so. Because. . .

I’m Literally Paid

Just For Going Around

33
 and Having Cool Ideas!

You can see an overview of my ―creativity systems‖ below, in the folder on my phone:

And Here’s How it Works—Starting From the Top Left:

(Sorry about the Swedish naming.)

 Podcast Addict: The podcast client I use to make sure each episode is out on
iTunes.
 “Saker att undvika”: A checklist of reminders to help me avoid dumb mistakes.
 “1Podcast”: Our shared Dropbox folder where the episodes and editing is stored.
 “Podcast pacing”: The overview document for how we pace the episodes going

34
 forward.
 “Avsnittsidéer”: Ideas that may turn into future episodes & drafts.
 “Hela Avsnitt”: The tag I use once I finish a draft and feel the episode is ready to
broadcast.
 “Färdiga Avsnitt”: After we record an episode I file it as finished.
 “Fraser att säga i…”: This is where I jot down interesting things to say.
 “Headlines & copy för…‖: This is where I write the headlines and descriptions for
the episodes.

—And the remaining three shortcuts (only half-visible in the image above):

 ???: Secret.
 Podcast-idéer: Random ideas for the podcast.
 Podcast: Miscellaneous, non-specific information related to the podcast.

Nothing too Advanced, Right?

And that’s exactly what creativity-systems should be like: Simple.

They should be so darn simple that you don’t feel like you have to put in any effort other
than collecting the ideas.

That’s how you know you’re doing it right. I’m actually really proud over this one
because it lets me be just like Napoleon, with his compartmentalized mind, opening and
closing his different drawers at will.

But enough about me, let’s focus on you. . .

How Can You

Steal This System
And Use it For Your Work?

Because, if you can, chances are you’ll become much more productive.

Perhaps it would enable you to work part-time from your phone at some funky location
outside your office. Think about it. Seriously. If you really strained your brain, and came
up with some cool systems, maybe you could even make that full-time.

And that’s putting it mildly…

—So, take a moment to ponder the possibilities for you to directly steal this system.

...
...
...

35
If you can’t directly copy it, surely you can use some modified version of it.

If you really strain your brain, and give yourself a day or two to mull it over, you really
should be able to modify it to what you’re doing in some way6.

By the way: This is how I come up with most of my ideas, through creative combining
and associative thinking.

But I also have other ways to consistently increase my creativity through

commonplacing. More on that in section 5.

6
It’s not so hard. For example, let’s pretend you’re an investor. You can just modify it so that your work process
gets filtered like this: (1) Investment ideas. (2) Current investment analyses (3) Pending decision. (4) Done.

36
 How Commonplacing Allows You to
Harness Your Primitive Hoarding Instinct
Into a Potent Force of Productivity

I’m sitting out in the open and working on my laptop. It’s hot as hell today.

Makes me think about Rockefeller. He was probably sweating just as much as I am now
when he was inspecting his oil fields…

Do You Know the Secret Behind

John D. Rockefeller’s Success?

One of the main reasons he became successful was his unfailing consistency. Once he
had devised a system that worked, he would stick to it forever.

Rockefeller was a master at organization and compartmentalization; both in his own life
and in the business activities of Standard Oil.

To Mention Just a Few of His Systems:

1. His ledgers: Before becoming a businessman, Rockefeller was an

überaccountant, known for his talent and precision with numbers. From his late
teens, he started to meticulously track every expense and receipt in his personal

37
 life (and for Standard Oil, until its business activities grew too large for him to
oversee single-handedly).

2. The paper piles on his desk: In his mid-thirties or so, when Standard Oil grew
into a conglomerate, Rockefeller had to make the mental transition from that of a
maverick entrepreneur into a master-manager (A.K.A: ―Working on his system,
not inside of it‖). He started organizing the piles of paper on his desk so that the
papers on the left side were (1) decisions to mull over and on the right were (2)
decisions to be made. Both were ordered by degree of urgency.

3. His Red Book: All throughout his career Rockefeller carried a red book with him.
It was feared by those working under him, for it was a business journal detailing
his observations and conversations. He would tour Standard Oil’s facilities, quiet
as a mouse, recording everything of note in the red book. The red book kept sub-
par employees on their toes.

These methods for recording and storing information helped Rockefeller organize his
thinking, make faster and better decisions, and allowed him not to get bogged down in
minutae even as Standard Oil grew into THE WORLD’S LARGEST BUSINESS.

What kind of system would it make sense for you to create?

What would a system that helped you collect information to improve your work or
support one of your long-term projects look like?

In the meanwhile. . .

This Little-Known Tool Which is

Used By All the Best Creative Minds
Might Provide Inspiration to Get You Started. . .

The tool I’m referring to is known as a swipe file, and it is defined on Wikipedia as:

“a collection of tested and proven advertising and sales letters. Keeping a swipe file (templates) is
a common practice used by advertising copywriters and creative directors as a ready reference of
ideas for projects.”

For some stupid reason, very few people who are not well-known artists, movie
directors, or professional ad-men know what a swipe file is or how to use it.

This is a pity, because it’s an immensely useful practice for just about anyone,
regardless of what profession a person is in.

—And if you’re smart, you will draw inspiration from this when it comes to keeping your
commonplace and collecting information that scales over time

Some of the Usual Things Collected

38
 in a Swipe File Include the Following:

● The best work (or failures) of your peers.

● Images, artwork or other aspects of their work.
● Statistics of your industry.

. . . just to name a few things.

This is something ANYONE can do but almost NO ONE does.

I don’t know why.

It’s such an easy thing to do—plus it’s fun. Because:

It Turns Your Inner Collector from Foe to Friend

and Lets You Harness Your Otherwise Primitive
Hoarding Instinct into a Potent Force of Productivity

The question is: What information should you collect?

My suggestion is to collect information that:

1. Will help you excel faster at your craft.

2. You can draw inspiration from in your work.
3. Can scale over time and improve your baseline results.

This is REALLY important.

It takes a little time to figure out exactly what information you want to collect. But it really
makes a difference over time. And it’s fun!7

I would recommend you to take a break now for at least 5 minutes to just sit and think
about it, before you read on. Next I’ll give you some general suggestions about what
sort of information to collect. . .

7
Many people like to use the Evernote Clipper or OneNote Clipper for this specific purpose. You’ll find a link to
these in Bonus #1, in the recommended resources.

39
 ...
...
...

I made this separate page just to check up on you!

If you didn’t take that 5-minute break you need to ―check yo’self.‖

Remember. Collect information that:

(1) Will help you excel faster in your craft.

(2) You can draw inspiration from in your work.
(3) Can scale over time.

40
 Information That Scales + Commonplace
= Long-Term Success!

Let's pretend you're a soldier. . .

. . . an archer to be specific.

Now, you're on the battlefield, about to face the enemy. Just as the battle starts, you
reach for the quiver on your back. With great surprise, you realize that it's EMPTY!

What to do? You're not fit for a fight, so you run away.

After the combat is over and the dust has settled, your company notices you've
abandoned them. After some investigation, they realize you've deserted. Next thing you
know, you’re being court-marshalled. And you probably deserve it.

Who knows what's going to happen to you now?

"If only I'd been prepared... If only!”

Fortunately, You're Not in that Situation. . . Right Now

But maybe you will be.

Perhaps not in war, but in some other way. Like in business or with your health.

41
The best solution is always to be prepared in advance.

By being prepared, you can:

1. Prevent the potential problem from occurring, or;

2. Be in a position to capitalize on sudden opportunities.

The best way I know of doing this is by coming up with things, ideas, or information that
scale over time--and collecting them.

“But What Things or Info Scales Over Time?”

Since it’s highly individual—and based on career choice—what sort of information you
should collect to (1) excel faster in your craft, I’m not going to elaborate further. You
have to think it out yourself.

Ditto for (2) material that you can draw inspiration from in your work (with the exception
of collecting case studies, which is something everyone can and should do).

As for (3) information that scales over time, that’s more general, so. . .

Here Are 20+ Miscellaneous Suggestions of

Scalable Things That You May Want to Collect

In no particular order of priority:

1. Programming code, HTML scripts, widget stuff.

2. Quotes.
3. Books you’ve read and their summaries.
4. Notes or summaries8 from articles you read, lectures attended, or educational
videos watched.
5. Trivia and interesting facts9.
6. Ideas and things to experiment with for different parts of your life.
7. Miscellaneous musings (questions to ponder).
8. Jokes, stories, and anecdotes (your own or learned ones).
9. Locations to go to for different purposes (travel, food, dating, business meetings).
10. Travel info, maps, packing checklists.
11. Financial info (money made vs expenses).
12. Client- or work information. (highly useful for coaches or consultants).

8
When I read that Lee Kuan Yew (the Patriarch of Singapore) and his wife used to compare notes each night and
summarize what they had learned, I was impressed. Imagine how much that scales over a lifetime. No wonder
their partnership was one of the most successful in history.
9
If it makes you go, “hm, that’s pretty quirky” or “That’s a really weird and freaky fact, I wish someone else was
here so I could see how they react!”, well, then you should probably collect it!

42
13. Testimonials, favorable reviews, and media mentions of yourself or your work.
14. Interesting companies and people you’d like to work for or with.
15. Daily lessons (for yourself, for your craft, or for your company).
16. Mistakes made (analyze to find a root cause and prevent from happening again).
17. Different sorts of life data you’re tracking (calories, sleep, steps moved, etc).
Many of these can be automatically integrated with your computer or with
Evernote through the website IFTTT.
18. Sales arguments.
19. Historical antecedents or examples of some phenomenon or for a big idea.
20. Stuff you’re grateful for.
21. A decision log—where you compile all major decisions you take (and the thought
process that went into said decision).
22. A project analysis log—where you reflect on how the project went (what worked
well, what to avoid for next time you undertake a similar project.)

Yeah, I know. That’s a tall order. . . but guess what? That’s just a damn drop in the
ocean! Think about it. Over a lifetime, this is going to be worth millions for you.

MILLIONS!

And there are many more things that you can collect which scale than just these
suggestions. Just pick the top 3 most relevant ones and get started, friend!

—It will save you a lot of time over the long run.

Speaking of that…

Here Are 7 Examples of Things

For You to Collect That Will
Instantly Free up Your Time

My suggestion is that you create an information repository10 as a kind of ―catch-all― for

these things. Here are a few things you can keep inside it, just to get you started:

1) Recurring information, usernames, passwords11 etc..(stuff you want to be able to

locate immediately and just copy-paste)
2) Photo copy of your passport, VISA, and/or the information on it.
3) Contact information for people or companies.
4) Important dates to remember (possibly in connection with #3).
5) Errands and minor tasks you can stack and then group together on one day.
10
One thing you’ll want to have in your ”Information Repository” is a list of programs for your computer, your
most-used browser extensions, and similar things…in case your computer malfunctions and you quickly need to set
up a new one. I’ll explain how you can easily do in Bonus #8.
11
LastPass is a good free Internet addon for storing usernames and passwords in a safe and fast way.

43
 6) Music to download/buy.
7) Templates, packing lists, itineraries.
These are 7 highly general examples that just about anyone can use to immediately
free up extra time. But to make full use of this simple, but powerful, system you need to
adapt it specifically to your own life and work.

Note: if you’re going to keep important information like passwords, be sure to keep it
password protected. This is possible with both OneNote and Evernote.

But. . . the single most potent time-saver is located in the bonus section: the setup I use
for my phone for maximum productivity (including the commonplace systems I
frequently access on it).

I estimate that this one thing will let you free up an EXTRA 5-30 days per year!

In section 4 (which is the next one for you, IF you already have a commonplace) I’m
going to explain my main systems for learning. The way you learn is about to undergo a
real revolution. A paradigm shift of the highest order.

44
 How to Turn Your Long-Term Projects
Into Manageable Pieces and
Cut out the Crappy, Boring Parts!

A lot of the time, people know what to do. . .

. . . that is: They know what they should be doing, but aren’t for various reasons.12

Take long-term projects for example.

Most people dread long-term projects for their slowness and lack of consistent progress.
As you may know, the brain needs fast-paced feedback to stay highly motivated. More
so for some people than others, and so…

…when these people stop feeling that initial burst of motivation, they either quit or they
leave the project to be completed at some undefined point in the future (which means
never).

But what if there was some way to make it so that most—or even all—of the project
could be done in one or just a few periods of intense work?

Such a Way Exists—and it Has to Do With

12
Often homeostasis-related reasons.

45
 “Hijacking” Your Brain’s Pattern Recognition

What you do is simple: You divide a project up in as many separate pieces as possible.

Then you create corresponding sections/categories/documents in your commonplace

for this.

Then you trust your pattern recognition to collect all the information, tools, tasks, contact
info (or whatever your project entails) needed for its completion.

—Voilá. You’re done.

This might take a few weeks or months or possibly years (depending on the scope of
your projects), but once you’ve collected that stuff, there will be no need for interruptions
or stops in the project, allowing you to work more focused and finish it faster.

Here Are the Steps:

1. Think out all the separate parts you can subdivide your project into.
2. Create corresponding countermeasures inside your commonplace. (Consider
creating an ―Overview Document‖13)
3. Set-and-forget, while trusting your brain’s pattern recognition to find the info.
4. Go about your life. Take notes, pictures, write down ideas whenever they come
to you about the project.
5. Voilá. You now have enough material to finish the project in fewer sittings.

Note: If you’re an entrepreneur or manager, you may want to add a specific section for
things that can be outsourced or delegated.

And Here’s an Example of How I Subdivided

The Project of Gathering Content for My Book
Breaking Out Of Homeostasis (BOOH):

(These are different tags for collecting information inside of my Evernote

commonplace.)

(See image on next page.)

13
With a shortcut to your phone. More on this in section 4, about how to 10x your learning.

46
47
 Why Your Commonplace
Should Not Be a To-Do List
“Working on the right things is what makes knowledge work effective.”
—Peter Drucker

One of the most common mistakes people make—myself included—is to overestimate

how much they can accomplish in one day. And vice versa…

…most people underestimate how much they can accomplish in a month, a quarter, a
year, and over several years.

We’re Biased in Our Judgment of the Present

And We’re Also Bad at Future Projections

You know what this means?

It means that it’s a DUMB idea to go through life like most people do—not thinking
ahead, waking up in the morning without a plan for the day, going through the day in a
haphazard way, without rigor or routine, without any systems to scale their thinking and
actions over time…

. . . just going around in a STUPID circle, making meagre progress at life.

