Over 500 years ago Leonardo DaVinci’s notebooks overflowed with anatomical drawings beside mechanical inventions and poetic reflections, showing how curiosity itself can be a form of design.
These notebooks had a name, “Commonplace Books” and they were used to capture creativity and ideas before they were forgotten and disappeared into the ether.
Long before the internet, the thinkers and creators like Leonardo da Vinci, Marcus Aurelius, and Michel de Montaigne kept these Commonplace Books — handwritten notebooks where they collected quotes, sketches, insights, questions, and fragments of thought gathered from life, study, and observation.
These books weren’t diaries or mere scrapbooks. They were living laboratories of the mind… places to connect disparate ideas, capture wonder, and discover hidden relationships between art, science, philosophy, and daily life.
Here is an excerpt from one of Leonardo’s notebooks. His Commonplace book.
Source: Openculture.com
Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations was also effectively a private Commonplace Book, written as a tool for self-examination and moral clarity. It was “journal meets a notebook”.
And Montaigne’s Essays also emerged directly from his own Commonplace habits, weaving literature, experience, and reflection into one of the first modern explorations of consciousness.
What these thinkers shared was not just brilliance, but a discipline of noticing. They treated thought as material, something to gather, shape, and revisit over time.
The next evolution of the Commonplace Book (The Reflection Engine)
The ancient Commonplace Book was a one-way system — a personal repository for capturing and organizing insights. It reflected the world back to you but couldn’t challenge, expand, or remix your thinking. You were the collector, editor, and interpreter. The notebook was your mirror, not your partner.
In contrast, using AI as a two-way system transforms the process from archiving to live dialogue. Modern AI tools don’t just store your ideas — they respond to them, synthesize patterns, and even provoke new directions of thought. You can ask your AI to:
- Spot recurring themes across your notes.
- Challenge assumptions or identify contradictions.
- Combine unrelated fragments into novel concepts.
- Summarize your evolving philosophy or voice.
What was once a static collection now becomes a dynamic conversation with your own mind — an evolving ecosystem of ideas that grows richer each time you interact with it.
In essence, the old Commonplace Book was a memory system; the new, AI-powered version is an intelligence system. It doesn’t just remember what you wrote — it thinks with you.
It can become your own live and dynamic “Reflection Engine”
In short, the traditional Commonplace Book helps you think; the AI-powered one helps you keep thinking.
It moves knowledge from being a collection of what you knew to an ever-expanding conversation about what you’re becoming.
How can we evolve this ancient creativity system in a world of AI?
One of the existential fears that often creep into our modern day creators’ thoughts is the pervasive threat of AI replacing us as creators. And used incorrectly that is maybe true. So, we need to approach AI with a mindset of collaboration and curiosity…not replacement, and definitely not just copy-pasting answers from a single prompt.
In the digital age, the tools have changed but the purpose remains timeless. Where they used parchment and quill, we now have Notion, Obsidian, Roam, Evernote, Apple Notes, or even ChatGPT threads.
The essence is the same: “To collect what moves you, question what confuses you, and connect what inspires you”.
But a modern Digital Commonplace Book can be far more dynamic, searchable, and interconnected than any paper notebook. It can become the central nervous system of your creative and intellectual life.
Here’s how to evolve the practice for our century and today’s digital media world:
1. Capture constantly
I carry my iPhone with me everywhere like most people.
It’s my GPS, my inbox, my phone, and my camera.
But more than anything, it’s my idea catcher.
When I’m walking to the beach or even mid-conversation, I’ll often pause to jot something down.
My go-to app is just the simple Notes app.
I am quite confident that the thinkers and creators of the past always made sure they had their notebooks close at hand.
So, we all need to emulate Da Vinci’s curiosity: Capture note ideas from books, podcasts, AI conversations, or your own reflections.
Use short, atomic entries — one idea per note — with a few key tags (e.g., curiosity, leadership, AI ethics, beauty, strategy).
The goal isn’t neatness, but momentum — a steady stream of captured insight.
2. Connect relentlessly
Once you have a body of fragments, start linking them. Montaigne’s genius wasn’t collecting — it was connecting.
Digital tools like Notion or Obsidian make this easy with backlinks and relational databases.
When you connect one idea to another — say, Stoic acceptance with AI ethics — you’re not just organizing notes; you’re creating meaning through idea relationships.
3. Converse with your notes
This is where AI transforms the ancient practice. Instead of reading passively, you can now talk to your own archive.
Upload your Commonplace Book into ChatGPT or a personal AI assistant and ask:
- “What are the recurring themes in my notes this month?”
- “Summarize how my thoughts on creativity have evolved.”
- “Combine my insights on Stoicism and entrepreneurship into a new essay.”
I often use Google Docs to journal most days and I currently have 1,000+ pages that have captured my ideas, insights and much more over the past few years. ChatGPT will not let you share those links to its platform but you can save Google Docs as a PDF and ask it to look for themes and patterns.
It’s like having a living dialogue with your past selves — Da Vinci meets digital consciousness.
4. Reflect regularly
Marcus Aurelius didn’t write Meditations to publish — he wrote to remember. So….once a week, review what you’ve captured and ask:
- What still feels true?
- What ideas have changed meaning for me?
- What questions remain alive?
Reflection is how scattered thoughts become wisdom. Your digital Commonplace Book becomes both a mirror and a map — showing where you’ve been intellectually, and where your curiosity wants to go next.
