Building a Second Brain: An Overview

Building a SecondBrain: An Overview

Posted by Tiago Forte | Feb 20, 2019 | Building aSecond Brain, Free |

This is a summary of Building a Second Brain, myonline course on capturing, organizing, andsharing your knowledge using digital notes.

How many brilliant ideas have you had andforgotten? How many insights have you failed totake action on? How much useful advice have youslowly forgotten as the years have passed?

We feel a constant pressure to be learning,improving ourselves, and making progress. We

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spend countless hours every year reading,listening, and watching informational content. Andyet, where has all that valuable knowledge gone?Where is it when we need it? Our brain can onlystore a few thoughts at any one time. Our brain isfor having ideas, not storing them.

Building A Second Brain is a methodology forsaving and systematically reminding us of theideas, inspirations, insights, and connectionswe’ve gained through our experience. It expandsour memory and our intellect using the moderntools of technology and networks.

This methodology is not only for preserving thoseideas, but turning them into reality. It provides aclear, actionable path to creating a “second brain”– an external, centralized, digital repository for thethings you learn and the resources from whichthey come.

Being effective in the world today requiresmanaging many different kinds of information –emails, text messages, messaging apps, onlinearticles, books, podcasts, webinars, memos, and

many others. All of these kinds of content havevalue, but trying to remember all of it isoverwhelming and impractical. By consolidatingideas from these sources, you’ll develop avaluable body of work to advance your projectsand goals. You’ll have an ongoing record ofpersonal discoveries, lessons learned, andactionable insights for any situation.

We are already doing most of the work required toconsume this content. We spend a significantportion of our careers creating snippets of text,outlines, photos, videos, sketches, diagrams,webpages, notes, or documents. Yet without alittle extra care to preserve these valuableresources, our precious knowledge remainssiloed and scattered across dozens of differentlocations. We fail to build a collection of knowledgethat both appreciates in value and can be reusedagain and again.

By offloading our thinking onto a “second brain,”we free our biological brain to imagine, create, andsimply be present. We can move through lifeconfident that we will remember everything that

matters, instead of floundering through our daysstruggling to keep track of every detail.

Your second brain will serve as an extension ofyour mind, not only protecting you from theravages of forgetfulness but also amplifying yourefforts as you take on creative challenges.

The Building a Second Brain methodology willteach you how to:

1. Consistently move your projects and goalsto completion by organizing and accessing

your knowledge in a results-oriented way

2. Transform your personal knowledge intoincome, taking advantage of a rapidly growingknowledge economy

3. Uncover unexpected patterns andconnections between ideas

4. Reduce stress and “information overload”by expertly curating and managing yourpersonal information stream

5. Develop valuable expertise, specializedknowledge, and the skills to deploy it in a new

job, career, or business

6. Cultivate a collection of valuable knowledgeand insights over time without having to followrigid, time-consuming rules

7. Unlock the full value of the wealth oflearning resources all around you, such asonline courses, webinars, books, articles,forums, and podcasts

Part I: RememberThe first step in building a second brain is“capturing” the ideas and insights you think areworth saving. Ask yourself:

What are the recurring themes and questionsthat I always seem to return to in my work andlife?

What insightful, high-value, impactfulinformation do I already have access to thatcould be valuable?

Which knowledge do I want to interconnect, mixand match, and periodically resurface tostimulate future thinking on these subjects?

Most of the time we tend to capture informationhaphazardly – we email ourselves a quick note,brainstorm some ideas in a Word document, ortake notes on books we read – but then don’t doanything with it. We are already consuming orproducing this information, we just need to keep itin a single, centralized place, such as a digitalnote-taking app like Evernote, Microsoft OneNote,Bear, Notion, or others. These apps facilitatecapturing small “snippets” of text, and can alsostore hyperlinks, images, webpages, screenshots,PDFs, and other attachments, all of which aresaved permanently and synced across all yourdevices.

By keeping a diverse collection of information inone centralized place, it is free to intermix andintermingle, helping us see unexpectedconnections and patterns in our thinking. This alsogives us one place to look when we need creativeraw material, supporting research, or a shot ofinspiration.