It’s Called the Planning Bias

48
Some people deal with it by becoming so-called ―productivity experts,‖ who create
complicated to-do lists that they manage over time to feel like they’re in control of the
situation. Others yet, manage to overcome planning bias by rendering it irrelevant.

I would put myself in the second category.

Complicated to-do lists lock you into a rigid schedule and make you close-minded.
When you’re close-minded you’re not thinking about opportunity cost and other things
you could invest your time into doing.

Commonplacing, on the other hand, OPENS UP your mind. Open-mindedness is a

prerequisite for prioritizing. When you’re able to consider multiple alternatives and
choose the best one, do you know what that makes you? Effective.

—I Want to Be Effective

However, I don’t care all that much about being efficient.

How about you?

Being effective = Identifying and choosing better ways to invest time.

Being efficient = becoming better and faster at completing some specific task.

(No one gives a shit even if you’re the grand champion of Plockepinn14.)

Who would you rather be: The general who can make the tough choice to lose a
combat—so that he can win the war; or the factory worker who can lift 20% more boxes
per hour than his co-workers?

Effectiveness Has Inherent Value;

Efficiency Does Not

Think about it this way: If you were the mayor of a town, would you rather have the best
fire department in the country, or a town where fires don’t even occur in the first place?

—You’d want to have town where fires don’t occur!

Because having a fire department is freaking EXPENSIVE.

Do you know how much it costs to keep all those big-ass fire trucks in tip-top condition
all-year round? And how expensive it is to train all of those fire-fighters? Or to pay them
14
A silly Swedish game where you place a bunch of sticks in a big pile, then each person removes one stick at a
time, and the person who makes the pile crumble (by removing a stick) loses.

49
to stay up all night? And so on….

If there were no fires to fight in the first place, you could invest all that money into
something productive instead.

Like planting beautiful trees all over town. This would increase morale. With increased
morale, town inhabitants would be happier. Happy people work better and make more
tax money for you—the mighty mayor—to invest. And so on…

See where I’m going with this?

You’ve created a synergistic system; a virtuous spiral that just keeps on giving, and
giving, and GIVING!

So, by the very same reasoning, you can see that:

When You Have the Right Type of

Commonplace Systems in Place
for Different Areas of Your Life
You Will Become More Effective

Look…

I may overestimate what I can accomplish in one day, but, more importantly, I do NOT
underestimate what I can accomplish over a longer time frame, given a consistent—
systematic—output.

One year from now, I’ll be working on some project that’s going to be 5x more valuable
than what I’m doing now. Meanwhile, the ―productivity expert‖ is going to be doing the
same thing as before, only 13,5% more efficiently.

This is Why Creating

The Ultimate Commonplace
Revolves Around Systems,
Not Complicated To-Do Lists

Building systems = investing into yourself.

Investing brings passive income. Passive income means you don’t need to do as much
drudge work. That means you have more free time to learn new things and have ideas.

Obsessing over to-do lists = stuck doing drudge work.

For as long as you’re not solving the root cause, you’ll be stuck doing the drudge work
befitting of a lowly peon. Are you a peon?

50
 Section 3:
Choosing Your Ideal
Medium and Method
for Commonplacing

51
One of the questions I get asked the most on the subject of commonplacing is ―Which
way, method, or tool should I use for my commonplace?”

—That’s like asking Warren Buffett: ―Which business should I start if I want to make
money and enjoy the process?”

There is no easy answer to either question. It’s individual and you’ll need to experiment
and find your own way. That being said…

The most important thing is simply that you start commonplacing—that you get into the
habit—and revise it as you go. Don’t over-complicate things before you’re settled in.

The following section contains a more detailed answer, which I hope will help you in
selecting a medium (or several) for commonplacing that suits you.

If this is a non-question for you, and you’re already comfortably established in your
commonplace practice, you may skip this section (and jump to page 65).

52
 Associative Use: a Valid Reason to Use Multiple
Mediums for Your Commonplace
Last evening, I walked into our living room in the Fortress and saw Oskar sitting in the
couch, busy working at something on his laptop.

I went to the refrigerator and took out a box with the salmon salad that our cook
prepared for us earlier that day. I put the food on a plate and warmed it up in the
microwave.

When Oskar saw what I was up to he removed his big red earphones and began telling
me about his new commonplace system, using the free program Simple Note on his
phone.

OSKAR: "You know what? This feels really good, to have a system that works and to
know where I have all my things. I feel much more relaxed now, mentally."

ME: ―Yeah, I told you, man!‖

OSKAR: "Yeah, but it's because now I feel like I’m really getting into Simple Note. I
finally feel like I have a good skeleton structure, does that make sense?"

ME: "For sure, I know the feeling, in my commonplace I….."

OSKAR: ―—But Evernote doesn’t work for me! It violates my sense of aesthetics. And I
can’t deal with multiple things, you know, images, different colors, and all that. I found I
can only deal with simple text and bullet points for some reason. I can’t handle too much
formatting options inside my commonplace. It stresses me out!‖

ME: "Good thing you found your own way to do it then."

OSKAR: "Now I'm on top of things.‖

Let Me Explain Oskar’s ADD-Influenced,

“Fragmented” Commonplace System

Shortly after we first met, I taught my friend (and nowadays business partner) Oskar
Faarkrog to keep a commonplace. Because of this, he is forever indebted to me.

He immediately started using an information repository for "copy-paste purposes" and

so that he wouldn't need to remember recurring information such as post number,
passwords, addresses, phone numbers, etc.... That saved him a lot of time.

Then he used it for university, and studying in general. Then he started using it for
article writing and content ideas for his websites. Then he started using it for keeping
information on his coaching clients. Eventually he was using it for a LOT of stuff.

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However, Oskar has pretty strong ADD, and because of this, he needs to be very
structured in order for him to be productive. If he doesn't have a very strict system, he'll
just do whatever he feels like at that moment. This is great for creative stuff, but it's not
good for scaling something long-term. . .

So, unlike me, Oskar cannot keep as big and powerful a commonplace—in one place—
because his brain can't keep track of a system once it goes over a certain size.

Still, Oskar understands the immense value of commonplacing as a general practice.

So he's taught himself to keep multiple systems, with each system based in a certain
medium, adhering to rules and principles that he's carefully thought out:

 Evernote for clipping articles or marketing stuff to study.

 OneNote for accessing routine information to save time.
 SimpleNote as his main system, which he keeps on the phone.

An Overview of Oskar’s Main

Categories from SimpleNote

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Knowing his brain, Oskar has decided on this ―fragmented‖ approach of using multiple
programs for his commonplace systems, to help him remember the whole of the
system.

The Two Steps That You Can Use

to Find Your Own Preferred Way of
Storing and Organizing Information

It’s typically easier to know what you’re bad at than knowing specifically what you’re
good at. Therefore, it may be easiest for most people to start at that end.

1) What are your weaknesses?

Come up with ways to compensate for them.

● Oskar has poor short-term memory, so he saves all routine information to avoid
having to remember it.
● I have a low baseline of natural creativity, so I have systems to store and
categorize my ideas, to make the most out of my creativity.
● Oskar is not good at handling a lot of complexity, so he uses multiple mediums.
● I can get a little “compulsive” (too consistent-sometimes to my detriment) in
following through once I devise a system, so it is important I make it simple and
scalable to begin with.

2) What are your strengths?

Develop systems to amplify your strengths.

● Oskar has a natural talent for ideation and reflection, so he uses daily lessons
and CSS (copy, study, steal) extensively.
● I have a natural talent for synthesis, so it makes sense for me to put time into
developing systems which help me store interesting ideas and fascinating trivia in
a way that scales over time to make it easier for me to combine them.
● Oskar is good at learning from feedback, so he experiments and rearranges
things a lot. He loves to use Daily Lessons for noting down his observations.
● I can handle a lot of complexity, so I keep everything in my Evernote system with
lots of interlinking between documents, so that I can ―surf‖ between them.

To Summarize:

1. Base your commonplace around your strengths and weaknesses.

2. Follow your natural inclinations. Don’t go against your genetics.
3. Commit to a system until it feels natural.

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 Which Type is Better:
a Physical or a “High-Tech” Commonplace?
That’s a Secondary Concern—
Just Having a Systematic Approach is #1

What You Can Learn From the

Unconventional Modus Operandi of
Super-Entrepreneur Aristotle Onassis:

“Wait for the night to come, and don’t celebrate until your thinking is done.”
—Aristotle Onassis

Aristotle Onassis, one of the first mediatized tycoons, said that the secret to success
was to know something that nobody else knows. As it turns out, this is not particularly
hard if you’re an autodidact who’s constantly thinking and learning new things.

Onassis and his family fled from Greece to Argentina during the Greco-Turkish war in
1922, then he got into the tobacco business, where he made lots of money for a young
man. He then used that money to get into the shipping industry and built one of the
largest fleets in the world. Though he went into many other areas of business, shipping
remained the linchpin of his business empire.

Onassis ended up a self-made billionaire, and the second man to own an airline
(Howard Hughes being the only other person to have done so) and…

He Didn’t Even Have a Regular Office!

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And this was before the ―computer age‖.

So, just how was Onassis able to do this and still stay on top on things? By keeping all
the information he needed organized neatly in a system of special notebooks.

By studying the greats of history, Onassis was able to create a sophisticated multi-
purpose commonplace system.

This allowed him to run his businesses—instead of the other way around—and live life
on his own terms.

He liked working from home, from strange remote locations (like night clubs) or from his
yacht’s library (which contained thousands of books).

As his business empire grew—and he became more of a manager and strategic

overseer—he began to place an increasing amount of importance on having autonomy
of mind. This may have been why he kept a purely physical commonplace:

1) To Increase Autonomy of Mind

2) And to Engage His Brain and Think More

When you engage with computers and smartphones, there’s a tendency to put yourself
in harm’s way by means of allowing for distractions—pop-ups, email, and alerts—to
occur. Not to mention easy access to the Internet and social media…

When you go all-physical, you prevent this from happening to you. You avoid useless
information. You avoid brain-dead entertainment. And in general, you avoid other things
that can interrupt or distract your ability to think independently.

But honestly, for how many people is it realistic to live without a computer and a
smartphone in today’s world? However,

Onassis Was Not Alone in Having

Applied an All-Physical Approach

Richard Branson also favors physical note-taking as his main information tool. For
decades now, he has kept a set of business journals.

Ted Turner does something similar. Munger and Buffett too. But it’s important to
remember that those guys were born (and built up their riches) a long time before
computers went mainstream.

Everyone is different, and so, there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

The most important thing is simply to have a commonplace system—to have a

consistent method for categorizing information and structuring your thoughts as they

57
come to you, allowing you to harness your mental and creative powers.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that there’s more than one sort of creativity.

—And though each sort may be said to be unique, they’re all double-edged swords:
each with their own individual strength and corresponding weaknesses. Rarely does
nature only add or subtract. The balance is there, if you look closely.

The creativity of one person is not necessarily ―better‖ or ―worse‖ than someone else’s.
Each sort, if channelled correctly and placed in an advantageous environment, has the
potential of leading to success15.

Regardless of What Type of Creativity You Have

The Absolute Most Important Thing is Simply
Having a System That You Can Stick to. . .

. . . a system that allows you to have a consistent creative output and manage the
different areas of your life.

You have to play to your strengths. Your commonplace system should facilitate this.

The type of ―raw creativity‖ associated with Aristotle Onassis and Richard Branson
typically needs organization; if not in the form of a sustainable system, then at least
when it comes to processing and putting the idea into a coherent shape.

Then there’s the sort of reflective creativity of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.
Those guys are naturally organized and systematic people, but due to the highly
complex and analytic nature of their work, they’ve needed to compress a lot of info into,
for example, checklist-type procedures.

Regardless of what type of creativity you have, you should know two things: first; that
you can improve your creativity with the right type of practice. And second: that

The More Creative And Organized You Are

The Less “Hard” Work You Need to Do

For success, you need both creativity and organization.

15
J.P Morgan, the entrepreneur-banker, is a noteworthy example. Morgan was an extremely intuitive decision-
maker, endowed with a high level of natural creativity. He was essentially the exact opposite of John. D.
Rockefeller.

While Rockefeller was highly analytical and liked to deliberate carefully over even small decisions, Morgan was
known for his quick-witted decisiveness; he would often make complicated business deals and large-scale
investment decisions in the blink of an eye. Because he had this unusual talent, he could close more deals than
probably any other big-time industrialist businessman of his day.

58
The key is to strike the right balance, given your natural inclinations and the business
you’re in.

The sooner you figure this out, the higher the quality of your ideas and thinking will
become.

This process of improvement is not linear, it’s lumpy and exponential. A few months or
years can correspond to a great deal of time saved and money earned in the future. So
it pays to create a commonplace system that works for you consistently.

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 A Quick Comparison Between
The Two Biggest and Best
Note-Taking Programs
The two biggest and best note-taking programs in my opinion are Evernote and
Windows OneNote. I have used both extensively over the past 4-something years for
my commonplace.

OneNote is designed by Microsoft to be a note-taking program. It is excellent for

learning and research purposes. It works intuitively and it is fast—until you have more
than 1000 notes. If you have a computer with Windows Office, you may already have it
―for free‖.

Evernote markets itself as "your external brain". This is good marketing on their part,
because the program is worse than OneNote at non-organizational stuff. Its learning
curve is longer and even when you know it, it’s less intuitive and elegant, but it’s more
effective and scales better.

Evernote vs OneNote:
How Do They Stack Up Against Each Other?

Here are the main benefits and drawbacks of each program, in my perceived order of
priority.

OneNote Pros:

● Fast learning curve. You can learn it in a day or two—and be settled and secure
with your commonplace practice within a week. Mainly because:
o You can visually alter the structure via drag-and-drop. When you create a
note you can change its position inside of the notebook. This allows you to
visually alter your own hierarchical structure by dragging the mouse. This
is a particularly useful function for people who are visually oriented or for
people who are not particularly technology-savvy.

● OneNote has an excellent ―auto-memory‖ feature which remembers your last

position inside notebooks, sections, and notes! If you only use a few documents,
then this function will save you a lot of time.
o (Evernote does not have this function at all.)

● OneNote’s Interface is more elegantly designed than Evernote’s.

OneNote Cons:

● Limited potential for scale. Among other reasons, because it gets very slow and
frequently requires extended loading time once you have a few thousand notes.

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 This ended up becoming the deal-breaker for me, causing me to migrate my
commonplace to Evernote instead.

● Search function is easy to use and good up until you have 1000 notes, then it
becomes worse.

