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Leo capturing a highlight on a MacBook

Your intelligent
commonplace book

Capture quotes, ideas, and observations with a single click. Your thinking, organised alongside what sparked it.

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Marcus Aurelius c. 170 CE · Leonardo da Vinci c. 1500s · John Locke 1685 · Benjamin Franklin 1726 · Charles Darwin 1837 · Virginia Woolf 1880s–1920s ·

A personal notebook for quotes, ideas, and observations

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Save quotes from articles

Write what strikes you as you read. The source stays with your note.

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Catch podcast ideas

Jot while you listen. The episode and timestamp are linked automatically.

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Mark passages worth re-reading

Longer excerpts land with the title, URL, and date attached.

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Tag questions you're chewing on

Half-answers find their way back to the question later.

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Jot your own observations

Free-form thoughts, alongside whatever you are reading or watching.

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Annotate videos as you watch

Every note is kept with its timestamp and the video's URL.

Writers

  • Passages Save the words, lines, and turns of phrase that inspire you. Build a personal library of reference material to draw on in your next project.
  • Field notes Capture your observations the moment they strike, faster than ever, with a single click. Build a record of the world as you saw it, ready for the page that needs it.
  • Seeds Jot down a rough idea next to the material that sparked it. Build a backlog of starting points so you never face the blank page again.

Researchers

  • Excerpts Save the passages, findings, and quotations that sharpen your thinking. Build a personal library of evidence to draw on as your argument takes shape.
  • Hypotheses Jot down a working theory the moment a source provokes one. Build a record of your evolving thinking, anchored to the material that shaped it.
  • Connections Capture the threads and patterns you spot between sources, in a single click. Build a web of links that turns a pile of reading into an argument.

Entrepreneurs

  • Signals Save the customer quotes, competitor moves, and market shifts the moment you notice them. Build a record of what the world is telling you, ready for your next decision.
  • Hunches Jot down a half-formed bet next to the signal that sparked it. Build a backlog of angles to test, so the next idea is never starting from scratch.
  • Lessons Capture what worked, what didn't, and why — in the moment you learn it. Build a set of principles earned from experience, not borrowed from a book.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a commonplace book and a journal?
A journal records your daily experiences chronologically: what happened, who you saw, how the day felt. A commonplace book collects ideas, quotes, and observations from everything you read, hear, and encounter. A journal is about your life. A commonplace book is about your thinking. Virginia Woolf famously kept both, in separate notebooks.
What should I put in a commonplace book?
Anything that strikes you: quotes from books, podcast insights, your own observations, recipes, half-formed ideas, questions, connections between things you've learned, even sketches and overheard conversations. The only rule is that it matters to you.
Is Leo a replacement for my paper commonplace book?
Only if you want it to be. Many people keep both. Paper for slow, reflective entries; Leo for anything they want searchable, shareable, or captured on the fly. Leo works alongside paper, not against it.

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