The following three guidelines will help you captureonly the most relevant and useful information in

your second brain

A) Think like a curatorIt is tempting to turn on our mobile device orcomputer and immediately become immersed inthe flow of juicy information we are presented with.Much of this information is useful and interesting –articles written by experts that could make us moreproductive, tips on exercise or nutrition, orfascinating stories from around the world. Butunless we make conscious, strategic decisionsabout what we consume, we’ll always be at themercy of what others want us to see.

Instead, adopt the mindset of a curator – objective,opinionated, and reflective. As you come acrosssocial media updates, online articles, and podcaststhroughout your day, instead of diving inimmediately, save them for future consideration.As you begin to collect content, you’ll be able tochoose which sources to consume in a deliberateway.

B) Organize your content

by projectHow should you organize the content once you’vecaptured it? Instead of organizing your filesprimarily by topic (for example, web design orpsychology), which is time-consuming andmentally taxing, organize them according to theprojects you are actively working on. This ensuresthat you are consuming information with a purpose– to advance your projects and goals – and only ata time and place where you’ll be able to put it touse.

The PARA organizational system takes thisprinciple – organizing information by when youwould like to see it next – and applies it to yourentire digital life. Instead of organizing each one ofthe information management tools you use in acompletely different way, use your projects asuniversal categories across all of them. This helpsreduce the fragmentation of your project files,without requiring you to only use one tool foreverything.

C) Keep only what

resonatesThe word “organization” often brings to mind ananalytical way of thinking. But analysis is time-consuming and tiring. In deciding which passages,images, theories, or quotes to keep, don’t make ita highly intellectual, analytical decision.

Instead, your rule of thumb should be to saveanything that “resonates” with you on an intuitivelevel. This is often because it connects tosomething you care about, wonder about, or findinherently intriguing. By training ourselves to noticewhen something resonates with us at a deeperlevel, we improve not only our ability to seeopportunities, but also our understanding ofourselves and how we work.

Part II: ConnectOnce you start collecting valuable knowledge in acentralized place, you’ll naturally start to noticepatterns and connections. An article you read ongardening will give you an insight into onlinemarketing. An offhand comment by a client willgive you the idea of creating a webpage with client

testimonials. A business card you saved from aconference will remind you to follow up andpropose a collaboration.

You can greatly facilitate and speed up thisprocess by distilling your notes into actionable,bite-sized summaries. It would be near impossibleto review your 10 pages of notes on a book youread last year in the midst of a chaotic workday.,for example. But if you had just the main points ofthat book in a 3-point summary, you could quicklyremind yourself of what it contains and potentiallyapply it to something you’re working on

The following three guidelines will help yousummarize and distill your notes into actionable,useful tools for execution.

A) Design notes for yourfuture selfA powerful mindset for interacting with our notes isto “design notes with your future self in mind.”Every time we create a note or make an edit, wecan make it just a little easier to find and make use

of next time.

This can include:

Defining key terms in parentheses in case weforget what they mean

Inserting placeholders when we leave offsummarizing a source so we know where topick back up

Adding links to related websites, files, or emailsthat we’re likely to forget over tim

By constantly saving packets of knowledge in aformat that our future self can easily consume, wefollow a “pay it forward” strategy that we get tobenefit from in the future!

B) Summarizeprogressively, at differentlevels of detailA common problem with notes is that they are toolong and dense. You can’t afford the time it wouldtake to review and remind yourself of everything

they contain. Executive summaries can help, butoften it is a challenge to identify what exactly themain point is in the first place.

Progressive Summarization is a technique thatrelies on summarizing a note in multiple stagesover time. You save only the best excerpts fromwhatever you’re reading, and then create asummary of those excerpts, and then a summaryof that summary, distilling the essence of thecontent at each stage. These “layers” are like adigital map that can be zoomed in or out to anylevel of detail you need. ProgressiveSummarization allows you to read the note indifferent ways for different purposes: in depth ifyou want to glean every detail, or at a high level ifyou just need the main takeaway. This allows youto review a note’s contents in seconds to decide ifit’s useful for the task at hand.