 Does not sync too well with many phones, especially not phones older than 3-4
years. Works slightly better on iPhones than Androids.

 Poor integration with other software. Poor integration with email also.

 Horrible cloud service called Windows OneCloud (which did not work for me—
and many others over the Internet).

Evernote Pros:

● Has a lot more built-in potential for scale.

o Can be integrated with many other programs—most easily via IFTTT—to
created automated templates, save time, collect statistics, and probably
many more cool things in the future.
o Can be used for business in various ways (like recording receipts
automatically).
o Can be synced with email (send yourself an email to file it into your
commonplace). This too can be automated in clever ways.

● Syncs excellently with all phones. Seems to work slightly better on Android
phones than on iPhones for people who are not technology-savvy16.

● Excellent browser add-on called Evernote Clipper. I use it multiple times per day
for Copy-Study-Steal (CSS) purposes.

● Better search function and shortcuts, both of which become important for
organizational reasons once you have a few thousand notes.

● Evernote lets you share content more easily; both with people you're working
with (shared work notebooks + work chat) and over social media.

Evernote Cons:

● Longer learning curve. Can take several weeks to (a) learn how to fully utilize the
software and (b) come up with good, scalable, commonplace system. The long
learning curve is due to:
16
Due to Android phones ability to create folders on the screen and insert customized Evernote shortcuts;
something that I am not sure you can do on an iPhone, at least not without minor customization (you know how
those Apple people like to ―protect‖ their users).

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 ○ The (initially) non-friendly user interface, which—unlike OneNote—does
not allow for visual reorientation via drag-and-drop.
○ That Evernote relies more on memory, with its tagging hierarchies. This is
a pain at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s really the main benefit of
othe system.

● Evernote does not remember your last position inside large notes (always begins
at the top).

Still Undecided?
Here’s My Final Verdict:

If you have not used either of these software before, I suggest you use Evernote.

If you are over 40 and you don’t consider yourself particularly technology-savvy, then go
for OneNote.

Evernote is more cognizant and mentally demanding whereas OneNote is more visual
and intuitive.

Evernote is definitely the choice if you want non-stop access to your commonplace
system, via your phone. With OneNote, you may not even be able to access the system
over phone.

OneNote is not quite as powerful or customizable, but it’s much easier—works intuitively
and straight out of the box—while being almost as good as Evernote on computer.
However, it starts getting slow after you have 1000 notes. This becomes a big problem
when you’re a serious commonplacer.

I would say that OneNote is better for 90% of users (of the general population) but that
Evernote is probably the better choice for many of the people who are reading this.

Evernote is better for businesspeople, organizational freaks, and people who have a
HUGE information system.

—And I'm all three of those things.

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 On: Other Software for Commonplacing
“What About Other Note-Taking Apps and Productivity Software?”

Yes, there are many other programs that can be used for taking notes, creating to-do
lists, planning the week and doing other educational/productive-type stuff. But they’re
not interesting to us. There are two main reasons for this:

1) We’re looking to become commonplace masters. We want to speed up the

learning process, store and retrieve useful information, and create repeatable
systems which we can use to scale up our talents and so on...

2) We’re NOT looking to become ―productivity experts‖ (A.K.A sophisticated mental

masturbators).

Evernote and OneNote are the best programs for commonplacing because they let us
do #1 while lacking sufficient functionality to encourage us towards #2.

Remember what I said earlier. Systems, not to-do lists.

Be effective, not efficient.

Proactive, not reactive.

If you take the time to think up the right systems, you’ll not have to do complicated to-do
lists in the first place.

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 Wrapping it up: 6 Simple Guidelines for
Creating the Ultimate Commonplace
Creating a commonplace is one of the most important investment decisions you’ll make
in your life. If you do it the right way, it’ll grow in value and usefulness over time.

When you commit to creating a commonplace and furnishing it with material, the
process is similar to building a house: if the foundation is shaky, the house may come
crashing down when you build the second or third floor.

—And we don’t want that to happen.

It’s better to do it properly from the start.

By following these simple, but important, guidelines you will be able to create a
ROBUST commonplace:

1) Divide your life up in categories. Make these your commonplace sections, then
watch as your life improves over time… but first you have to consider how to best
do this. For the sake of comparison—and to make sure you’re not just going with
your first thought, which is rarely your best thought—come up with at least two
different ways you could do this.

2) Base your commonplace (and its future systems) around your strengths and
interests. It should be used to augment your strengths or supplement for your
weak sides (E.G, if you’ve got a bad memory, save all routine info and such for
easy access whenever you need it).

3) Keep it as simple as possible, otherwise you may lose motivation to use/play with
your commonplace. If it’s not fun, you’re doing it wrong. Practice makes perfect.

4) Decide on a consistent method for how you will name and categorize the
information you save, so that it will become easy for you to retrieve and use the
information you have stored whenever and wherever you want to access it later.

5) Mull over what a ―swipe file‖ for your craft would look like. What different aspects
of your craft can you collect for inspiration or practice? Figure it out, and then
create it in your commonplace.

6) Make a list of at least 3 things/types of information to collect that will scale over
time. (Like book summaries, checklists, best practices, copy-study-steal,
finances, daily lessons, and so on…)

Don’t half-ass this.

64
 Section 4:
How to 10x Your Learning by Using
These 8 Commonplace Systems

65
Equipped with these 8 commonplace systems for learning, it won’t take long until you’re
smarter than most. When you use them your brain is going to stay ON—in a state of
enraptured learning—longer than before. Don’t leave your learning to chance. Be
systematic about it.

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 How Commonplacing Makes You Smarter
Today I flew to Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon, as it used to be called), to be exact.

On the plane ride over here, I intended to read two chapters of a book. But that didn’t
happen. I got caught up in a long conversation that lasted all the way.

You see, I sat next to this large guy with a big brown beard. Also, he was missing a
finger—his right thumb, I think it was.

He looked like quite the character, as if he belonged in a medieval village as the token
blacksmith. So I got curious and started talking with him.

His name was Dave, and as it turned out, he wasn’t a blacksmith. He was a brew-
master. Close enough.

For the rest of the ride…

Dave Schooled Me On the

History of Beer & Breweries!

One thing of particular interest is the recent advent of craft beer, which currently—(as of
2016)—makes up something like 30% market share of the global beer market. That’s
huge, and I had no idea about this!

Did you know that?

When the plane landed Dave gave me his contact info and asked me to stop by at the
bar/company he’s a brew-master for. I said I’d email him and let him know a time I could
come this evening.

Now Here I Am, Writing This to You…

…while I’m waiting for Dave, who’s running a bit late.

―Have a beer and some food on me while you wait, mate.‖ He just told me.

Don’t mind if I do…

67
So while waiting, I figured I’d write on this section about learning. Starting with…

How Commonplacing Makes You Smarter

When you commonplace every day, it makes you much smarter than the average
person. Why? For the same reason that a person who does physical exercise or works
out his muscles will become stronger than someone who does not.

Commonplacing is a very effective way of giving your brain a mental workout because it
affects your brain in two beneficial ways: building neural pathways and focusing your
brain’s pattern recognition:

1) How Commonplacing Builds Neural Pathways in Your Brain

The #1 rule of thumb in neuroscience is that ―neurons that fire together wire together‖.

This means that whenever you think a thought, feel a feeling, or repeat some
experience it will trigger a corresponding neural pathway in your brain. The more it gets
activated, the stronger it becomes. Eventually it will fire by its own accord. This is how
habits and mindsets work.

When you are using your commonplace to think about some certain area of your life
over and over—starting with you creating different sections for each major part of your
life—you’ll form mental habits which direct your thinking.

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You’ll create ―shortcuts‖ in your brain for these areas, and this lets you have more and
better ideas about improving those areas.

2) How Commonplacing Focuses Your Brain’s Pattern Recognition

The brain has massive informational processing power (A.K.A the subconscious) but a
very limited attention span and ability to focus (A.K.A the conscious mind).

Your pattern recognition is what sets the limitations to what information you’re able to
notice and pay attention to on a daily basis.

When you start to commonplace about a new area you’re telling your brain, ―Hey brain,
let my pattern recognition notice these new things I want to learn about!‖

All (8) of the commonplace systems I’m gonna tell you about in this section are based
on the two aforementioned principles.

And that’s why they’ll speed up your learning when you do them. But before I go into
those systems, I want to tell you something about Napoleon.

69
 How to Organize Your Commonplace
So that it Boosts Your Productivity
And Speeds Up Your Learning
―ABSGM: Always Be Studying Great Men.‖

We can all learn a lot from Napoleon—like how he ran the army.

How to Play the Loser’s Game

What’s the loser’s game?

—It’s a term which refers to activities where the person who makes the fewest mistakes
typically ends up winning the game.

Napoleon knew a thing or two about this. If anyone, he was the master of checklists:

Make absolutely certain that each man has a pair of shoes on his feet and two in his
knapsack; that his pay is is up to date, and, if it isn’t, have arrears paid. Make sure that
each soldier has forty cartridges in his ammunition pouch….

This is characteristic of Napoleon. He is known for being a prolific letter-writer, and most

70
of the letters contained simple, checklist-type instructions such as this one.

If you’ve read some of his biographies, the authors—in their incompetence—tend to

refer to this as ―excessive micromanagement‖ on behalf of Napoleon. They are
mistaken, for…

Every Leader Knows the “Checklist Approach”

In fact, during the recording of each session of our podcast, Mikael Syding runs me
through several checklists to ensure that we do not make unnecessary mistakes.

But sometimes we (I) make mistakes anyway.

Now take this times a thousand—as in the case of leading a country, an army, or a
company—and you’ll see why checklists are essential.

It’s not micromanagement.

Nor is it about being overbearing.

It’s About Winning

And winners practice the art of risk-taking, while making a minimal amount of mistakes.

Google for ―Napoleon’s systems‖ and you’ll find. . . just about NOTHING!

—Fortunately, I’ve got your back. Here’s a genial system pioneered by Napoleon:

1. The Corps System. Napoleon, improving upon Frederick the Great, divided
soldiers into three classes: artillery, cavalry, and infantry. The Corps System
allowed Napoleon to speed up lines of communication and move faster than ever
before. This is why he could take on forces significantly larger than his own
and—consistently—beat the crap out of them17.

And here is one of my private checklist systems, inspired by studies of Napoleon:

2. Avoid not being able to capitalize on your victory. Alexander the Great
invented this strategic principle and… THIS is why Napoleon did not let loose the
Imperial Guard during the battle of Borodino (even though historians and
keyboard jockeys—without battle experience—call him crazy for not doing so).
Even if you do not fancy yourself a general, this is still an important general
principle for success.

Did Napoleon have more powerful systems to copy? You bet he did!
17
The Corps System is the reason Napoleon could envelop his (typically older) opponent generals into decisive
battles they did not want to fight. His speed and concentration of forces caught them by surprise.

71
I’m just scratching at the surface here—you’ll have to do your own studies.

Speaking of scratching, even though Napoleon was a genius, he actually did not invent
the Corps System from scratch. He got it from studying one of his predecessors.

Napoleon Took an Old, Forgotten Idea and

He Applied it with the Force it Deserved

Just like I am doing, at this very moment, with the idea of commonplacing.

Listen here, friend:

There are THOUSANDS of ancient, “undiscovered”, ideas out there.

But they’re only available to those who are diligent students.

You don’t find Intellectual gold by watching television. You have to study your lesson,
sharpen your eye for ideas, and drill down to the core…

The practice of commonplacing has made me good at analyzing things down to their
very core. And you can learn to do this too.

Step 1:

Study your lesson and keep a commonplace. Be consistent and get the habit down.

Step 2:

Collect cool ideas, models, systems, and make checklists.

Never read a quality book without first scouring its valuable information or models.

Remember how I mentioned earlier that the billionaire Aristotle Onassis said the secret
to success is knowing something no one else knows?

This is the fastest way to do that.

Step 3:

—File the idea.

Before long, you will have more organized and actionable knowledge than 100 people
put together. Then you can hire those people.

72
 8 Commonplacing Systems to
Speed Up Your Learning Like
a Car Running on Nitrous Oxide

Upon arriving in Saigon, it did not take me long to notice something that I thought was a
little bit funny.

You see, Saigon is ―the City of Copy-Cats‖.

I’m told it’s part of their culture. If you see a store owner who appears to be doing good
business selling motorbikes, you set up shop next door and do the exact same thing—
without any distinction or nuance whatsoever. Just copy them outright.

It is believed that some locations are ―auspicious‖. It’s basically a form of superstition,
which is very amusing from a western standpoint (what sane person would copy
someone whose success they ascribe to pure luck?)

This copying is especially prevalent among hotels. See here:

Then look at these two other hotels, which are located about a 5-minute walk further
down the very same street.

73
It looks almost like a franchise, except it’s not.

74
Well. . . copying is a great way to learn—and I use it plenty myself. In fact, I even have a
learning system in my commonplace devoted to this which I call ―Copy-Study-Steal‖. It
is the first of the 8 most important systems you want to keep in your commonplace for
learning purposes.

The 8 Main Systems to

Speed Up Your Learning Like
a Car Running on Nitrous Oxide:

1. CSS— Copy, study, steal.

2. Trivia
3. Note from [format]
4. Quotes
5. Person
6. Lists
7. Best Practices
8. Checklists

Depending on your career path and interests, one or multiple of these systems will be
much more relevant to you than the others. Personally, I use all of them regularly.

Let’s go through them now—starting with the first five. The last three I will go over in the
next section.

—1) CSS: Copy, Study, Steal

Copy, study, steal; it speaks for itself. Find inspiration by studying the greats in your
craft. Or from great people outside your industry, to expand your thinking.

Not only is CSS fun, but it also boosts your creativity over time.

Remember the swipe file I mentioned earlier? CSS follows a similar format.

Here’s a print screen over some CSS-sections from my commonplace in Evernote.

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I started out using only the CSS-system, but for areas which I am more interested in (or
have a financial incentive to delve more deeply into) I typically do more immersive
studies. That means I’ll typically break down the area into multiple sub-section, instead
of just one CSS.

I use the CSS category mostly for things which randomly grab my attention at some
point during the day. I enjoy doing this, because it’s often as easy as taking a picture
with my phone and filing it in my commonplace.

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Which areas of life do you typically find yourself inspired by, but forget to make a note
about for later?

These are areas you should consider putting into your own CSS category.

—2) Trivia
Human beings have special intrigue for the peculiar and the quirky. And I’m no different,
yet I am.

