A commonplace book is a set of passages worth carrying round in your head, so carry one. Retype it with the words in front of you, then recall it with only the first letter of each word, then every other one, then nothing. A recall from memory is scheduled for review, the way flashcards are, so it comes back just before you would forget it.
29 passages · scored by words right and in order · case and punctuation ignored unless you ask
1Pick
Today’s passage
“If you're excited about some possibility that everyone else ignores, and you have enough expertise to say precisely what they're all overlooking, that's as good a bet as you'll find.”
Paul Graham, How to Do Great Work
Or any passage in the book
The moral is obvious. You can't trust code that …
We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% …
If you do not work on an important problem, …
It is a poor workman who blames his tools …
The first principle is that you must not fool …
I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity …
The whole acts as one market, not because any …
The most significant fact about this system is the …
Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.
It is our considered professional judgment that this dilemma …
The way to figure out what to work on …
Curiosity is the best guide. Your curiosity never lies, …
If you're excited about some possibility that everyone else …
A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by …
The most common unscalable thing founders have to do …
All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky.
With a sufficient number of users of an API, …
Organizations which design systems (in the broad sense used …
TCP implementations should follow a general principle of robustness: …
Never, ever, think about something else when you should …
We might as reasonably dispute whether it is the …
They took away the old timbers from time to …
The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing …
Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer …
There is no single development, in either technology or …
The hardest single part of building a software system …
The concept of one event happening before another in …
It operates by association. With one item in its …
The summation of human experience is being expanded at …
Note
Inspired by typelit.io, a Show HN (Hacker News) project where you practise typing by retyping whole novels. Here the goal is memory, not speed. The fading hints are the first-letter technique actors use to learn lines, and the review schedule is the one the flashcards use. The passages come from the commonplace book.