%% ID: 13204930 Updated: 2022-01-28 %% ![](https://readwise-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/static/images/article3.5c705a01b476.png) # About Title: [[Other/Obsidian Starter Vault(Second Brain)/Readwise 1/Articles/Building a Second Brain- An Overview]] Author: [[Tiago Forte]] Category: #articles Number of Highlights: ==80== Last Highlighted: *2021-12-04* Readwise URL: https://readwise.io/bookreview/13204930 Source URL: https://fortelabs.co/blog/basboverview/ # Highlights How many brilliant ideas have you had and forgotten? How many insights have you failed to take action on? How much useful advice have you slowly forgotten as the years have passed? ^278319671 --- Building A Second Brain is a methodology for saving and systematically reminding us of the ideas, inspirations, insights, and connections we’ve gained through our experience. It expands our memory and our intellect using the modern tools of technology and networks ^278319672 --- not only for preserving those ideas, but turning them into reality. It provides a clear, actionable path to creating a “second brain” – an external, centralized, digital repository for the things you learn and the resources from which they come ^278319673 --- You’ll have an ongoing record of personal discoveries, lessons learned, and actionable insights for any situation ^278319674 --- Yet without a little extra care to preserve these valuable resources, our precious knowledge remains siloed and scattered across dozens of different locations. We fail to build a collection of knowledge that both appreciates in value and can be reused again and again ^278319675 --- By offloading our thinking onto a “second brain,” we free our biological brain to imagine, create, and simply be present ^278319676 --- Your second brain will serve as an extension of your mind, not only protecting you from the ravages of forgetfulness but also amplifying your efforts as you take on creative challenges ^278319677 --- The Building a Second Brain methodology will teach you how to:Consistently move your projects and goals to completion by organizing and accessing your knowledge in a results-oriented wayTransform your personal knowledge into income, taking advantage of a rapidly growing knowledge economyUncover unexpected patterns and connections between ideasReduce stress and “information overload” by expertly curating and managing your personal information streamDevelop valuable expertise, specialized knowledge, and the skills to deploy it in a new job, career, or businessCultivate a collection of valuable knowledge and insights over time without having to follow rigid, time-consuming rulesUnlock the full value of the wealth of learning resources all around you, such as online courses, webinars, books, articles, forums, and podcasts ^278319678 --- Part I: Remember ^278319679 --- The first step in building a second brain is “capturing” the ideas and insights you think are worth saving. Ask yourself: ^278319680 --- Most of the time we tend to capture information haphazardly – we email ourselves a quick note, brainstorm some ideas in a Word document, or take notes on books we read – but then don’t do anything with it ^278319681 --- we just need to keep it in a single, centralized place, such as a digital note-taking app like Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, Bear, Notion, or others. ^278319682 --- By keeping a diverse collection of information in one centralized place, it is free to intermix and intermingle, helping us see unexpected connections and patterns in our thinking. ^278319683 --- The following three guidelines will help you capture only the most relevant and useful information in your second brain ^278319684 --- A) Think like a curator ^278319685 --- But unless we make conscious, strategic decisions about what we consume, we’ll always be at the mercy of what others want us to see. ^278319686 --- adopt the mindset of a curator – objective, opinionated, and reflective ^278319687 --- instead of diving in immediately, save them for future consideration. As you begin to collect content, you’ll be able to choose which sources to consume in a deliberate way. ^278319688 --- B) Organize your content by project ^278319689 --- organize them according to the projects you are actively working on. This ensures that you are consuming information with a purpose – to advance your projects and goals – and only at a time and place where you’ll be able to put it to use. ^278319690 --- Instead of organizing each one of the information management tools you use in a completely different way, use your projects as universal categories across all of them. This helps reduce the fragmentation of your project files, without requiring you to only use one tool for everything ^278319691 --- C) Keep only what resonates ^278319692 --- But analysis is time-consuming and tirin ^278319693 --- The word “organization” often brings to mind an analytical way of thinking. ^278319694 --- your rule of thumb should be to save anything that “resonates” with you on an intuitive level. ^278319695 --- By training ourselves to notice when something resonates with us at a deeper level, we improve not only our ability to see opportunities, but also our understanding of ourselves and how we work. ^278319696 --- Part II: Connect ^278319697 --- Once you start collecting valuable knowledge in a centralized place, you’ll naturally start to notice patterns and connections ^278319698 --- You can greatly facilitate and speed up this process by distilling your notes into actionable, bite-sized summaries ^278319699 --- A) Design notes for your future self ^278319700 --- Every time we create a note or make an edit, we can make it just a little easier to find and make use of next time ^278319701 --- B) Summarize progressively, at different levels of detail ^278319702 --- they are too long and dense. You can’t afford the time it would take to review and remind yourself of everything they contain. ^278319703 --- Progressive Summarization is a technique that relies on summarizing a note in multiple stages over time ^278319704 --- You save only the best excerpts from whatever you’re reading, and then create a summary of those excerpts, and then a summary of that summary, distilling the essence of the content at each stage. ^278319705 --- This allows you to review a note’s contents in seconds to decide if it’s useful for the task at hand. ^278319706 --- C) Organize opportunistically, a little bit at a time ^278319707 --- It can be tempting to spend a lot of time to create highly structured, perfectionistic notes. The problem is, you often have no idea which sources will end up being valuable until much later. Instead of investing a lot of effort upfront, organize your notes opportunistically, in small bits over time ^278319708 --- Part III: Create ^278319709 --- Your rule of thumb should be: add value to a note every time you touch