For example, did you know that General George Patton kept silver revolvers by his
waist? Or that the author Mark Twain had a cat that he loved dearly and once tried
lifting by the tail? Or that the business executive David Ogilvy had a habit of giving his
newly-minted managing officers Russian dolls?

The question is: Does it help you to know this?

It does and it doesn't.

It does when it is used for something—like making a point.

77
It doesn’t when I tell you these facts out of their natural context. But if I told you the back
story for each of those pieces of trivia, I’m quite sure you would find it not only insightful,
but also memorable and valuable.

It follows the famous axiom that knowledge is not power until it has been organized. . .

. . . which is the reason you should create a commonplace and put time into arranging it
into a way that is conducive to this fact. Like collecting information that scales over time.

For example. . .

If you're giving a speech, selling a product, or writing an article on leadership, branding,

discipline, then that piece of trivia about George Patton's revolver may come in handy.

Here are some of my most used trivia sections:

I think these are good ways to collect trivia in a scalable way. Maybe you can find an
even better way?

To give you a glimpse of what sort of stuff I might record into this, have a look here:

78
Maybe that doesn’t make any sense, but I collect these pieces of trivia mainly because
(1) it has associative value for helping me memorize some big idea, or (2) simply
because it grabs my curiosity for some reason. I have faith in my eye for ideas.

— 3) Notes from [Format]

These are notes I write from:

● Videos
● Articles
● Book summaries
● Lectures & presentations
● Trips or travels

My notes are summaries of the information. There are two reasons you should do this.

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First, because writing short summaries is the single most important thing for long-term
retention. It’s a tremendously helpful habit to acquire early in life.

Second: When you later remember the information and want to retrieve it, you can
simply access it, and use it for your intended means. It is neatly filed into your
commonplace library.

This is perhaps the easiest thing you can do to boost your learning. It baffles me that so
few people do it.

—4) Collect Quotes

Collecting quotes that resonate with you is an easy way to learn new ideas faster.
Stories too. Both are easy for the mind to latch onto and aid the memory process.

We learn mainly through observation, imitation, and association. Associative learning is

the reason we don’t remember things in isolation, but in context. Like with a quote.

So collect them!

—5) Collect Interesting People for Further Studies

Study successful people and learn from their successes and failures.

BONUS: Here’s a quick tip that combines both of the above:

1) Choose 3 smart people.

2) Read their wikiquote page.
3) Collect or transcribe the quotes that resonate.

This is usually the first thing I do after I find some historic/successful person whom I
think is interesting and want to learn more about.

_______________

Next up: The remaining three commonplace systems which will boost your learning like
a car running on nitrous oxide. Lists, best practices, and checklists.

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 The Top 3 Methods to Boost Your Learning,
Organize Information, and Kick More Ass
at Just about Everything You Do!

Like I told you before: Napoleon knew a thing or two about strategy, management, and
organization. And we can learn from him.

The reason he was able to master these—and more—fields of knowledge, was because
he was incredibly good at taking in large amounts of information and condensing it
down to its simplest, most actionable form.

How can you emulate this?

Start by practicing the top 3 methods to record information and boost learning:

1. Lists.
2. Best practices.
3. And checklists.

Let me explain how each of these work in more detail, starting with…

#1: Making Lists

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List-making is a small thing, but also a big deal.

Productive people make lists to stay organized and on top of things. This helps them
avoid unnecessary busywork and manage their time more efficiently.

If you’re not already in the habit of keeping some sort of lists, then you’re either not
working hard enough (and haven’t had the pressure on you to become better organized)
or you’re leaving a lot of ―free time‖ on the table by being reactive to the things that
come your way.

If you’re not already in the habit, it’ll make a huge difference in your life.

A few examples of lists you may want to keep in your commonplace:

● Books to read

● Articles to read

● Things to buy

● Great men to study

● Places to visit

● People for your minions to harass into submission and subordination

● Errands and minor tasks to procrastinate and bunch together

● Short-term priorities

● Longer-term priorities

—And so on… You get the point.

The simple act of making lists will force you to focus and tighten up your thinking.

IMPORTANT: It’s not about making the ―perfect‖ list; it’s about the process of training
your brain to think in a more organized manner.

This holds true for best practices and checklists too.

Just making the list probably represents something like 50% of the benefit!

(Read that last sentence one more time.)

#2: Creating Best Practices

Best practices are different from ―ordinary lists‖ in the sense that they require a bit more

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sophistication. In my opinion, best practices are lists that fulfil the following criteria:

● The information has been distilled from research.

● The information tends to be general and of an instructive nature.
● The information is distilled down to ―do‖ and ―avoid‖ to reach a specific outcome.

You can’t just make it up on the spot. It requires some reading and experimentation. By
yourself or by someone whose judgment you trust.

Examples of best practices:

● How to make a positive first and last impression

● How to get ripped and stay that way
● How to make more money
● How to develop wealth and protect it
● How to hire and retain good people for your business
● How to incentivize partners and affiliates
● How to have a productive day

As you see, the outcome is pre-set. But to acquire the information you need to create a
simple ―DO-and-AVOID-list‖ you will probably need to spend some time doing dedicated
research and then going through some trial-and-error.

Learning directly from masters, reading quality books18, studying history, and reviewing
past case studies tends to be the best ways to arrive at a series of best practices.

#3: Having Checklists in Place for Advanced Tasks

Checklists are hyper-actionable lists that are made only for the direct purpose of
achieving a chosen outcome.

Like going on a trip 3-day trip, shopping food for a week, making sure you go through all
the important clauses of a long and boring contract, going through a business’s
competitiveness relative to their closest industry peer, or installing a new technical
device in your home.

Whereas best practices are broader (and typically require practice and experience)
checklists give only the minimal amount of information to fulfil a certain task.

Like the food-placement system of the Oishi Group restaurant I showed you earlier,

18
If you do not have time to read regularly, there is an excellent application called Blinkist that you can use. It gives
you book summaries from thousands of books—and you can integrate it with your commonplace (if you use
Evernote). I use Blinkist for two purposes: 1) When I’m too immersed in a project to do any deep reading (because
my brain is hyper focused on actionable information, not qualitative studies) and 2) as a way to put together a list
of best practices quickly. I’ll explain exactly how I do this in bonus #1, the list of recommended resources.

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checklists should enable someone without expert knowledge to achieve the same result
as an expert (albeit more slowly) at a specific task.

Examples of checklists off the top of my head:

● Instructions to get to your home for a visitor coming from the airport.
● The guide for installing a new printer.
● How to diagnose and troubleshoot a [specific] technical problem.
● Questions to ask while conducting an interview with a specific type of employee.
● Mikael Syding’s financial checklist of ―8‖ essential checks before buying stocks
(or other financial assets, for that matter).19

Depending on your career choice and overall ambition in life, you may not need that
many checklist, other than for routine tasks to save time (like traveling, grocery
shopping, cleaning your apartment or clothes, international payments, etc.).

However…

If you want to become a high-level strategist, manager, or comprehensivist business

owner, then you will need lots and lots of checklists20. You will acquire them over the
years and use them as training wheels; first for yourself, then for your employees or
clients.

NOTE: Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Principles is probably the best example of checklists for
management. Definitely read it if this is something that you’re interested in (it’s free, you
can just search for it and download it as a pdf).

There is One Final Step to Perfect the System:

You Must Create Oversight Documents

This is like a TOC (table of contents) section in a book. I would suggest that you create
one of these oversight documents for each of your lists.

That is, a minimum of 3 oversight documents to keep track of future lists.

NOTE: If you’re only using your different lists for routine tasks every now and then, you
don’t need to create these oversight documents. This is only for serious players.

You can also create and keep these oversight documents for your long-term projects
(for me: BOOH, TUCS, 25 Min, etc) and your business systems (if you’re an
entrepreneur/owner/manager).

19
You can read the full checklist here. I strongly recommend you copy-paste the whole thing into your
commonplace. That info is worth many, many, thousands of dollars. Imagine the BRUTAL amount of trial and error
(time and “learning money”) you’d need to invest before stumbling randomly on these principles.
20
If/when you do this, it will become important that you divide your checklists into different categories.

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It may be overwhelming to create more than 1-3 overview documents to begin with, but
just keep this in mind for later when your commonplace starts growing, to keep it in
check (plus it becomes extremely useful for adding as Evernote shortcuts to your
phone).

The Structure I Use Inside My

Best Practices Overview Document

For my own oversight document concerning my best practices, I have four categories
under which I keep bullet-pointed links to the lists. They are:

1. New—to remember to categorize correctly and add a link to the document.

2. Currently practicing—to help me focus on practicing the stuff that’s urgent.
3. Practice in 6-12 months—self-explanatory.
4. To practice in future—best practices of things that may come in use or become
relevant once I reach some specific point in the future.

If you don’t create a similar method it will eventually become hard for you to keep track
of your lists as they grow in number. You will struggle with (1) knowing when to use
them and (2) being able to use them fast when needed.

When You Become More Advanced

You Can Study and Implement More Systems
To Create Oversight Documents For:

Like my cognitive biases oversight document. Here’s what its beginning looks like:

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As you may notice, each point is interlinked to its own best practice document pertaining
to that particular bias. I use the alternating colors to make it easier to skim.

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 The Easiest Way to Learn:
Directly From a Master!
"Ask them originals, cuz’ they know…”
--Nate Dogg, Oh No

I figured it’s about time I learn how to swim.

…Well, I obviously already know how to swim, it’s just that I suck at it. I’ve been a poor
swimmer all my life. So I thought it’d be fun to become better at it.

But I also have another reason. You see,

I’ve Been in Thailand

For Over a Month
And I Can Now Feel That
The Effect of Novelty is
Disappearing Rapidly!

Do you know what that means?

—It means that my baseline level of motivation is about to get lower.

Unless I do something about it!

The reason this is happening is because I’m now almost entirely acclimatized to this
environment.

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Up to this point my brain was steadily pumping out dopamine as a result of
encountering a new environment and learning how to deal with new situations.

Habituation is a Fact of Life

And an important one at that, because it equates to the plateaus of the learning
process.

You have to always keep this in mind when you’re coping with new challenges or
learning new skills. Most people don’t’—and that’s why most people quit at…well,
almost everything.

Here’s How to Deal With it in 3 Steps:

1. Understand that when you’re learning a new skill, you will make quick progress
(A.K.A ―newbie gains‖) for maximum a few weeks and that this gives you an
initial boost of motivation.

2. Once that initial period is over your progress will slow down and you’ll be less
―naturally‖ motivated.

3. To deal with this, you want to figure out the fundamental ―dos‖ and ―don’ts‖ and
practice them with intensity.

In other words: to ensure continued motivation and consistent progress, you want to
have a list of best practices in place by the time your newbie gains stop.

We already went over how best practices work and how you do it…and to create such a
list you have to do your research, right? Not necessarily…

If you already know someone who’s a master at this particular thing, then just ask that
person for their advice.

This is Exactly What I Did with Swimming

As of writing this, I’ve managed to swim more laps each and every time I practice (and
I’ve been swimming every day for the past 10 days).

My first day I could only do 8 laps, now I can do 24 laps. I don’t try to max out, I just go
for small steady improvements each day, to make the motivational effect of newbie
gains last as long as I can by keeping myself in a winner effect of breaking records.

However, I know that this is unlikely to hold for more than 2-3 more weeks, so I decided
to enlist the help of a master…

I asked my friend, Mike Siarkowski—who’s been swimming for over 10 years and is just

88
under Olympic level skill—to teach me the fundamentals of swimming, so I could make
a list of best practices to practice.

See for yourself:

―Hey Mike!!‖

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[Continued on the next page.]

90
 (Note: This is why it’s imperative that you have a network of masters and
successful people from different industries and realms of life. You can just for ask
their help and it’ll save you a lot of time and painstaking trial and error in coming
up with your own best practices.)

I then compiled—and simplified—Mike’s advice into a simple checklist of things to

practice. Then I made a shortcut for it in Evernote and put it in the "Best Practices" file
on my cell phone. The list looks like this:

● Use kicks for counter-balancing pull, not propulsion.

● Use arms for propulsion, mainly.
● Use larger muscles groups for arm movement, not arms directly.
● Focus on relaxing body and having steady breathing.
● Focus on technique over brute strength.
○ (Do the first 10 laps focusing on proper technique and
get into a state of relaxation, then just maintain that
while focusing on body.)

Nothing fancy or complicated. Just the fundamentals.

I will now look over this document before each of my daily swimming sessions, to prime
my brain to pay attention to these things and learn faster. This should keep up my
continual improvement past the initial newbie gains.

[Fast Forward to One Month Later. . .]

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So, did it work?

—It sure did.

One month later I’d done more than 100 laps.

When I told Mike about it, he was impressed.

Such is the power of creating and consistently adhering to best practices.

Your Homework:

Next time you’re learning a new skill or entering a new field of expertise, do the
following:

1. Just get started. Gain motivation from newbie gains for a week or two.

2. Create a document of best practices. To do this, enlist the help of a master you
know or do the research yourself.21

3. Review your list of best practices before each time you practice the new skill.

21
Or use Blinkist. See Bonus 1.

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 Section 5:
How to Raise Your Creativity
and Turn Your Commonplace
into a Spawning Pool of
Valuable Insights and Ideas

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Creativity and synthesis—that’s what the ancient practice of keeping a commonplace
book was originally about. I’m going to build on that in this section, but before we begin:

Would You Agree With the Following Statements?

● The productivity of my work depends heavily on me knowing what to do next.

● The quality of my thinking is correlated with the value of the work I can produce.
● The more creative I am the less "drudge-work" I have to do.

If so, then the methods you’ll learn in this section will be worth plenty to you.

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 Creativity Tip #1:
The Secret of Synthesis:
How to Explode With
Creativity & Inspiration

New ideas come out of nowhere.

Like an intuitive insight.

There’s a way to increase the consistency with which you get these intuitive insights,
and I like to compare it to that of a bomb:

First You Light the Fuse, Then You Wait for it to Explode!

But before you can do that, you have to first build that bomb. And bombs aren’t that
easy to come by.

So how do you build the bomb? First you have to gather the material.

The way to do this is to be learning a lot of new things regularly. You know, by doing
stuff like reading good books, listening to educational podcasts, spending time with
intelligent and interesting people, and working hard towards your goals.

When you do these things, it serves as building blocks for your subconscious to
synthesize into ideas. It’s not an effortless process. It takes good habits.

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Let’s assume you’re already doing this. Now then…

How Do You Light the Fuse?

