How many brilliant ideas have slipped from your memory? How many insights have you overlooked? How much valuable advice has gradually faded from your recollection over the years?
We consistently feel the urge to learn, develop, and progress. We dedicate numerous hours to consuming informational content each year through reading, listening, and watching. Nonetheless, where does all that valuable knowledge go? Where is it when we need it?
Our brains have a limited capacity and can’t remember every detail, but they excel at generating ideas. The concept of creating a Second Brain is about systematically storing and retrieving ideas, inspirations, insights, and connections we’ve gathered. It provides a practical method for building an external, centralized digital repository to enhance our memory and intelligence using modern technology. In today’s world, managing various forms of information, including emails, text messages, online articles, books, podcasts, webinars, meeting notes, and more, is essential.
All of these forms of content are valuable, but remembering everything is overwhelming and outright impractical. By combining ideas from these sources, you will create a valuable body of work to further your projects and goals. You will have an ongoing record of personal insights, lessons learned, and practical knowledge for any situation.
We are already completing most of the tasks required to consume this content. In our professional lives, we spend a significant amount of time creating short pieces of text, summaries, images, videos, drawings, charts, web pages, notes, or files. However, without a little extra effort to preserve these valuable assets, our valuable knowledge remains isolated and scattered across different locations. We miss out on establishing a knowledge repository that appreciates value and can be used repeatedly.
By transferring our thoughts to a Second brain, our biological brain is free to imagine, create, and simply be present in the moment. We can move through life with the assurance that we will remember everything significant rather than struggling through our days attempting to keep track of every detail.
Your Second Brain will function as an expansion of your mind, not only shielding you from the effects of forgetfulness but also enhancing your endeavors as you tackle creative challenges.
A Second Brain Methodology will help you:
- Manage your personal information flow to reduce stress and avoid feeling overwhelmed.
- Establish a digital space that fosters mental clarity and tranquillity.
- Make the most of the abundance of educational resources available, including online courses, webinars, books, articles, forums, and podcasts.
- Retrieve past knowledge, experiences, and thoughts within seconds.
- Devote more time to your most creative and best work by spending less time searching for things.
- Develop a repository of valuable knowledge and fundamental ideas gradually without strict, time-consuming guidelines.
- Regularly progress with your projects and objectives by structuring and retrieving your knowledge in an outcome-focused manner.
- Switch off from work and unwind, confident in the knowledge that you have a reliable system managing all the specifics.
Today, TCS helps you build a Second Brain.
The CODE Approach
To assist you in the process of developing your own Second Brain, I have devised a straightforward four-step approach known as CODE, which represents Capture, Organize, Distill, and Express.
These steps are not just for creating your Second Brain but also for utilizing it in the future.
CODE is a reliable method for consistently transforming the information you absorb into innovative output and tangible outcomes. Furthermore, it is based on enduring principles that people have used throughout history to create anything conceivable.
The four steps of CODE are adaptable and unbiased for any occupation, position, or profession, as well as for any note-taking techniques and platforms you favour. You are likely already performing them in some manner, whether you are aware of it or not.
Capture the important information.
The first step in establishing a Second Brain involves “capturing” the ideas and insights that you believe are worth preserving.
Consider the following:
- What are the recurring topics and queries that consistently arise in both my work and personal life?
- What valuable, insightful, and impactful information do I currently have access to that could be beneficial?
- Which knowledge do I wish to intertwine, blend, and periodically bring back to the surface to stimulate future contemplation on these subjects?
Oftentimes, we gather information in a disorganized manner – sending ourselves a quick email, jotting down ideas in a Word document, or making notes on the books we read – and then do nothing with it.
We are already consuming or producing this information, and we just need to store it in one central location, such as a digital note-taking app like Notion, Apple Notes, Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, Obsidian, or others. These apps make it easy to capture small text snippets, webpages, hyperlinks, images, PDFs, screenshots, and other attachments that you can permanently synchronise across all your devices.
By consolidating a wide range of information in one central place, it becomes possible to combine and mix it, enabling us to identify unexpected connections and patterns in our thinking. This also gives us a single point of reference when we require creative material, research support, or a dose of inspiration.
The following three principles will help you capture only the most relevant and useful information for your Second Brain.
Think like a curator.
When we reach for our mobile devices or settle in front of our computer screens, we are quickly drawn into the stream of interesting information that is presented to us.
Some of this information is valuable and engaging – articles authored by experts that could help us be more efficient, advice on fitness and diet, or captivating stories from across the globe. However, unless we actively and thoughtfully choose what we consume, we will always be subject to what others wish for us to see.
Frequently, we simply passively respond to the information that has been pushed towards us by others and algorithms.
Rather than immediately digesting what lies in front of you, set it aside so you can revisit it later (at a time specifically designated for consumption).