5. Create publicly, evolve privately
Finally, let your Commonplace Book feed your outward creative work. Pull excerpts into essays, social posts, or newsletters. Every public creation is just a polished fragment of your private curiosity. But the core remains private, fluid, and evolving — your lifelong conversation with yourself.
The 8 step AI “Reflection Engine” system
If Da Vinci had Notion, his notebooks might have included hyperlinks between anatomy and art. If Marcus Aurelius had ChatGPT, he might have asked it to test his logic against Stoic paradoxes. If Montaigne had a digital twin, he might have used it to refine his essays in real time.
In the 21st century, we have the ability to think with our tools, not just through them.
Our AI powered modern “Commonplace Book” is not a storage system — it’s an ideas ecosystem.
It combines:
- Ancient reflection
- Renaissance curiosity
- Modern interconnection
- AI-powered dialogue
Together, they form a timeless creative loop:
Capture → Connect → Converse → Create → Reflect.
That’s how we turn scattered curiosity into coherent wisdom — and how we keep our inner world alive in an age of noise.
Here are some practical steps to design that system enhanced by AI
1. Create your “AI Journal” workspace
Start by setting up a digital home for your conversations — something like Notion, Obsidian, or Google Docs.
Each entry becomes a chapter-in-progress, with:
- Title: the core question or theme (e.g., “What does success mean after 50?”).
- Prompt thread: a running dialogue of your conversation with AI.
- Reflection section: a short summary of what you learned, what surprised you, and what to explore next.
- Tagging system: e.g., Philosophy, Business, Purpose, AI Ethics, etc.
This simple structure turns disconnected chats into an indexable, evolving library of thought.
2. Use “Prompt Loops” instead of single queries
The heart of deep prompting lies in the loop — not the question. A prompt loop looks like this:
- Ask an open question.
- Ask ChatGPT to expand or challenge it.
- Reframe or narrow based on its answer.
- Ask for the opposite or a counter-argument.
- Summarize the key insight.
Each loop is a cycle of discovery, reflection, and synthesis. Over time, you build intellectual muscle …learning how to think with AI, not just through it.
Example:
“What does it mean to live authentically?”
→ “Give me three philosophical perspectives.”
→ “Now critique each one.”
→ “Summarize my stance compared to theirs.”
→ “Write a 200-word journal reflection.”
That five-step loop is a micro-chapter of your living book.
3. Capture “Aha” moments in human language
Don’t let great insights vanish in chat history. After each conversation, translate key takeaways into your own words.
You might use a simple template like:
- Prompted Insight: What the AI said that sparked something.
- Human Reflection: What that means to you.
- Next Exploration: Where curiosity points next.
This not only builds retention — it also ensures you remain the author, not the algorithm.
4. Cross-link threads and themes
Over time, you’ll notice recurring motifs — ideas that resurface across different conversations.
Create interlinking pages (e.g., “Creativity,” “Mortality,” “AI Ethics”) where you gather excerpts from multiple threads.
This is how your “living book” gains depth: Threads become chapters → chapters become themes → themes become philosophy.
Think of it as a digital Commonplace Book — a 21st-century version of how Da Vinci, Marcus Aurelius, or Montaigne collected their ideas.
5. Schedule regular “Dialogue Reviews”
Once a week or month, review your AI conversations.
Ask yourself:
- What patterns or shifts do I see in my thinking?
- What ideas are converging into something larger?
- Which insights deserve a public version — an article, post, or video?
This practice turns AI conversation into a creative feedback loop between private reflection and public expression.
6. Treat AI as a mirror, not a mentor
The key to co-creation is remembering that AI doesn’t possess wisdom — it reflects yours back to you in different forms.
When you treat it as a mentor, you risk imitation.
When you treat it as a mirror, you spark revelation.
Ask reflective questions like:
- “What assumptions am I making?”
- “Where might my reasoning be incomplete?”
- “Summarize my argument — what’s its essence?”
You’ll quickly realize that ChatGPT is less a machine giving answers and more a lens that helps you see your own mind in motion.
7. Publish or archive each cycle
When a dialogue feels complete — say after 5–10 exchanges — export it as a polished piece:
- A blog post or newsletter essay.
- A short e-book chapter.
- A LinkedIn carousel or video script.
Label each one “Version 1.0.”
As you revisit, update, and expand, your living book grows — not as a static object, but as a continuously evolving artifact of your evolving consciousness.
8. Optional: Build a “Meta-index of You”
The most advanced users build an index of themselves using AI:
- Feed your best threads into a custom GPT or vector-based notebook.
- Tag content by topic, emotion, or worldview.
- Ask: “Summarize my philosophy of creativity in three paragraphs.”
- Or: “Show how my view on success has evolved over the past six months.”
This becomes a personal “Reflection Engine” — your own digital twin for reflection and creative work.
Final thoughts
ChatGPT isn’t just a writing assistant. It’s a thinking companion that helps you write yourself into clarity. The act of conversation becomes the act of creation. You’re not documenting what you already know, you’re discovering who you are, one prompt at a time.
And in that process, your “living book” becomes more than content. It becomes a portrait of your evolving mind…one that grows in wisdom as you do.
And it is captured by the machine that has a perfect memory. It is your two way personal “Reflection Engine.”
The post What Leonardo da Vinci’s 500-Year-Old Notebooks Reveal About AI’s True Purpose appeared first on jeffbullas.com.
* This article was originally published here
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