Once you have enough building blocks in place for your figurative bomb to be
considered complete—and ready to explode—all you need to do is light the fuse.

But there’s a caveat: This is not under your direct control.

You can’t control exactly where or when the fuse will be lit. It is going to happen
eventually, and you can influence it to a certain extent, but there will always a certain
delay between your intent and the event.

Also Keep in Mind That the Explosion is a Chain-Reaction

Eventually, you have some experience which acts as a catalyst.

This is how the fuse gets lit.

BOOM. Intuitive insight!

Let me summarize what has happened up to this point:

● You gathered lots of material, but the bomb remains incomplete.

● Eventually you have enough material in place and you reach a critical mass.
● A random experience acts as a catalyst for lighting the fuse.
● The bomb explodes, chain-reaction style, and you get an ―intuitive insight‖.

Do you see why I put citation marks around intuitive insight?

Because, it’s not a very intuitive process, is it now?

The chain-reaction is triggered by association (99% old information vs 1% new

information from current experience in your immediate environment). This is the
inspiration of the intuitive insight.

To achieve synthesis and have that mental explosion go off, you must first have
internalized a lot of material.

This is the “Secret of Synthesis”

If you watched me on a typical day, chances are you would not be particularly
impressed. You wouldn't see me sitting in an armchair coming up with one cool idea
after another.

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Actually, you might see me sitting in an armchair. I like armchairs.

. . . But, the point is: It takes some work to increase the speed and consistency with
which you explode with inspired thoughts and innovative ideas.

This is why, if you watched me on a typical day, you’d probably see me reading some
book or communicating with some smart person. This pays off over time, so on some
days I will have great ideas.

Again, let’s assume you’re also doing this.

Last But Not Least

You Also Need a Creative
Outlet to Explode Onto

You need to do something.

You need a creative medium—whether that's writing, painting, programming, or

whatever you do for a living. . .

An activity that you can engage in consistently, which puts you in flow state and allows
you to tap into your subconscious to speed up the process of synthesis.

Many of the greatest artists are just people who take extreme measures to make their
lives inspired. They are creative because they make creativity a priority in their lives.

They experiment, fine-tune, and micromanage their days obsessively for new ways of
improving their creativity.

You also need a creative process to help raise the consistency and potency of your
creative moments.

My Creative Process in 5 Steps

1. Gathering raw material and making observations22.

2. Go through the material and strain your brain to see the connections.
3. Stop thinking. Let your subconscious mind work on the problem. Use your
creative medium. Relax. Go to the gym. Meditate. Run. (Or whatever else might
put you in flow state).
4. Eventually, you will get "inspired". It happens suddenly. And, just like that, you
will arrive at an answer to your problem, or have a new idea.
5. Put your idea to work…

22
(if you’re doing something business-related, I find that it helps to gather and compile plenty of case studies of
previous successes/failures and analyze them)

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 This is How I Do Much of My
Essay-Writing and Decision-Making

To an outside observer it would probably look chaotic, as if I'm spending 80 % of my

time piecing together a seemingly incoherent puzzle. But there’s a very deliberate
method to my madness.

For writing essays, I’ll have lots of topics that I keep track of in my commonplace—
Around 5-20 at any given time—which I sporadically add to a little each day as I find
new information. Similar to the way I cook up my best practices. Eventually, I reach a
point of critical mass where I get that ―eureka moment,‖ and synthesis kicks in. This
allows me to put it all together with relative ease.

For making decisions—especially important long-term strategic decisions—I use a

similar approach, only that I rely more on my best practices and checklists for accurate
thinking. This helps steer my thinking in the right direction and make sure that I, for
example, consider multiple alternatives and put my focus on the things that matter most
in making the decision.

Anyway, the bottom line is this:

Without Commonplacing,
My Process Wouldn’t Be
Nearly as Good as it is!

My thinking would be more muddled and I would be less creative.

I obviously can't keep a hundred things in my head at all times. No one can. The
conscious mind is limited to 4-11 bits of information per second.

So keep in mind that the mind is not made for keeping things in mind. (Pun intended).

—It's made for having ideas.

That’s why you want to use your commonplace for chronicling this process. And for
storing and collecting different ideas to which you add your thoughts, insights, or
random observations every now and then. Not only does this add up to synthesis, but
over the long-term, it’ll make you a more creative and inspired person.

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 Creativity Tip #2:
How Commonplacing Helps
To Saturate Your Mind
With the Idea or the Problem
“Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.”
—Thomas Edison

There are two potent psychological tricks that underlie the efficiency of commonplacing
when it comes to increasing synthesis (and thus creativity). They are:

1. Commitment
2. Punishment/reward

Let’s start with commitment.

***

Commitment.

To invest into your own idea; this is one of the most important things for becoming more
creative and doing high quality knowledge work.

The esteemed computer scientist Richard Hamming was asked by a young man how he
had been able to become such a creative thinker and how he’d been able to solve so
many tough problems. Hamming replied:

99
 “You saturate your subconscious with the problem.
You don’t let your subconscious get much else. “

Meaning: You have to put some serious effort into gathering the material for your
―bomb,‖ and not half-ass it like most people do.

But, to be specific:

Just What Does it Mean to

“Saturate Your Subconscious”
With the Problem?

It means that you reach the critical mass of psychological commitment whereby your
brain registers the problem (or idea) and starts working on it without your conscious
effort. In other words, to induce the process of synthesis.

Learning how to do this consistently makes a HUGE difference over time.

When Hamming first became a researcher he was friends with another guy in the same
department. The friend was a very smart guy and had plenty of natural talent as a
thinker. But he never really cared about his research and did not ―take his work home
with him‖.

For the friend, when the working day was over, so was his work. He’d go home and
watch TV or play the guitar. He never ―saturated his subconscious with the problem‖.

That loser.

Over the next couple of years, Hamming, despite having less innate talent, surpassed
the friend with ease and their friendship eventually fell apart as a natural result of their
different levels of ambition.

Let’s assume you’re not a slacker (like Hamming’s friend). How do you know you’re
doing it ―the right way‖? How do you know when your subconscious is ―saturated‖?

The answer is: When you find yourself thinking automatically and having ideas about X.

Eventually—as your subconscious synthesizes the information—you will just wake up

one day and, BOOM, a solution dawns on you from nowhere. It happens all the time
once you become good at it. It’s pretty sweet.

The Key is Emotional Commitment

Unless you commit to finding a solution—unless you saturate your mind with the
problem—you’re not gonna find one. You have to give a shit (two or three shits,
preferably) about what you’re doing.

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 This is the Reason it’s Important
That You Work With Something
You Genuinely Care About

Because it puts your brain to work more consistently.

If you have inherent interest for an idea or a topic, then you’re likely to think about the
thing around the clock, which is exactly what you want.

Henry Ford said that he knew of no happy man who did not take his work home with
him, but that most of the miserable men he met were amateurs and idlers. I can only
agree with this observation.

You want to be consumed by what you do. That’s when you do your best ideation and
creative work. The Einsteins and Teslas of history were not products of shallow thinking.

You Know Who This Would Never Work for?

The dullards who can’t wait to finish their work for the day so that they can watch TV
and project themselves into pretend reality.

Those losers.

When you do that, you’re signalling to your brain that YOU DON’T GIVE A SHIT
ABOUT YOUR PROBLEM.

And so, because you’re failing to gain that emotional commitment from yourself, your
brain is not going to start working behind the scenes to start to synthesize a solution to
your problems.

Most people have a highly dysfunctional relationship with their brain.

They’re giving their brain conflicting signals all the time, so it gets confused.

They fail to generate that upfront commitment required to get their brain on-board with
their ideas and intentions. The result is that their brain does not ―trust‖ them—and so it
doesn’t want to expend the energy to do what needs to be done or break out of its
homeostasis.

Like a successful business person told me recently: People just don’t try hard enough.

There’s a reason Steve Jobs liked to fast, go on long contemplative walks, and do deep
meditation. He had a lot of problems that needed to be solved and he had to force
himself to think hard on them, without giving his brain conflicting signals.

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 That’s Great Ludvig, How Can I Start Committing Right NOW?

By creating a commonplacing system you’re making a respectable commitment.

Second: as you get in the habit of writing things down regularly as you have ideas,
you’re well on your way.

Those two things are in my opinion by FAR the most important. So just:

1. Create a commonplace system for the themes in your life that you most regularly
think about and have ideas around and…
2. Continue using it. Make a conscious effort to gather material around the ideas or
problems you want to find a solution to.

Eventually, you will get this down to the point where it’s completely natural and
seamless. You are then done with the hard part—and it’s going to pay off for you for the
rest of your life!

Step #2: Start Thinking in Terms of Reward and Punishment

Behavioral conditioning.

Incentive or disincentive.

What you reward you get more of; what you punish, you get less of.

This is a well-established scientific fact, and even if you don’t trust science on this, you
can be sure to trust your own experience.

The reason many people (myself included) did not enjoy school is because it tends to
disincentivize or punish original ideas, creativity, and initiative-taking.

And here’s another thing to consider: Humans developed the prefrontal cortex (PFC) so
that we—unlike other animals—could adapt to changing environments and new
situations by learning new things.

So let it be established: Human have evolved to learn things all throughout life.

Now ask yourself: Why then, is it that most people don’t really like to learn new things or
think much past their teens or mid-twenties?

I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about most people.

Could it be because they’ve consistently been punished for such conduct over more
than a decade? Maybe.

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 The Bottom Line is This:
You Want to Reward Yourself for Being in a Creative Mood
And Incentivize Your Brain to Get Ideas More Consistently

The reward = Acting on the inspiration.

This means doing the thing while it’s fresh in mind. It can be as easy as writing down
the idea in your commonplace (if that’s the pragmatic thing to do, as it usually is) 23.

The incentive = Making it as easy as possible to do this so that your brain doesn’t
procrastinate or rationalize it.

Hence, you want to put some time into organizing your commonplace in such a way that
it’s easy and seamless to note down the idea and file it where you can easily find it later.

When you start doing this, what you will find is that. . .

The More You Write Down Your Ideas

And the More You Act On Inspiration
The More of it You Will Have!

It’s really as simple as that.

So start writing down your ideas in an organized way, and it’ll pay off.

23
My rule of thumb is to act on inspiration or execute on an idea if it takes less than 5 minutes to do so.
Otherwise I will write down the idea in my commonplace and file it where it belongs.

103
 Creativity Tip #3:
Start Keeping Lists
To Inspire Curiosity

Sometimes the dumbest ideas can make you rich. Like wrestling.

…and I mean the fake sort of wrestling; not Olympic wresting.

Who, in their rightful mind, could come up with the idea that millions of people would
pay big bucks to watch grown men in leotards and weird clothing play pretend fighting?

I find it laughable. But, between you and me, this is no laughing matter, for:

Wrestling is Now a
Billion-Dollar Industry!

It’s good business. Very good business. It’s basically in a state of monopoly…

…which is exactly why Ted Turner wanted to be in the wrestling business years ago. He
was smart enough to see its future financial potential. But, unfortunately for him, he lost
the fight for monopoly.

Anyway: How do you even get the idea to begin with?

Before something’s already big and popular it’s hard to know that it’s going to catch on.

Before something’s already been done, it’s hard to imagine.

This applies just as well to sophisticated scientific ideas (like teleportation) as it does to
mind-bogglingly simple ideas (like wrestling).

104
You may be wondering why I’m even bringing this up. Well, I have my reasons.

They’re just very secret.

But do you really need a reason if something is inherently interesting to you? I think not.

If something makes you curious, then you want to reinforce that. So when I think up
weird stuff like this, I want to ―reward‖ my brain for having the thought. In this particular
case, I do so by collecting thoughts like this in a list of ―Musings‖ in my commonplace.

I mentioned earlier—in sections 2 & 4—how keeping lists makes you more organized.
And how collecting information that can be used later scales over time. Those are two
nice benefits of lists: organization and cumulative impact.

But There Are At Least

3 More Benefits to Keeping Lists:

1. Lists help you build commitment for activating your subconscious mind.
2. Lists make you more curious.
3. Lists make you more mentally resourceful. Create one and you want to finish it.

This is an excellent way of practicing your pattern recognition.

For these reasons, I enjoy making lists.

You know what else I like to do?

I Like to Collect Tough Questions

How do you think up the idea of wrestling as a business?

What is the maximum amount of tobacco companies that could exist?

Why did key-chains become popular?

Why do women wear bags and not backpacks?

Could the Germans have won World War 2?24

These are the sort of interesting musings I collect, because they make me curious.

Curiosity provides the motivation to THINK MORE and be more creative and inspired.
24
History is a good source for boosting curiosity. It’s full of weird and unlikely things that DID happen.

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Both of which are things I want. Therefore, I like to be puzzled.

I like it when I can’t immediately answer a question or continue a train of thought,

because it provides the impetus for me to improve.

People sometimes wonder how I can be so motivated to learn new stuff all the time.
This is partly how.

I try to keep myself curious by feeding my brain with weird musings that I do not fully
understand.

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 Creativity Tip #4:
Creative Combining
“They talk about it, we all about it
They making plans, we sit and counting
Our cheddar stack is like a mountain”
—Nate Dogg, Running Your Mouth

I started practicing Twitter as a 30-day experiment and I’m about 10 days into it now.

Today, I woke up feeling not very creative. But I still have to write some Tweets
(because frequency is the most proven metric behind Twitter success).

Most people will quit what they’re doing when they’re not feeling inspired or creative.
Not me. I know how to get over that. For example, by using:

Creative Combining and Associative Thinking

Step 1—ask: Who do I know that’s super creative?

How about Kanye West?

I am now looking at Kanye West’s Twitter account to see how he does his thing.

I see he’s promoting his new album. I think he’s trolling (?) Mark Zuckerberg and Larry
Page for financing to get attention. O.K… I’m not doing that.

But wait—here’s something I can use: He writes a ton of tweets in a row, like a
monologue. I will use that to experiment with.

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But before I do that I want to combine it with some other rogue element.

Since I’m already on the topic of Hip Hop, let’s run with that…

What’s one of the most interesting and original rap songs I can think of?

...
...
...

—‖10 Crack Commandments,‖ by Notorious B.I.G.

Yeah, that one’s pretty cool.

Now then, let the experiment begin:

What Do We Get
When We Combine
Kanye’s Multi-Tweet Strategy
With Biggie’s Creative Lyricism?

Are you curious?

You should be.

Because I don’t even know yet how I’m going to combine these two random ideas.

