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High-Level Thoughts

Building a Second Brain tries to solve one of the biggest issues you face today in the professional (and maybe even personal) workplace. Remembering all the information you receive. Let’s be honest, you are bombarded with more and more information. Yet, how much can you actually remember of it today? 

In his book Tiago Forte takes the reader through his own journey why he needed a Second Brain but also how you can set one up yourself. Forte also has a course however, there is enough information free online on his blog or on multiple youtube channels.  

Don’t want to spend time reading the entire book? Check out my book notes down below!

Building a Second Brain Summary Notes

To remember stuff the first and most important thing you need to do is to write things down. After writing this down you need a trusted system to process all the information and to actually help you use it. This system is what Forte calls a Second Brain.

‘A Second Brain enables you to recall everything you might want to remember so you can achieve anything you desire.’

Part I

Your notes are knowledge assets which can have value to others.

You can’t live life without the use of information. And while we consume more information than ever, you can’t say we got more productive. The first step in solving this is acknowledging that your brain isn’t built to remember information. You’ll need a trusted (external) system to do that for you. Once you digitize your notes you unlock a superpower where you can rearrange, search and get new insights from your notes. 

Every note you take is a “knowledge building block” – a discrete unit of information interpreted through your unique perspective and stored in an external system. The good thing about note taking is that you can’t fail, because failure is just more information, to be captured and used as fuel for your journey. 

See your Second Brain as your personal assistant that can always provide you with the information you need. 

The only thing you need to create a Second Brain is a note taking app. It doesn’t matter which app you use as long as it works for you and it can be used on multiple devices. Chances are that you will switch to other apps in the future. 

In the beginning you will probably use your Second Brain to remember, later to connect and in the end to create.

Your Second Brain is created with a 4 step method: Capture; Organize; Distill; Express (CODE).

It is easy to keep stuck in a loop of consuming more and more information. However, with the right tools you can actually produce. Understand that it is impossible to capture all the information you receive. Only capture what you think is meaningful to you.

Every time you take notes (or go through them) try to improve them by making the note better. This can be done by distilling the note to its essence.

‘What is the point of knowledge if it doesn’t help anyone or produces anything?’

Part II

In today’s modern world you need information to survive. However, it is up to you to make sure you get the right information. Start by asking yourself questions like; ‘Which information is worth preserving?’.

The next step is to collect knowledge assets. This is anything that can be used in the future to solve a problem, save time, illuminate a concept, or learn from past experience.

To guide you with this you can keep a list of 12 open questions that are always in the back of your mind. Only collect information that can help you answer these questions a.k.a. your “12 favorite problems.” Yet, always make sure to follow your heart and curiosity.

You don’t need to answer these questions. They can be your guidepost on a life-long journey.

Don’t save entire pieces of content. Only save the bits that are valuable to you. With digital note taking apps (and good citations) you can always revisit the original content. Generally, you should never save more than 10% of the original content. If you want more guidelines you can try the following:

1. Save information that inspires you.
2. Save what may be useful in the future.
3. Save what is personal.
4. Save what surprises you.

When writing down information from content try to do it in your own words. This way you are more likely to remember the information.

After saving and collecting all these notes it is time for the next step; organizing them. Organize your notes via the PARA system; Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives. Try to apply the PARA-system across all your apps (note taking, files, email ect.).

Projects are for everything that has a fixed end-date and what you are working on right now.
The Areas category is for everything you are responsible for but doesn’t have a fixed end-date.
The Resource category is for stuff you are not actively working on right now. Yet you may need it in the future.
The last category is your Archive. Here you can store everything that is done or doesn’t interest you anymore.

Separate the action to capture a note from putting a note in the right category. It is a different state of mind.

‘Knowledge is best applied through execution, which means whatever doesn’t help you make progress on your projects is probably detracting from them.’

Whenever you create a note it is most likely you can’t apply it right away to the problems you are working on right now. It’s your job to be sure that that note is still there when you need it in the future. Therefore you need to increase its discoverability. One way to do this is with highlighting.

You can level up your highlights by using the Progressive Summarization Technique. It goes as follows: ‘you highlight the main points of a note, and then highlight the main points of those highlights, and so on.’ You don’t have to do this for all your notes. Actually, you don’t need to do it right away. Do it over time for all the notes you find yourself revisiting. 

Don’t try to highlight too much. A good rule of thumb for every step of the Progressive Summarization Technique is that it should be 10 – 20% of the layer under it. If needed (with good citation) you can always go back to the original source of your notes. Every time you “touch” a note, you should make it a little more discoverable for your future self. 

Before you start creating your own stuff. Try to break the result up into smaller tasks. Any note that you created earlier can possibly contribute to one of those small tasks. The more “building blocks” you have for your next project the easier it will get. And the more you are using your notes to create, the more they become part of you and your understanding.

Part III

When you master note taking via a Second Brain, the work that needs to be done when it is time to create should already be done for a big part. This way reading, learning and writing becomes a creative process. The process will never change, only the medium of expression will.

New ideas to express will simply be a result of your collecting. Never create and collect new ideas at the same time. The process of creating requires something else then collecting.

To stay in control of your Second Brain block off time (weekly and monthly) to review your notes.