it ^278319710 --- By spreading out the heavy work of organizing your notes over time, you not only save time and effort, but ensure that the most frequently used (and thus most valuable) notes surface organically, ^278319711 --- All of this capturing, summarizing, connecting, and organizing has one ultimate purpose: creating tangible results in the real world ^278319712 --- the true purpose of learning is to turn our knowledge into effective action. ^278319713 --- With a substantial reserve of supporting material in your second brain, you never need to sit down to an empty page and try to “think of something smart ^278319714 --- What should you create? It depends on your skills, interests, and personality. If you are analytical, you could draw on a group of articles you’ve read about Big Data to write a blog post summarizing where you think machine learning is headed next. If you like to perform, you could borrow ideas from your notes on YouTube cooking videos you’ve enjoyed to make one of your own. If you are campaigning for investment in your local park, you could distill the minutes from past city council meetings into a speaking agenda for your public comments at the next one. ^278319715 --- With a second brain at your disposal, you always have something to inspire you, remind you, support you, or guide you as you engage in the projects and interests that are important to you. ^278319716 --- A) Don’t just consume information passively – put it to use ^278319717 --- they constantly force feed themselves more and more information, but never actually put it to use ^278319718 --- The goals and the experiences that would enrich their lives get endlessly postponed, waiting for the “right” bit of knowledge they supposedly need before getting started. ^278319719 --- But information only becomes knowledge – something personal, embodied, grounded – when we put it to use ^278319720 --- That’s why we should shift as much of our effort as possible from consuming information, to creating new things ^278319721 --- The things we create – whether they are writing pieces, websites, photographs, videos, or live performances – embody and express the knowledge we’ve gained from personal experience ^278319722 --- Creating things is not only deeply fulfilling, it can also bring us unexpected opportunities, introduce us to new friends or collaborators, and have a positive impact on others – by inspiring them, entertaining them, or informing them. ^278319723 --- B) Create smaller, reusable units of work ^278319724 --- Instead of trying to sit down and move the entire project forward all at once, which is like trying to roll a giant boulder uphill, a more effective approach is to end each work session – whether it is 15 minutes or 3 hours – by completing just one intermediate packet. ^278319725 --- Not only does this result in higher quality output, it fuels the motivation and the inspiration that we need to do our best work. ^278319726 --- C) Share your work with the world ^278319727 --- benefits all along the process of building a second brain: less stress, better focus, more insights, and enhanced productivity. ^278319728 --- But the real payoff comes at the end, when you create something out of the knowledge you’ve collected and share it with the world. ^278319729 --- It can be tempting to wait until everything is “ready,” until you have all the information you think you need, and all the sources have been double checked and reviewe ^278319730 --- you’ll start to realize that there is no such thing as a finished product. ^278319731 --- Everything is in flux, everything is a work in progress, and everything you put out there has an implicit “version 1.0” attached to it. ^278319732 --- since nothing is ever final, there is no need to wait to get started. ^278319733 --- You can publish a simple website now, and slowly add additional pages as you have time. You can publish a draft blog post now, and make revisions later after you’ve received feedback ^278319734 --- By consistently sharing your work with others – whether that is your family, friends, colleagues, or externally on social media – all sorts of benefits will start to materialize. You’ll connect with new collaborators who you never would have imagined would find your work compelling ^278319735 --- Others will reflect back to you their reactions and comments and appreciation (and occasionally criticism ^278319736 --- You’ll find that you are part of a community that shares your interests and values. ^278319737 --- Accomplishing anything meaningful or important requires working with others, and the incredible power of the internet now allows us to find each other no matter how obscure or strange our interests. ^278319738 --- Each note in your second brain is a record of something you’ve experienced in your life – whether that is from reading a book, having an interesting conversation, or completing a project at work ^278319739 --- you never need to struggle and strain to remember everything you’ve learned. ^278319740 --- You will no longer think about things in isolation, but as part of a network of ideas in which everything affects everything else ^278319741 --- random fact you read in an airplane magazine will somehow end up being useful in a blog post you’re writing. ^278319742 --- lesson from Ancient Greek history you picked up from a podcast on your morning commute will help you deal with a crisis at the office. Y ^278319743 --- Your mind will start to work differently, learning to depend on this external tool to draw on resources, references, and research far beyond what it can remember on its own. ^278319744 --- You’ll be more objective and unattached, because if any single idea doesn’t work out, you know you have a huge trove of others ready to go. ^278319745 --- Over time, you will start to recognize that everything you are learning and experiencing makes sense ^278319746 --- Because you know how to capture and make use of anything, every experience you have becomes an ^278319747 --- This epiphany won’t just exist in your head. People can tell. They’ll start to notice that you can draw on an unusually large body of knowledge at a moment’s notice. They will admire your amazing memory, but what they don’t know is that you never try to remember anything ^278319748 --- They’ll admire your incredible self-discipline and dedication at developing ideas over time, not knowing that you’ve created a system in which insights and connections emerge organically. They’ll be impressed by your ability to produce so much creative output, but in reality, you never lock yourself in a room to “crank out” some work. You just let your projects simmer until they’re ready. ^278319749 --- Instead of endlessly optimizing yourself, trying to become a productivity machine that never deviates from the plan, it has you optimize an external system that is more reliable than you will ever be. ^278319750