But I do know one thing: This is often how I get my most interesting ideas.

(But it’s also how I get some of my worst ideas.25)

I don’t know which one it’ll be yet.

I’m going for a walk now to let my subconscious mull this over. By the time I’m back I
will have a plan for what to do.

[7:02 PM]

I know what to do now. This is going to be funny.

Now I’m going to budget 10 minutes to write out these tweets. BRB…
25
Like that time in university when I had a guy on Fiverr photoshop an image with Huge Jackman (as Wolverine)
spiking L’Oreal products on his claws for a “serious” case presentation. I thought it was awesome, but my class and
the company representatives didn’t get it. It goes without saying that I did not win the case competition.

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[7:14 PM]

Behold Ludvig’s 11 Success Commandments

In reverse order—starting from the bottom:

The result?

Those tweets got on average 800 impressions apiece. One got a lot more. Anyway,
that’s not the point. The point is simply that:

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 The Show Must Go On…

And it doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

Just find a way to circumvent the excuses and put in the daily quota of creative work,
even when you don’t feel like it.

I find that it’s typically small things like this that separate the winners from the losers.

You either execute or you sell yourself on an excuse.

I’m going to stop writing now. For, you see, I’ve hit my writing quota for today

I’ll return to finish this section in two more weeks when the 30-experiment has ended. I
will then unveil the results of my Twitter practice.

...
...
[About two weeks later]

Have a look at my Twitter Analytics account and see what fruit my practice has borne:

Maybe this is not impressive to you, but I am satisfied because I’m pretty bad at Twitter.

At the end of the day, it’s all about the small gains.

Like Bruce Lee once said, make one definite move towards your goal each day.

110
 You Can’t Schedule Creativity
in Your Calendar, But…
You Can Prepare Yourself for it

Even if you put in ―be creative‖ in the time slot between 8 AM-11:30 AM in tomorrow’s
calendar, that still doesn’t ensure that you’ll be creative during that time.

—But guess what?

That doesn’t matter if—and only if—you set up your life in such a way that you can
reliable act on inspiration whenever it strikes, allowing you to capture the master strokes
of your intuitive insights during that imperative moment of initial inspiration…

You know: that ―eureka-moment,‖ which is so hard to describe later.

At Times Like This,

I Find It Invaluable to:

(1) Have a creative process that works.

(2) Have ways to capture all of your intuitive insights immediately into your
commonplace and file them in appropriate sections.
(3) And to have gotten yourself to a point in life where you have the freedom to
violate your schedule to prioritize your creativity or inspiration on those days
when you feel that it is particularly potent.

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Because I have all of these things, today I was able to…

Wake Up & Pound Out

14 Hours of Uninterrupted,
Highly Creative Qualitative Work!

I live for days like this.

But I would never have predicted that this would happen if you had asked me yesterday.

In fact, I even made a rigorous schedule for today—a schedule I ended up VIOLATING
completely. But I don't regret it one bit, because I know that…

Creativity Doesn't Pour Out on Schedule

So, When it Finally Does Arrive,
You Have to Make Maximum Use of it!

The amount of work I produced today would probably have taken me several days to
do, given my normal daily output.

Because I have structured my life and work in a robust way so that I don’t necessarily
have to follow a rigid schedule every day, I am able to capitalize on my creativity when it
does arrive. I had planned ahead, like Maugham.

—If I hadn’t, I probably would not have been able to capitalize on this window of
inspiration, and this day would not have been as productive or as fun as it has been.

This takes me to the 5th creativity tip—which is like a summary conclusion of all the
things I’ve previously told you in this section—having systems in place for ensuring a
baseline level of creative output.

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 Creativity Tip #5:
Having Systems for
Ensuring a Baseline
Level of Creative Output

Today I was exceptionally tired, but I still got a surprising amount of stuff done.

I read 30 pages of a book (~80 min), revised two podcast episode drafts (1h), met with a
potential sponsor for the podcast (~4h), set up a date for Friday (~10 min, yes, I have a
system for this too), worked out and swam (~1h), ate a meal with Oskar and his
girlfriend (~1h).

The reason I was able to do all these things despite being low energy was because
there was zero decision-anxiety involved, and so I spent a minimum of dead-time lost in
confusion. This allowed me to be effective.

I Was Effective Because I Already Had

Systems and Procedures in Place
Inside of My Commonplace

—Like my podcast systems, my information systems, my weekly planner, etc…

This allowed me to focus all of my (limited) energy on doing the stuff that matters most.
Without having to waste brain space on the small tasks that accompany these important
things.

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 You Need Systems to Ensure
Consistent Baseline of Activity

It could be going to the gym a set number of times per week.

It could be a daily meditation.

It could be forcing yourself to practice swimming or Twitter every day.

It could be writing a minimum quota of words before allowing yourself to stop.

It could be a note-taking system for assimilating new information.

It could be writing book summaries.

It could be making lists.

It could be _____________.

Shit, you get the point…

4 Years Ago I Was

Nowhere as Creative
As I am Today!

Like many people, I then had a serious case of scarcity-mindset-meets-magic-pill-

mentality, and it was not uncommon for me to think: “If only I had a good idea, then I
would…”

Hehe. Yeah. The key words being: ―If only…‖

But it doesn’t work that way.

I was the sort of guy who’d think himself entitled to a 50% stake in a company just for
having the idea to start it.

But it doesn’t work that way either…

When you don’t know how to get into a creative mood consistently, and you’re not
having a lot of good ideas, NOTHING is harder than to scrutinize, cut, or improve upon
your ideas. So you overvalue them greatly. The painter who paints his first painting
thinks it’s perfect.

But Now I Know Better

Now I know that it’s about practicing your brain so that it becomes conducive to having
ideas, in general.

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First become a conduit of creativity and inspiration. Then you’ll have valuable ideas on
the regular. 26

It's not about having that ―one big idea‖—it's about putting together a process that
allows you to ideas consistently. A creative process.

So use your commonplace to do that.

In addition to the various commonplace systems I’ve recommended thus far (which all
help you become better at thinking or in one way or the other help you avoid thinking
about small stuff) you should also experiment with things like:

 Rituals.
 Habits.
 Work processes.
 And other methods which can reliably be used to raise creativity.

26
Last week I came up with a business idea having to do with royalty fees and trademark regulations. This
particular idea—provided that it is viable—would require about 2-3 months of initial work to get going. Then it will
yield a decent amount of recurring cash flow which might be possible to scale. So I came up with an experiment to
prove the idea wrong (or right). This experiment cost me only about $300 and in about 2 months I will know with
high certainty whether the idea is viable or not.

Just two years ago I would not have been able to have an idea like this. Much less construct a minimum viable
experiment based on my assumptions, and execute on it so fast. If it were just a few years ago, my associative
knowledge and pattern recognition would have skipped over the information (which I got as an inspired thought
during my studies of a big tycoon).

115
 Section 6:
How to Use Your Commonplace to
Set Your Personal Development
On Semi-Automation and Ensure Your
Continued Progress and Prosperity in Life

116
I view commonplacing as a tool for shaping my brain; like a mental exercise regimen.
After you reading this section, you’ll see why.

You’ll see the systems I use to set my self-development on semi-automation. How does
it work? By ensuring that I am always engaging in self-reflection on a daily basis.

This, in turn, ensures that I consistently learn a few key insights—about myself, about
business, about life—every day. I then review these insights every month, quarter, and
year. Obviously, it adds up. It’s pretty cool. You’ll see.

To set it up requires some thinking and effort on your part (unless you use my exact
approach—which I don’t necessarily recommend) but once you’ve done that, it’s
basically set-and-forget!

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 How to Learn Something New Every Day and
Think with More Structure and Clarity

I learn something new every day.

Why? It’s because I’ve primed my brain to look for certain things and process my
experience each day in a specific manner.

This ensures that I become better, smarter, and wiser for every day that goes by, even if
just by a little bit.

My bank of information grows each and every day in a near-effortless manner. Almost
like the interest rate you gain from having money in the bank.

Would you like to know how?

It has to do with self-reflection…

Every Smart Person is Not a Writer, but

Just About Every Smart Person Writes…

Why? Because writing forces you to structure your thoughts into coherency. And, over
time, this makes you smarter.

If you do not write regularly, your thoughts will play on repeat. Your creativity gets
clogged up and your thinking becomes muddled.

118
It’s like driving a car with busted tires, when you could just pull out some spares from
the trunk.

Writing is free and available to everyone, and yet. . .

Many People Will Prefer Electric Shocks

And Even Pay Money to Avoid Having to Think!

Only the baddest of the bad keep a commonplace.

And here’s something else that’s cool.

Commonplacing teaches you to think in terms of hierarchies and categories; both of

which help you become better at focusing and prioritizing when making decisions.

For example, let’s say you get it in your head that you want to make more money.
Instead of going around in circles like most people, you’ll have trained yourself to
instinctively start off your thinking like this:

You could:

● Charge for a complete solution, not per hour.

● Charge a higher price.
● Create a new product or service or an up-sell or a cross-sell.
● Get more clients/customers.
● Get better customers.
● Put all your focus into the top 10% best customers.

…and so on.

By thinking this way it becomes easier and faster for you to find the information you
need, do what needs to be done, and to make those aforementioned bushels of money.

So start writing. A little bit every day. I’ll show you how to do it in an easy way soon.

119
 Are You Stuck in the “Catch-22”
of Self-Development and Success?

Here’s a riddle for you:

What is Not Taught in School

and Becomes Increasingly Hard to Do
When You’re Stuck in the Rat Race?

The answer? Self-reflection.

It is my observation that unless a person forms the habit of introspection and

contemplation at a reasonably early age, then frequent self-reflection is unlikely to take
place…

…and without self-reflection, there can be no course-correction, for there will be no

conception of a definite course of action to take. Because you can’t have course-
correction without a goal. And you won’t have a goal unless you have some
understanding of what you’re internally motivated towards.

Without self-reflection, you’re just winging it at life.

Most people appear to be doing this—and the results are not too promising.

I would rather seek to emulate someone like Maugham, who lived a life of his own
design, and took immediate action to course-correct whenever he felt himself going
astray from his path.

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I am not endowed with the seer-like metacognition of Maugham, but I can do my best to
practice. So that’s what I do. I’ve done it for years now…

I have learned that:

Intelligence is Less
of an Indicator of Success
Than Metacognition is

I’ve met and known many people who are perfectly intelligent and rational. Yet, many of
those people totally lacked direction in life. It’s like they were given a sports car but they
don’t know where to drive it. So they leave it in the garage, where it gathers dust.

It’s a total waste. Very sad to behold.

Always when I meet these people, I am reminded of the importance of internal

motivation.

You can have all the intelligence imaginable and the best genetics in the world, but
without the guts, the gumption, and the intent to act—it’s not worth much.

“I’ve got a lot of potential…”

—says John Doe.

Yeah. Unrealized potential.

Potential is a funny word—because it doesn’t mean shit.

People who talk like John Doe suck at life. They’re some of the worst people. Stuck
indefinitely in the ―Catch-22 of self-development‖. Homeostasis dwellers for life.

You Know What’s Funny?

Setting Goals

Everyone ―knows‖ it’s a good thing to have goals…but why is it that so few people
actually, seriously, set goals?

Surely, you’ve heard that statistic that only about 5% (or whatever the number is, it’s
low) of the population keep a written record of their goals.

Well, how about we take that one step further:

What Percentage of the Population

Do You Think Keep a Commonplace?
1%…?

121
 0,1%…?
0,01%…?

I have no idea.

It’s probably even less.

Anyway: Why do you think it is that so few people do it, even though ―everyone‖ knows
it’s a good thing?

I’ll tell you why:

It’s Because It’s Very Hard

to Make Up Your Mind And Be Decisive
When You Spend the Rest of the Year
Being a Mentally Lazy Bum-Ass
Who Tries to Think as Little as Possible!

And that is why I think that even though goal-setting is the easiest things in the world—
on paper and in theory—it has become something of a long-lost, arcane ability in the
modern world. Something only winners do.

You can Google up the fanciest goal-setting templates and follow the latest trendy
method for setting ―Big Hairy Audacious Goals‖ (or whatever buzz terminology is
currently thrown around), and it’s still not going to compensate for a lack of
decisiveness.

Nothing will. For as Napoleon once noted:

“Nothing is more precious than to [be able to] decide.”

Goal-setting is—or rather, should be—a natural process that springs up from your
ambition to do cool things that…well, you want to do.

Why you want that? Who knows. Just do it. It’s part of your ambition.

But here’s the thing: it’s impossible to know what you want unless you pause to reflect
on it, even if only momentarily, every now and again.

Here’s what goal-setting looks like to me. It’s real simple:

—And the reason it’s simple to me is because I THINK every day, I make up my mind
every day, I work on stuff in my commonplacing every day, noting down daily lessons,
making observations, learning from my mistakes and so on…

122
 My Goal-Setting Process is a Natural By-Product of
All the Thinking and Self-Reflection I Do on a Daily Basis.

It’s easy to have clarity of mind and know what you want to do when you’re in the habit
of constantly writing out your thoughts, observing your behavior, and paying attention to
how you respond to different situations.

The best way I’ve found for doing this is to do daily lessons.

123
 Crucial Course-Correction Tip:
4 Systems to Learn from Mistakes!
“I never make the same mistakes,
movin’ with a change of pace…”
—Nas, One Mic

I find that there are two crucial differences between the winners and the losers in life.

1. Winners find ways to get more work done. Both in doing work more effectively
and in working longer hours. Losers are not concerned with getting stuff done
and strive only to minimize work.

2. Winners seek to extract the maximum amount of learning from the mistakes they
make. First they dwell on the mistake and the emotional pain which comes from
screwing up. Then they make a plan for avoiding that same mistake again in the
future. Losers don’t even want to acknowledge they made a mistake.

Well, me and Oskar, we consider ourselves to be winners.

That’s why we’re sitting in the back of this bus, getting work done even when we’re
traveling (while the other passengers have their eyes glued to their iPhones, looking at
cute cats and blooper videos).

That’s also why we make a deliberate attempt at analyzing what went wrong when we
screw up in any major way…

Let Me Tell You About

Some of My Most Recent
Embarrassing Screw-Ups

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First, on the island Koh Samed, I got severely food poisoned. The cost? About 4 days of
intense suffering and lost productivity. Obviously, I couldn’t predict this would happen to
me, but you know what? I now take personal hygiene and cleanliness a lot more
seriously. I read up on foods to avoid and various tips to follow, I ask Oskar for his
advice on the matter, and I made some best practices.