Keep only what resonates.
The term “capturing” often evokes a methodical approach to thinking. However, analysis can be time-consuming and exhausting. When determining which passages, images, theories, or quotes to retain, avoid making it a highly intellectual, analytical choice.
Instead, your guideline should be to preserve anything that “resonates” with you on an instinctive level.
This is typical because it connects to something you are passionate about, curious about, or find inherently fascinating. By training ourselves to notice when something resonates on a deeper level, we enhance not only our capacity to recognize opportunities but also our comprehension of ourselves and how we operate.
Utilise capture tools.
When you immerse yourself in the realm of digital note-taking, you will encounter various specialized “capture tools” that aim to simplify and even add enjoyment to capturing content in digital format.
- Applications for reading e-books allow you to extract your highlighted sections or annotations from the books you have read.
- Apps for saving content to read later enable you to store online content for future consumption and transfer your highlights to your note-taking application.
- Basic note-taking apps let you capture bits of text effortlessly using the pre-installed tools on your mobile device.
- Social media apps allow you to “favourite” content and export it to your note-taking application.
- Apps for audio/voice transcription enable the creation of text transcripts from spoken words.
- Web clipper apps assist in the saving of segments of web pages and are often included as a built-in feature of note-taking applications.
While some of these tools are available for free, others require a small fee. Some operate quietly in the background, such as automatically synchronizing your e-book highlights with your note-taking application, while others necessitate manual effort, like photographing paper notebooks to save them digitally.
Capturing only takes a few seconds whether you choose to share, export, or save the content. Once you’ve done that, you’ve effectively stored the most valuable parts of the content in your Second Brain.
Due to the ever-evolving nature of the software landscape, we have compiled a Resource Guide containing the latest suggestions for the top capture tools. These recommendations cater to different devices and operating systems and include both free and paid options.
Organise for actionability
As you start capturing ideas that resonate, it’s natural to feel the urge to arrange them systematically.
It might be tempting to immediately create a perfect hierarchy of folders in order to capture every potential note you may come across. However, this approach not only consumes time but also shifts your focus away from your current interests, demanding excessive effort.
Many individuals tend to organize information by subject, much like the Dewey decimal system utilized in libraries. For instance, books can be categorized under general subject areas such as “Business”, “Geology,” “Literature,” or “History.”
When it comes to organising digital notes, simpler and more adaptable organizational methods are preferable. Since our priorities and objectives can change rapidly, we should steer clear of organizational methods that are overly rigid and prescriptive.
The most effective way to organize your notes is to concentrate on your ongoing projects. When you come across new information, consider how it can contribute to advancing something you are presently working on.
Interestingly, directing your focus toward taking action will also assist you in dealing with information overload. There are relatively few things that are actionable and pertinent at any given time, making it easier to disregard everything else.
Organizing for action can bring about a profound sense of clarity because you know that everything you retain serves a purpose and is aligned with your goals and priorities. Rather than hindering your productivity, organizing becomes a tool to enhance it.
The following three principles will aid you in effectively organizing the information in your Second Brain.
Adopt the PARA Method
Popularised by Tiago Forte, the PARA is a method of categorizing information based on its practicality. It is a straightforward, all-encompassing, and highly adaptable system for organizing digital information of any kind on any platform.
Embracing this approach will not only bring organization to your life but also furnish you with valuable tools for managing information flow and achieving your goals.
The PARA Method is built on a key observation: that all the information in your life can be divided into just four categories.
- Projects: Short-term endeavours (in work or personal life) pursued with a specific goal in mind
- Areas: Long-term responsibilities you wish to oversee over time
- Resources: Topics or interests that may be beneficial in the future
- Archive: Dormant items from the other three categories
It may be difficult to believe that a complex and modern human life like yours can be condensed into only four categories. It might seem like you have more to manage than can fit into such a basic system.
However, that is the exact objective. If your organizational structure is as complex as your life, then the work needed to sustain it will rob you of the time and energy needed to truly live your life.
The method you employ to handle information should be so seamless that it releases your attention instead of limiting it. Your system should offer you time, not devour it.
Start with a clean slate.
I realized that the biggest obstacle to implementing the PARA or any other organizational system is that most people feel like they need to organize ALL of their existing notes and files into it.
I couldn’t imagine a more tedious and demotivating task. It would take you hours, if not days! And the outcome? You’ll likely feel just as overwhelmed by the massive amount of information you now have to manage as you did before.
Here’s what TCS suggest instead (it will take you less than 60 seconds to do):
Move all current files to a folder labelled Archive with today’s date.
Think of this folder as a “time capsule” that preserves everything you had up to this exact moment. This separates what was saved before today’s date from what you’ll save from now on.
