Some will suggest color coding, but I've never understood it as it limits you to about a dozen topics and it presupposes that you'll be interested in those same topics for decades to the exclusion of others. It wholly lacks flexibility.

I use a card index much like H. Ross Ashby. Start with index cards labeled A-Z, then add topics as you encounter them and add a volume number and page number.

Thus:

C<br /> commonplace books: 1-3, 1-88, 4-67 (see also 'Locke, John')<br /> crickets: 2-45<br /> caviar: 3-22, 3-25 (see also 'eggs')

When you've got a handful of cards for each letter it can be useful to separate things out (a la John Locke) as "CA", "CE", "CI", "CO", "CU" and re-alphabetize to make finding things easier and quicker. At this point it can also be helpful to add tabbed dividers to find the "C" section more quickly. Eventually you may have a single card (or three) with an individual heading for topics you write about frequently. (Naturally you could do a single card for each topic as you start, but it often makes the search process take longer and you'll probably have a lot of lonely, unused cards. It also tends to stifle serendipity and creativity because you're not scanning through your topics as thoroughly or frequently.)

I tend to write index words either in the margins of my commonplace or underline them with a red pencil within the text to make finding things on the page easier upon later search.

You can start small with a recipe card box and eventually move your way up to something more industrial as you need it. There are also lots of options in between.

Indexing can be an art and was also a great science (before Google made everyone lazy), so there are some useful handbooks on the topic below:

• Various. 1951. Progressive Indexing and Filing. 5th ed. New York, NY: Remington Rand Inc. http://archive.org/details/progressiveindex0000varo.
• Kaiser, Julius Otto. 1908. Card System at the Office. London: Vacher and Sons. http://archive.org/details/cardsystematoffi00kaisrich.
• Cadwallader, Laura Hanes, and Sarah Ada Rice. 1932. Principles of Indexing and Filing. Baltimore; Chicago: H.M. Rowe Company.
• Kahn, Gilbert, and C. Theo Yerian. 1955. Progressive Filing. New York: Gregg Pub. Division, McGraw-Hill. http://archive.org/details/progressivefilin00kahn.
• Locke, John (1632-1704). 1706. A New Method of Making Common-Place-Books. London. https://archive.org/details/gu_newmethodmaki00lock/mode/2up.

Other related ideas: https://boffosocko.com/research/zettelkasten-commonplace-books-and-note-taking-collection

reply to u/commonbankpen at https://reddit.com/r/commonplacebook/comments/1syayru/how_do_you_index/

FILING PROCEDURES IN BUSINESS 1965 OFFICE MANAGEMENT / SECRETARY TRAINING FILM 62244<br /> by [[Periscope Film]] on YouTube<br /> accessed on 2025-12-03T00:14:39

Butters, Roland W. 1921. “The Science of the Filing Engineer.” Filing & Office Management 6(7): 193–94. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Filing_Office_Management/o1rnAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA193&printsec=frontcover&dq=duplex.

McCord, James Newton. 1920. A Textbook of Filing. D. Appleton. https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Textbook_of_Filing/SBowAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.

Lennig, Margaret Antoinette. 1920. Filing Methods: A Text Book on the Filing & Indexing of Commercial & Government Records. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Filing_Methods/vVagv_GyENwC?hl=en&gbpv=0.

Hudders, Eugene Russell. 1919. Indexing and Filing: A Manual of Standard Practice. 5th ed. New York: The Ronald Press Company. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Indexing_and_Filing/p_MRAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.

Hunter, Estelle Belle. 1923. Modern Filing Manual. Rochester, NY: Yawman and Erbe Manufacturing Company. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Modern_Filing_Manual/F-lNAQAAMAAJ?hl=en.

John Locke's Method of Organizing Common Place Books

inspired by, but definitely not take from as not in evidence

Many people have "daily notes" and "project notes" in what they consider to be their zettelkasten workflow. These can be thought of as subcategories of reference notes (aka literature notes, bibliographic notes). The references in these cases are simply different sorts of material than one would traditionally include in this category. Instead of indexing the ideas within a book or journal article, you're indexing what happened to you on a particular day (daily notes) or indexing ideas or progress on a particular project (project notes). Because they're different enough in type and form, you might keep them in their own "departments" (aka folders) within your system just the same way that with enough material one might break out their reference notes to separate books from newspapers, journal articles, or lectures.

In general form and function they're all broadly serving the same functionality and acting as a ratchet and pawl on the information that is being collected. They capture context; they serve as reminder. The fact that some may be used less or referred to less frequently doesn't make them necessarily less important

Miles, 1905 uses an arrow symbol with a hash on it to indicate a "connecting link between two Sentences or Paragraphs, etc."

It's certainly an early example of what we would now consider a hyperlink. It actively uses a "pointer" in it's incarnation.

Are there earlier examples of these sorts of idea links in the historical record? Surely there were circles and arrows on a contiguous page, but what about links from one place to separate places (possibly using page numbers?) Indexing methods from 11/12C certainly acted as explicit sorts of pointers.