Second, also on Koh Samed, I temporarily lost my wallet (but recovered it). This made
me realize that I was not fully prepared for its loss. While I already have a ―copy-
paste/Information Repository‖ in my commonplace, it did not contain the contact
information to all the necessary authorities (such as the ones on the island). I learned
that I should make a list of those and include them in my standard travel document
before departure. Gotta be prepared.

The third mistake I made was not only extremely stupid, but also embarrassing and
potentially dangerous. To print out a copy of my passport and VISA, I used a semi-
public computer—and FORGOT to log out!

Nothing bad happened. Because I don’t make a habit of sharing secret information (like
passwords, business ideas, etc.) over email. Still, it was super-duper dumb to open up
the possibility of having some crazy psychopath snoop around my inbox. I went against
my principles out of convenience. It makes me nauseous to think about.

For Each of These Mistakes,

I Made Corresponding Adjustments
Inside My Commonplace

I noted down my thought process in my Daily Lessons (which you’ll see soon) and also
made best practices and checklists to avoid these things from happening to me again.

I probably will not need to return often to look over those lists in the future, but simply by
making them, I now remember most of the information in a useful and coherently
organized manner.

You might be thinking, ―Ugh, why bother?‖

Fair enough. That’s a valid argument. But… let me remind you of three things:

1) Just about every successful person I’ve met has had highly evolved
metacognition (ability to course-correct).
2) It’s foolish to trust your short-term memory when dealing with important matters.
3) The way to success is not found via verification, but by process of elimination….

…it’s like that story about the guy who supposedly said, ―That poor fellow Edison, he
wasted years of his life doing a thousand experiments on the light bulb, without getting
anything for it..!‖ Whereas Edison—who had made up his mind that he was going to

125
find a solution, no matter what—saw it as being 1000 experiments closer to his goal.
After all, he knew all the different things that didn’t work, the mistakes to avoid.

That story may or may not be true, but its moral is lost on most people.

Here Are 4 Different Commonplace Systems

You Can Use to Improve Your Course-Correction
by Means of Analysis (Especially Your Mistakes):

1. Keeping a log of major decisions (before and after).27

2. Keeping a list over all significant mistakes you make and how to fix them.
3. Keeping a log of all major projects where you analyze how it went afterwards.
4. Using some form of Daily Lessons and including a part about mistakes.

It’s enough to use just one of these systems.

If you want to use more than one, that’s cool, but it’s crucial you pick one of them that
you stick to over the long-term. I use both #3 and #4 (as you’ll see in the next few
chapters).

Now that you know the two most important things about course-correction—self-
reflection and learning from mistakes—you’re ready to see the system I use to put my
self-development on semi-automation.

27
Two possible modifications of this one include:

a) For scientists—keeping a log over all experiments, their results, and your conclusions.

b) For marketers—keeping a log over split-tests.

126
 Daily Lessons:
The Easiest Way to Ensure Continued Progress
(and the Most-Used System in My Commonplace)

As you know, I’m a big believer in identifying and applying ideas, tips or methods that
will help me gain a consistent advantage, however small that advantage is.

When you add many of these ―small things‖ that consistently work, you generate scale.

Over time, that adds up to a massive compound effect. Next thing you know, strangers
are asking you for advice and newbies want to know what the big secret to your
success is. But….

There is No “One” Big Success Secret

If there was one, it would actually be the opposite: That there are hundreds of small
secrets that—when practiced and combined consistently over time—make for
miraculous results.

Most people never get it. Probably because all they do is watch TV.

This takes me to the premier self-reflection system: Daily Lessons.

The beauty of Daily Lessons is that it makes the process of writing every day simple.
And when you’re writing, self-reflection tends to happen almost automatically.

So why is it that almost no one does it regularly?

127
I’ve taught a few of my friends and close associates to do daily lessons. All of them
have reacted similarly.

When they see how simple it is, how little time and effort it takes, and how much they
gain from doing it, they all start doing it. A week later, they tell me:

“Man, this is great, I can’t believe I didn’t think about this before. I’m discovering all
sorts of fascinating things about myself. And what’s more, I find myself thinking and
reflecting more in general. I realized I’m not running my business as I want to.
Probably because I’ve been too bogged up in the daily operations, and….”

And Here Are 5 Good Reasons

Why Daily Lessons RULE
and You’d Be a FOOL
for Not Doing Them

1. Learning & retention. By summarizing the events of the day your memory
improves dramatically and you will retain information much better (hence why I
call it a learning tip too).

2. Clarity. Writing things out and expressing your thoughts on a regular basis
creates order in your mind. You avoid pent-up psychological stress and do not
dwell on B.S problems as much.

3. Strength-finder. I first read Peter Drucker’s short book Managing Oneself when I
was 20 or 21. The book is on a similar note as this one—equipping knowledge
workers with the tools to become successful. In that booklet, Drucker
emphasizes the importance of actively identifying your strengths and
weaknesses through feedback analysis. Daily lessons is the best medium for
practicing this. (Trust me: I know. I’ve tried many types of journaling.)

4. Continuity. Another psychological reason why doing daily lessons is good for you
is because it provides a sense of continuity. (Most people get it from watching TV
shows like Seinfeld, Friends, Simpsons, etc…)

5. Self-reflection & metacognition. They both improve through practice—and daily

lessons is the best way to practice it that I’ve found so far.

So, now you understand why I stress the importance of daily lessons when it comes to
ascending your personal development.

Here’s How I Personally Use Daily Lessons

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The way I do it now, is with an automated template28.

The template gets created at 5 AM every morning and it is fully synced to both my
computer and my phone. I will then go into this document in my commonplace and put
in my most important thoughts, successes, mistakes, and ideas throughout the day.

The template contains different themes. I have chosen these themes because—after
having done a lot of experimentation—I have found that these themes help me process
my experience and improve my thinking in a consistent and scalable way.

I will occasionally change the template—if I feel that the process starts to (1) feel stale
and boring or (2) that I need to alter my mental practices in some way—but usually the
change is minimal; I typically just modify one of my main themes.

The main themes I use are:

● Top 3 takeaways from today. This helps me practice my ability to prioritize

information and it ensures that I always learn 3 important things every day.
● Reflection. What would I do differently if _______ ?29
● Successes / Mistakes. Highlights and downfalls to put into context.
● Practice. Mental reminder to practice a habit, a mindset, or some skill.
● Gratitude. What I felt grateful for that day.
● Remember #1 + Remember #2. These are important reminders of different
sorts—like flash cards—to see every day. Usually for things that are particularly
tricky to internalize. Sometimes I’ll put my goals here for daily repetition, but
usually only when they’re new.

And here’s what this looks like IRL (as I fill it out sporadically throughout the day).

[See image on next page]

28
I use IFTTT integration to create it. You can do it w/ both Evernote and OneNote. I’ll show you the step-by-step
instructions for how to do this in the bonus section.
29
This often leads to planning the next day. Try it out and you’ll see. (I use small physical notes for planning the
next day; never my commonplace).

129
130
And here are the reminders—(which I change or remove whenever they stop feeling
important or urgent to me)—in the bottom:

131
And I can easily access all of them for every day of the year. They are listed in
chronological order:

O.K…

So, as you can see:

The Whole Point of Doing the Daily Lessons

is in Teaching Your Brain To Process Information

132
 and Think in a Certain Way—That Augments Your Life!

It’s a powerful practice; the mental equivalent of punching a board 10,000 times/day.

When you do this, it gives order to your mind and equips you with a laser focus.

I could write a hundred pages about how simple (but powerful) Daily Lessons are—and
it still wouldn’t be enough. So, I’ll just say it one final time:

You Absolutely MUST Do Daily Lessons

Because it’s the One Single Easiest Thing
You Can Do to Improve Life Quality and
Become More Successful at Anything You Do

—It’s the #1 thing you can do to consistently improve your metacognition and self-
development. And you can do it every day, with minimal effort. (At least if you choose to
use my automated template approach30.)

Next up: How to scale this up several notches further…!

30
Available in the Bonus section. Highly recommended and 100% free. The setup is fast too.

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 How to Build a Scalable Self-Reflection System
That Never Stops Yielding Valuable Insights!
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
—Juvenal

So, if doing Daily Lessons is even half as important as I say it is, then, naturally31, the
next step—(after you’re already firmly in the habit of recording your Daily Lessons)—is
to use that as the foundation for building a more sophisticated system.

You will be able to use this system for things such as:

● Comprehensive—but still quick—oversight of your thoughts, ideas, and self-

improvement over an extended time-frame. Which clearly leads to. . .

● . . .a natural, near-effortless, and efficient goal-setting. This is the result of seeing

the large-scale patterns of your personal development. And this leads to. . .

● Better mental organization and clearer thinking.

Now then, you crazy little kid you,

Here’s How You Take Things to the Next Level:

Once you got the Daily Lesson habit down smooth, you can do something similar each
week, month, (quarter), and year.
31
Think 80/20. Build on strengths: Do more or try to expand on that which is already working well!

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This is very easy to do if you use the same template-system that I’m using, because
then:

1. All the documents will be created automatically.

2. They will be put where you want them in your commonplace (organized
according to the category of your preference).
3. You will have easy oversight (at least with Evernote and Onenote).
4. And it will sync to both computer and phone.

Then all you have to do is attend to those documents every week, month, and year.

If your memory is poor, you can set a reminder using an app on your phone, Google
Alerts (or inside Evernote).

Now You Will Need to Do Some Thinking of Your Own

You are free to use my templates (which you’ll see in a moment), but I suspect it might
be better if you take a moment to do some serious thinking, and ask yourself: Just what
is it that I’m interesting in doing here?

You want it to be scalable over time. So ponder this:

● What metrics or information do you want to observe or measure over time?

● What type of lessons learned do you want to record over time?
● What info will help you set big-time goals more easily, if recorded regularly?
● And, will you realistically want to stick to this procedure?

—If it’s not as simple as possible, you probably won’t stick to it.

So, pay extra attention to simplicity in the beginning, before you ―set-and-forget‖.

A Brief Chronology of My Experience with These Systems

I started with a slightly different version of my Daily Lessons for each week. I called it
Weekly Summary.

It was a good idea—in theory—but after 2 months I realized it wasn’t worth it for me. It
always felt like a hassle, and even after I did it, I didn’t feel it was particularly important.
My opportunity cost was palpable.

—So, I stopped doing it.

But you may still want to use some variation of it. Take a moment to consider if there’s
something that would be useful for you to summarize, review, or collect on a weekly
basis by reviewing your Daily Lessons.

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Next we have my Monthly Overview, which continues to be super useful.

The Purpose of My Monthly Overview

is to Filter Down the Major Takeaways
From All the Daily Lessons During That Month

And some other useful data/statistics—like my daily computer usage (via RescueTime)
and how many steps I’ve taken each day (via Lifelog). Things like that32…

Here’s what my empty template looks like (yes, you’ll get this one too):

32
Once some reliable technology which allows for consistent measuring of sleep quality is developed, it will be
added to my system.

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Obviously, you will want to do some thinking here too. What’s the purpose? What would
be useful for you to summarize/monitor on a monthly basis? Include those things.

Finally, We Have My Yearly Reflections

The thought process behind Yearly Reflections is to look over each of the Monthly
Overview documents and so as to provide oversight of the past year.

It’s pretty self-explanatory.

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[See the rest on the next page.]

138
139
And at the end comes the ―hard‖ part:

I said it before, but it’s worth saying again:

If You’re Doing Daily Lessons

(And Monthly Overviews, etc.) Then
Goal-Setting Becomes Instinctive!

It starts to happen pretty much by itself, as a natural reaction of subjecting yourself to

continual feedback and adjusting your thinking and behavior accordingly33.

So, sorry, there will be no template or fancy system for goal-setting.

If you don’t know what you want, then you’re not thinking and reflecting enough.

Why aren’t you thinking and reflecting enough? Who knows.

Here’s the Hierarchy of My Self-Reflection System:

 Daily Lessons = Records daily experiences into specific categories.

 Weekly Summaries = Summarizes the last 7 Daily Lessons (if needed).
 Monthly Overview = Provides an overview of the weekly summaries or the Daily
Lessons, and then
 Yearly Reflection = Detects the macro patterns of the micro actions.

33
Most people don’t do even nearly as much “feedback analysis” as they should. This prevents their brains from
working optimally, and their goal-setting ability gets screwed up.

An extreme example of this is academic professors (or armchair philosophers in general), who harbor crazy
theories which are in dire contradiction to the real world. ….but they still believe in their own B.S (without testing
it) because confirmation bias screens out ideas that challenge their beloved notions.

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 How to Modify the Scalable
Self-Reflection System
For Business or for a Hobby

That’s right, you can also use this system—if you just modify it slightly—for business or
for a hobby34. And it can yield excellent results!

Just a warning: I’ve found that it takes too much time and mental bandwidth to use this
system for both self-development and business (or more things, like a hobby).

Personally, I put ―everything‖ in my Daily Lessons, and I feel like I’m getting (almost) all
the benefits, while still not feeling that this is a drain of my time in any way (which I did
feel when making two separate systems).

Here’s an Example of What

Your Modified “Daily Lessons”
Might Look Like, When Adapted
for Business or for a Hobby:

[See images on next page]

34
—You can create a template using IFTTT for this too, just like for the daily/weekly/monthly/yearly ones.

To do this, simply modify the templates I’ve provided in the bonus section.

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If you like this idea, but you don’t want to do it every day, why not do it weekly?

Even if you ―just‖ do this weekly—and we presume that you ―only‖ learn 1 new thing per
week—by year’s end, you’ll still be at least 62 steps ahead of everyone else…

…because most people don’t do this sort of thing!

(Those poor cretins rely purely on short-term memory. Foolishly trusting their brain to
internalize information all on its own, unaware of its inherent laziness.)

And, at most, you’ll be several HUNDRED steps ahead of everyone else, with the
lessons you learn each and every day. At years end, you can sit and summarize these
lessons you’ve learned along the way.

When You Commit to Doing This

Every Day, Week, Month, Quarter
(or Whatever Time Period Suits You,
as Long as You Do it Consistently)

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 You’re Bound to Pick Out Lots of
Valuable Gems at Year’s End!

Your continued progress is virtually guaranteed.

Imagine looking over your treasure trove of yearly insights five years from now. Ten
years from now. Eventually, nothing will elude your wisdom.

Don’t leave your personal development to chance, like most people do!

As you can see, there’s nothing revolutionary whatsoever about this system, but. . .