That’s it! Your digital workspace is now a blank slate, so you can start fresh.
The great thing is that you’re not getting rid of anything. Whenever you need a file, you can always take it out of your Archive folder. But my hunch is that you won’t need as many old notes as you think you will.
Ask three questions
Remember this information: Now that you’re starting fresh, how do you integrate new items into the appropriate PARA folders?
Consider the following three questions to determine in which project, area, or resource a certain piece of information is the most relevant and useful.
Which project would benefit from this information?
If none, Which area would find this information useful?
If none: Which resource does this information belong to?
If none, it’s best to either archive this information or not save it at all.
With practice, this decision will only take a few seconds.
Do this “filing” once a week in a single batch. Go through your “Inbox” – a separate folder for holding new items until you have time to organize them – and process 10-20 items in just a few minutes.
Don’t overthink where to place certain information within PARA. Remember, you can almost always find anything again using a simple search.
As you start gathering valuable knowledge in one place, you’ll naturally begin to notice patterns and connections. An article on gardening might provide insight into online marketing. An offhand comment from a client could be the impetus for creating a webpage with client testimonials. A business card from a conference can serve as a reminder to follow up and suggest a collaboration.
You can simplify and speed up this process by condensing your notes into actionable, bite-sized summaries.
For example, it would be nearly impossible to review ten pages of notes on a book you read last year in the middle of a busy workday. But if you had a 3-point summary of the main points of that book, you could quickly remind yourself of its contents and potentially apply it to your current work.
The following three principles will help you summarize and condense your notes into practical, useful tools for execution.
Design notes for your future self
An effective approach when dealing with our notes is to “create notes while thinking about your future self.” Consider the act of taking notes as a way to communicate information through time to your future self.
So the question is: “How can I ensure that what I’m learning now is easy for my future self to find?” Every time you write a note or make changes, you can make it slightly easier to locate and utilize next time.
This may involve:
- Explaining important terms in case we forget their meanings.
- Adding markers when we pause so we know where to resume.
- Incorporating hyperlinks to relevant websites, files, or emails that we may forget over time.
By consistently preserving information in a way that our future self can easily understand, we are employing a “pay it forward” approach that we will benefit from in the future!
Why Build a Second Brain in College
It’s true: developing a second brain will require significant time and energy. What’s the motivation for devoting time to a project like this when you’re already juggling a packed college schedule?
Free Up Mental Resources
Your brain has limited capacity. This is particularly true when tackling a complex problem or task.
If your thoughts keep drifting to an upcoming assignment, an intriguing conversation from lunch, or a book you’ve been wanting to read, maintaining focus becomes much more challenging.
Using an external system to keep track of your life can help eliminate such distractions, giving you the ability to dedicate all your mental resources to difficult problems.
For example, focusing on your economics homework is much simpler when you’re not also juggling the deadline for your French essay.
Be More Organised
Balancing various academic, personal, and professional responsibilities is an essential part of college life. It’s common to overlook things, especially as the workload increases as the semester progresses. Having a second brain can help you keep track of everything in your life. You can use it to organize your notes and assignments for each class, maintain a list of internship opportunities and their application deadlines, and schedule regular reminders to call your parents. If you’re interested in learning about the most effective note-taking methods, check out the following article.
Less Stress
The demands of college can be overwhelming, but you can reduce these feelings by transferring them from your mind and onto something else. This is where having a second brain can be very useful.
For example, a second brain can assist you in breaking down huge projects into smaller and more manageable tasks. Instead of facing a vague and stressful challenge, you’ll have specific steps to take each day. Whether you’re studying English or engineering, this type of organizational system can help put your mind at ease.
Create a Personal Knowledge Archive
Notes from college classes are usually spread out across several spiral notebooks and a couple of note-taking apps. And those are just the notes you can still find; many more have been lost over time.
If I had utilized a second brain system, I would still be able to access all the valuable information from my college lectures. Learn from my errors, and reap the rewards of organizing all of your knowledge in one central location.
Certainly, you aren’t limited to just class notes. Your second brain can house any information you find compelling, from cooking recipes to poems. After a few years, you’ll be astounded by the digital archive you’ve created.
Generate New Ideas
Up to now, we have discussed extensively how your second brain can assist you in capturing and storing information. However, the purpose of consolidating all this knowledge is not to let it accumulate digital dust.
Instead, your second brain should function as a platform for establishing connections between diverse subjects and ideas. With time, this assists you in integrating what you’ve learned and even developing new ideas.
For example, if you’ve had difficulty writing a paper, it could be because of insufficient solid source material.
However, if you’ve been inputting all your class and reading notes into your second brain, you will never have to begin a paper from scratch. Instead, you will have a wealth of source material from which to draw inspiration for essay topics and supporting arguments.