C) Organizeopportunistically, a little bitat a timeIt can be tempting to spend a lot of time to create

highly structured, perfectionistic notes. Theproblem is, you often have no idea which sourceswill end up being valuable until much later. Insteadof investing a lot of effort upfront, organize yournotes opportunistically, in small bits over time

Your rule of thumb should be: add value to a noteevery time you touch it. This could includeadding an informative title the first time you comeacross a note, highlighting the most importantpoints the next time you see it, and adding a link toa related note sometime later. By spreading outthe heavy work of organizing your notes over time,you not only save time and effort, but ensure thatthe most frequently used (and thus mostvaluable) notes surface organically, like a skislope where the most popular routes naturally endup with deeper grooves.

Part III: CreateAll of this capturing, summarizing, connecting, andorganizing has one ultimate purpose: creatingtangible results in the real world. Whether wewant to lose weight, get a promotion at work, start

a side business, or contribute to a cause webelieve in, the true purpose of learning is to turnour knowledge into effective action.

With a substantial reserve of supporting material inyour second brain, you never need to sit down toan empty page and try to “think of somethingsmart.” All creativity stands on the shoulders ofgiants, and you have the benefit of already havingthe best ideas of those giants documented in yournotes!

What should you create? It depends on your skills,interests, and personality. If you are analytical, youcould draw on a group of articles you’ve readabout Big Data to write a blog post summarizingwhere you think machine learning is headed next.If you like to perform, you could borrow ideas fromyour notes on YouTube cooking videos you’veenjoyed to make one of your own. If you arecampaigning for investment in your local park, youcould distill the minutes from past city councilmeetings into a speaking agenda for your publiccomments at the next one.

With a second brain at your disposal, you alwayshave something to inspire you, remind you,support you, or guide you as you engage in theprojects and interests that are important to you.You are able to draw on the sum total of your lifeexperience and learning, not just whatever you canthink of in the moment.

The following three guidelines will help you createmore, better, and more meaningful creative outputfor whatever purpose you decide is important.

A) Don’t just consumeinformation passively – putit to useA common challenge for people who love to learnis that they constantly force feed themselves moreand more information, but never actually put it touse. The goals and the experiences that wouldenrich their lives get endlessly postponed, waitingfor the “right” bit of knowledge they supposedlyneed before getting started.

But information only becomes knowledge –

something personal, embodied, grounded – whenwe put it to use. That’s why we should shift asmuch of our effort as possible from consuminginformation, to creating new things. The things wecreate – whether they are writing pieces, websites,photographs, videos, or live performances –embody and express the knowledge we’ve gainedfrom personal experience. We all need to be partof bringing to life something good, true, orbeautiful. Creating things is not only deeplyfulfilling, it can also bring us unexpectedopportunities, introduce us to new friends orcollaborators, and have a positive impact on others– by inspiring them, entertaining them, or informingthem.

B) Create smaller, reusableunits of workOnce you start to curate a collection of valuableknowledge in external form, a very different way ofworking becomes not only possible, but necessary.

You will begin to think of your projects as made upof discrete parts. I call them “intermediate

packets,” which can include any kind of contentwe’ve already mentioned: a set of notes from ateam meeting, a list of relevant research findings,a brainstorm with collaborators, a slide deckanalyzing the market, or a list of action items froma conference call, for example.

Instead of trying to sit down and move the entireproject forward all at once, which is like trying toroll a giant boulder uphill, a more effectiveapproach is to end each work session – whether itis 15 minutes or 3 hours – by completing just oneintermediate packet. This allows you to work insmaller increments, making use of any availablespan of time, while getting lots of feedback andtaking frequent breaks. Not only does this result inhigher quality output, it fuels the motivation and theinspiration that we need to do our best work.These packets can then be saved to your secondbrain, and re-used the next time you have a similarneed.

C) Share your work withthe world

There are many benefits all along the process ofbuilding a second brain: less stress, better focus,more insights, and enhanced productivity. But thereal payoff comes at the end, when you createsomething out of the knowledge you’ve collectedand share it with the world.

It can be tempting to wait until everything is“ready,” until you have all the information you thinkyou need, and all the sources have been doublechecked and reviewed. But as you continuallycurate and save pieces of content, review andsummarize them, create a series of intermediatepackets, and then recycle them back into yoursecond brain, you’ll start to realize that there is nosuch thing as a finished product.