It Scales Like Crazy over Time

And Almost No One Does it!

It’s not even hard to do!

It’s just a matter of getting started.

Once you’ve settled into it, you’ll get hooked and just continue, like all my friends have.

Soon it’ll be a habit and you won’t think about it.

So start doing some kind of Daily Lessons right now.

Congratulations!

You just put your continued progress and prosperity on semi-automation.

You’ll look back on it as one of the best moves of your life.

Now pat yourself on the back. You’ve earned it.

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 How to Become Better at Prioritizing
The Most Important Tasks and
Doing Your Weekly Planning
In a Way That’s Near-Effortless

In the end of section 2 (about creating a robust commonplace and becoming more
effective), do you remember how I said that I, like most people, tend of overestimate
what I can accomplish in one day?

Well, now I’m gonna show you my solution for mitigating that problem.

I have found that it doesn’t do me much good to make (actionable) plans further than
one week in advance (with the exception of scheduling in future meetings or events).

You may be different –in which case you can just modify the upcoming template slightly.

The purpose of planning your week in advance—at least for me—is mainly good for
three reasons, in descending order of importance:

1. Prioritizing your time to make sure you’re allocating it to the most important
things.
2. Priming your brain for these things, so that you do the work better than you
would have otherwise.
3. Committing yourself to get this shit handled, thereby increasing the chances
that you actually will do the deed.

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Most important of these three reasons is—by far—to prioritize properly in how you
manage your time. I think I’m usually relatively good at doing this. You know, waking up
in the morning, knowing that “This ONE thing is THE thing that I need to do today.”

But sometimes, especially over the past few months, as a result of having increased my
obligations and becoming involved in several large projects, I have had to tighten up my
ability to prioritize further35.

Point being:

I Think the Most Important Reason

Why You Should Plan Your Week
is to Achieve Clarity of Purpose…

Sometimes I feel that way without having to do any planning whatsoever. When I feel
that way, I don’t go through the hassle of planning my week. So, my approach is
relatively intuitive. I use this system as a back-up to ensure consistency.

Obviously, you know yourself better than I do, but I think that if you can’t do this
intuitively, you should practice like crazy—consistently, every week—until it becomes a
natural mindset. Because…

It’s Super Important to Become

Good at Prioritizing Your Time

It’s your most precious resource. You can make more money. Not so with time.

No great leader or decision-maker rose to recognition and riches without becoming

excellent at prioritizing their time. Some of them had it naturally, like J.P Morgan.
Others—like Charles Munger36— have had to devise clever methods for managing their
time to ensure that they’re able to prioritize correctly.

35
It’s much easier when you’re just working on one project at a time. Managing multiple projects is not something
worth striving for in itself, nor is it something I advocate or recommend. But sometimes you just gotta pounce on
the opportunity when it presents itself…

Even Napoleon, arguably one of history’s best “multi-taskers”, admitted that the single biggest mistake he made
was in stretching his focus (and resources) too thin. Like during the war in Portugal and Spain. Or in maintaining
garrisons and forts all over Europe. While at the same time being forced into the disastrous war against Russia.
36
To score a meeting with Munger is not easy. Before meeting Munger you must first report to his assistant the
nature of the meeting. If it passes her filters, Charlie will look it over himself and it may or may not qualify as
important enough. If it does, you must submit a careful agenda of what is to be discussed and the specific
objective you wish to achieve by having the meeting. This is then looked over one more time. Finally, if it qualifies
as important, you must be there ahead of time, you must keep to the agenda strictly, and you must end no later
than the agreed upon time.

145
Having said all that, here’s my Weekly Planner template:

[Continued on next page…]

146
And so it goes, until Sunday, at which point it’s time to plan the week again. (This
template is set to be created in my commonplace automatically every Saturday night.
You can find the link to this template in the Bonus #2.

A Final Reminder:

Don’t confuse your commonplace with a sophisticated to-do system…

Yes, productivity stuff is useful. But only up to a certain degree.

As long as you know what the #1 task is to complete each day, and you have a decent
idea about what you’ll do in the coming week, you’ve already reached 80% of your
potential as a ―productivity expert‖—and in a very short period of time.

The rest of the time should be spent on learning new fascinating things and trying to
innovate yourself out of the box of drudge work. That is, becoming more effective.

When you know that you’re effective, you can do fun stuff without feeling guilty. Like
taking the afternoon off to read about Napoleon.

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 A New Day for You & Your Friends to Celebrate
“A sympathy with great men ennobles us.”
—Baltasar Gracian

Did you know? Today is a special day.

It was recently my 25th Birthday, but that’s actually not what I’m referring to here.

Oh no, the day I’m referring to is none other than the 11th April. This is a SPECIAL day
because (cue drum roll: da-dum-dum!)

It Marks the 200 Year Anniversary

Since Napoleon Was Exiled to
The Italian Island of Elba

And why is this a significant event, you ask?

Shit, where do I even start…

It trumps the 300, the Sacred Band, Cassius Scaeva taking an arrow to his eye while
holding the line and

Well, how about this: Because. . .

It’s THE Greatest Comeback

In All of Known History!

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Yup, you read that right.

And believe me, I don’t say that lightly.

Let me give you a quick rundown of how it happened…

Napoleon was forced to abdicate his empire, his throne, and was then put on the little
island of Elba, where he was placed under heavy surveillance.

[7 months later…]

Despite being under heavy surveillance, Napoleon was STILL able to get out of sight
long enough to evade the watchful eye of the Allies, and embark undetected from Elba
on a small ship…

Upon re-entering the shores of France, he quickly rallied a few hundred men.

His plan?

—To reclaim the empire!

How?

—By marching on Paris in plain sight, for everyone to see.

Even Though He Was Surrounded By

Thousands of Servants and Soldiers
King Louis XVIII STILL Shit His Pants in Fear!

He knew his days were numbered. . .

…for he was a weak man: Endowed neither with qualities of leadership, nor with the
strength of character a ruler needs. He was so stupid that he employed a ―premier
pousse-fauteuil‖37 at his court, while the economy was suffering.

Way to set an example.

Whereas Napoleon possessed unquestionable authority, Louis was a fake; a phony

who had done nothing to deserve his position. He had been put in his place by the allies
and had not earned the right to rule. And Louis knew it himself!

And that is exactly why he was so afraid when news reached him that Napoleon was
marching on Paris…

37
(“a supreme chair-pusher”).

149
And so, Louis grew increasingly desperate as news kept poured in about Napoleon’s
continued progress toward the capital.

For every town Napoleon stopped by, his following swelled, until it had grown into a
small army of something like 1000 men (albeit mostly civilians).

To put them down, ―King‖ Louis XVIII sent the significantly larger army of 6,000+ well-
equipped soldiers, led by the highly esteemed Marshal Ney, the Bravest of the Brave,
who had promised to bring Napoleon back to Paris in an iron cage!

—The Bravest of the Brave, it was an honorary title Ney had originally been given by
none other than…Napoleon!

Ney had lived through the deadliest scenarios you can imagine: Being wounded all over
his body in battle, suffering torture as a prisoner-of-war and still keeping his mouth shut;
he was also the last man home from Russia.

So, this was probably the second most feared-and-respected man in France.

But Napoleon Brought Ney,

The Bravest of the Brave,
to His Knees!

—And he did it without the use of force, like a true master.

As if endowed with omnipotence, Napoleon—relying on sheer gravitas—made Ney and

his 6,000 soldiers surrender their cause….and instead JOIN up with him and his forces
as they continued their march upon Paris!

All of this happened without the firing of a single gunshot.

This is an event completely unparalleled in the annals of history.

And That Was All it Took

For Napoleon to Reclaim
His Rightful Seat at the Throne…

He just walked into the capital, accompanied by jubilant cheers, and went straight back
to work as if the exile to Elba had never happened in the first place. Napoleon resumed
his work for the country that very same night.

And what happened to Louis XVIII?

He fled, like the undignified coward he was.

The moral of the story is that:

150
 It’s not over until it’s over, and you’re definitively declared dead.

Until then. . .

You ALWAYS Have a Shot!

—A shot at the glory.

A great comeback.

Setbacks happen to all of us—especially to great men.

It’s how those setbacks are dealt with that matters most.

But It Takes Self-Control

Self-control is one of supreme the hallmarks of greatness. That is why I took the time to
pioneer a philosophy around its attainment.38

You have to be in ultimate control of yourself, even when the chips are down, and
haters are drawing nasty cartoons of you, depicting you as a short, fat clown.

It’s hard.

Years later, looking back on the ―Elba-period‖, Napoleon said:

To think I kept all my composure… since my earliest youth I have devoted myself to
silencing that chord within me that now never yields a sound… Without all this self-
control, do you think I could have done all I’ve done?

The greater the man, the greater his mind.

So, my friend…

That is Why Today is a Special Day

It symbolizes what willpower and determination alone can accomplish.

Let it forever be engraved on your memory.

11th April, 1816.

38
Breaking out of Homeostasis.

151
Addendum

152
 The Magic of Commonplacing
Have an idea (or find one).
File it away.
Dwell on it.
Achieve synthesis.
Find the idea whenever you need it.
Apply the idea or continue working on it as required.
Turn said idea into money—applying your expertise.

153
 A Final Friendly Reminder:
6 General Things to Keep in Mind
If You Have Yet to Start a Commonplace:
“Stop searching and start immersing.”
—Ludvig Sunström

Having read the whole thing, I’m hoping you’ve come to realize that forming the habit of
consistent commonplacing will pay off big dividends over the long-term, and, that it’s
really not that hard to do once you’re settled in. You start small and build from there.

6 Things to Keep in Mind

These are the most important general takeways that I want to emphasize, if you were to
suddenly forget everything you’ve read in this manual, and you still have not created a
commonplace.

1. Commonplacing helps you mitigate “mental opportunity cost”. Most people

never consider this to begin with. The opportunity cost for going around thinking
low-quality garbage thoughts is HUGE, when you could instead be thinking of
interesting and useful stuff. Like your ideas, your long-term projects, your work,
learning new things, and so on. Over the course of a week, this is not going to
make a monumental difference, but over the course of a few months, a year, and
further, it makes a tremendous difference. It’s often the difference between
people who can turn their ideas into money—and those who can’t.

2. Commonplacing is about the mind, not the medium. Don’t get hung up on
specifics, just get started by forming the habit. The main thing is not ―how‖ you do
it, but simply that you do it. Just pick a few systems from the ―Super Actionable
Summary‖ (Bonus #2) and get started. And be sure to start as soon as possible,
because…

3. Commonplacing scales a lot over time. The faster you can get it operational,
the more you’ll potentially benefit from it in the future, as it compounds over time.
Once you come up with a few systems that can be used routinely, you’ll free up
lots of time, learn things faster, be more creative, improve your metacognition,
and keep your brain curious, enraptured, and activated for longer periods
throughout the day. If you’re just beginning, be patient. For…

4. Commonplacing is a practice. And as such, it should be fun. You want to make

it as easy as possible. It’s 100% worth the initial investment of time that goes into
the potential experimentation with approaches until you find the combination that
works best for you. This will pay off for the rest of your life. Don’t be like that

154
 proverbial woodcutter39.

5. Commonplacing should be a natural by-product of who you are. You want it

to be a seamless process that helps smoothen out your life and make you better
at everything you do. Whatever you’re doing, whatever you want to do, inject that
thing into your commonplace and it’ll go better. I can spend about 50-70% of my
time at work inside my commonplace. So can you, if you just put your mind to it.
Find a solution, for—unequivocally—there is one. Ideas make money; just not
instantly. For this reason, I like to say that…

6. Commonplacing is a shortcut to long-term success. The people who end up

successful in life tend to be the ones who will become successful no matter what.
For those people, commonplacing is a shortcut to success, because it provides a
creative canvas, an intellectual outlet, and—over time—a bank full of useful
information and money-making ideas. Then you turn those ideas into money….
And, even if you’re not yet in a position to do that, the practice of commonplacing
in itself will help you get there faster.

39
The story goes something like this:

A sweaty woodcutter was sawing down a tree. A young man passed by, and asked “What are you doing?”

The woodcutter replied. “Are you blind? I’m cutting down this tree.”

The young man paused for a moment, and then said. “You look exhausted! Why not take a break to sharpen that
saw of yours?”

The woodcutter said angrily “I don’t have time to sharpen the saw. Don’t you see I’m too busy?”

155
 Section 8:
Bonus Content

156
There are a total of 8 bonuses included in The Ultimate Commonplace System:

1. A List of Recommended Resources. Here you will find the different

resources I’ve mentioned throughout the entire manual. The list is short and
helpful.

2. A Super Actionable Summary—over every actionable step inside of the

manual. Consider it your personal checklist now that you’ve read the manual
and understand the reasoning behind each of the different systems or
methods that I have recommended.

3. My Automated Templates Used for the Self-Reflection & Planning

Systems. (It’s the same ones I showed you from earlier from my Daily
Lessons, Weekly Summaries, Monthly Overviews, Yearly Summaries, and
Weekly Planner). I have created these by combining Evernote with the
website IFTTT. If you are slightly technologically-savvy, you can modify my
templates with simple HTML

4. My Personal Document of Evernote Best Practices. This is the RAW and

UNEDITED 29-page compilation of material I created from over 30 hours of
immersive studies—after scouring the best material available online, free and
paid—to use as my training wheels for mastering the various functions of the
program Evernote. It begins with a condensed list of best practices, and is
followed by highlighted material in more detail.

5. A Simple and Effective (but Neglected) Tip That Anyone Can Use to
Become Healthy (and Remain that Way). I won’t spoil it here, but it’s
deceptively simple. Still—like many of the other things I recommend—just
about no one does it. (It does require a little bit of cash though.)

6. The Sweet Phone Setup That Gives Me an Extra 10+ Days Per Year (Plus
the Commonplace Systems I Use). I showed you my podcast system
earlier. Now, I’ll show you the rest of my phone’s setup. This could easily add
an extra 5-30 days of ―free time‖ to your life, over the course of a year.

7. A Few Examples of Potential Lists for You to Make. These are examples
to get you started with coming up with your own lists of highly organized (and
valuable) information. You’ll be inspired to create your own ones.

8. 4 Simple Commonplace Systems That Only Take You 10 Minutes Apiece

to Create, but Can Save You Several Days of Time, Plenty of Pain, and
Help You Sleep Comfortably at Night. This bonus is particularly useful if
you work from your computer.

You will find each of these 8 bonuses as separate pdf documents.

157