Everything is in flux, everything is a work inprogress, and everything you put out there has animplicit “version 1.0” attached to it. This can betremendously empowering – since nothing is everfinal, there is no need to wait to get started. Youcan publish a simple website now, and slowly addadditional pages as you have time. You canpublish a draft blog post now, and make revisions

later after you’ve received feedback. You couldeven self-publish an ebook on the Kindle store,and any future updates to the manuscript will bewirelessly synced to everyone who purchased thebook!

By consistently sharing your work with others –whether that is your family, friends, colleagues, orexternally on social media – all sorts of benefitswill start to materialize. You’ll connect with newcollaborators who you never would have imaginedwould find your work compelling. You’ll find clientsor customers, in some cases even when youweren’t seeking them. Others will reflect back toyou their reactions and comments andappreciation (and occasionally criticism). You’ll findthat you are part of a community that shares yourinterests and values. Accomplishing anythingmeaningful or important requires working withothers, and the incredible power of the internetnow allows us to find each other no matter howobscure or strange our interests.

Conclusion

Each note in your second brain is a record ofsomething you’ve experienced in your life –whether that is from reading a book, having aninteresting conversation, or completing a project atwork. With all your most valuable ideas at yourfingertips at all times, you never need to struggleand strain to remember everything you’ve learned.

As your second brain gains momentum overweeks and months, you will start to becomedifferent. You will no longer think about things inisolation, but as part of a network of ideas in whicheverything affects everything else. You’ll realizethat something you learned at work about effectivecommunication also applies to your family vacationdebate.. A random fact you read in an airplanemagazine will somehow end up being useful in ablog post you’re writing. A lesson from AncientGreek history you picked up from a podcast onyour morning commute will help you deal with acrisis at the office. You will start to think in terms ofthe systems and principles that you’ve gleanedthrough your summarizing and reviewing, and seethem everywhere.

Your mind will start to work differently, learning todepend on this external tool to draw on resources,references, and research far beyond what it canremember on its own. You will start to conceive of“your work” as an integrated whole that you canactually point to, shape, and navigate in a directionof your choosing. You’ll be more objective andunattached, because if any single idea doesn’twork out, you know you have a huge trove ofothers ready to go.

Over time, you will start to recognize thateverything you are learning and experiencingmakes sense. You can see, mapped in the notesyou are cultivating, the underlying structure of yourlife. Why you do things, what you really want,what’s really important and what isn’t. Your secondbrain becomes like a mirror, reflecting back to youwho you think you are, who you want to be, andwho you could become. Because you know howto capture and make use of anything, everyexperience you have becomes an opportunityto learn and to grow.

As this self-understanding dawns, you will look

around at the notes you’ve collected, and you willrealize that you already have everything you needto get started. You will start combining the ideastogether, forming new perspectives, new theories,and new strategies. Ideas about society, about art,about psychology, about spirituality, abouttechnology will start intermixing and spawningideas you’ve never consciously considered. You’llbe shocked, in fact, at the elegance and power ofwhat pops out of your notes.

This epiphany won’t just exist in your head. Peoplecan tell. They’ll start to notice that you can draw onan unusually large body of knowledge at amoment’s notice. They will admire your amazingmemory, but what they don’t know is that younever try to remember anything. They’ll admireyour incredible self-discipline and dedication atdeveloping ideas over time, not knowing thatyou’ve created a system in which insights andconnections emerge organically. They’ll beimpressed by your ability to produce so muchcreative output, but in reality, you never lockyourself in a room to “crank out” some work. Youjust let your projects simmer until they’re ready.

Building a Second Brain is an integrated set ofbehaviors for turning incoming information intocompleted creative projects. Instead of endlesslyoptimizing yourself, trying to become a productivitymachine that never deviates from the plan, it hasyou optimize an external system that is morereliable than you will ever be. This frees you toimagine, to wonder, to wander toward whatevermakes you come alive here and now in themoment.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tiago Forte

Founder of productivityconsultancy/training firm Forte Labs,and editor of Praxis.