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.

By offloading our thinking onto a “second brain,” we free our biological brain to imagine, create, and simply be present. We can move through life confident that we will remember everything that matters, instead of floundering through our days struggling to keep track of every detail.

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.

Part I: Remember

first step in building a second brain is “capturing” the ideas and insights you think are worth saving. Ask yourself:

What are the recurring themes and questions that I always seem to return to in my work and life?
What insightful, high-value, impactful information do I already have access to that could be valuable?
Which knowledge do I want to interconnect, mix and match, and periodically resurface to stimulate future thinking on these subjects?

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. These apps facilitate capturing small “snippets” of text, and can also store hyperlinks, images, webpages, screenshots, PDFs, and other attachments, all of which are saved permanently and synced across all your devices.

A) Think like a curator

unless we make conscious, strategic decisions about what we consume, we’ll always be at the mercy of what others want us to see.

adopt the mindset of a curator – objective, opinionated, and reflective

As you come across social media updates, online articles, and podcasts throughout your day, 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

B) Organize your content by project

How should you organize the content once you’ve captured it? Instead of organizing your files primarily by topic (for example, web design or psychology), which is time-consuming and mentally taxing, 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.

The PARA organizational system takes this principle – organizing information by when you would like to see it next – and applies it to your entire digital life.

C) Keep only what resonates

your rule of thumb should be to save anything that “resonates” with you on an intuitive level

because it connects to something you care about, wonder about, or find inherently intriguing. 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.

Part II: Connect

Once you start collecting valuable knowledge in a centralized place, you’ll naturally start to notice patterns and connections

An article you read on gardening will give you an insight into online marketing. An offhand comment by a client will give you the idea of creating a webpage with client testimonials. A business card you saved from a conference will remind you to follow up and propose a collaboration.

You can greatly facilitate and speed up this process by distilling your notes into actionable, bite-sized summaries.

just the main points of that book in a 3-point summary, you could quickly remind yourself of what it contains and potentially apply it to something you’re working on

A) Design notes for your future self

A powerful mindset for interacting with our notes is to “design notes with your future self in mind.” 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.

Defining key terms in parentheses in case we forget what they mean
Inserting placeholders when we leave off summarizing a source so we know where to pick back up
Adding links to related websites, files, or emails that we’re likely to forget over time

By constantly saving packets of knowledge in a format that our future self can easily consume, we follow a “pay it forward” strategy that we get to benefit from in the future!

B) Summarize progressively, at different levels of detail

Progressive Summarization is a technique that relies on summarizing a note in multiple stages over time. 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. These “layers” are like a digital map that can be zoomed in or out to any level of detail you need. Progressive Summarization allows you to read the note in different ways for different purposes: in depth if you want to glean every detail, or at a high level if you just need the main takeaway. This allows you to review a note’s contents in seconds to decide if it’s useful for the task at hand

C) Organize opportunistically, a little bit at a time

organize your notes opportunistically, in small bits over time

Your rule of thumb should be: add value to a note every time you touch it.

adding an informative title the first time you come across a note, highlighting the most important points the next time you see it, and adding a link to a related note sometime later.

you not only save time and effort, but ensure that the most frequently used (and thus most valuable) notes surface organically

Part III: Create

one ultimate purpose: creating tangible results in the real world

true purpose of learning is to turn our knowledge into effective action

A) Don’t just consume information passively – put it to use

A common challenge for people who love to learn is that they constantly force-feed themselves more and more information, but never actually put it to use. 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.

information only becomes knowledge – something personal, embodied, grounded – when we put it to use

shift as much of our effort as possible from consuming information, to creating new things

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

B) Create smaller, reusable units of work

C) Share your work with the world

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. This can be tremendously empowering – since nothing is ever final, there is no need to wait to get started

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

Others will reflect back to you their reactions and comments and appreciation (and occasionally criticism). You’ll find that you are part of a community that shares your interests and values. 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.

You will start to think in terms of the systems and principles that you’ve gleaned through your summarizing and reviewing, and see them everywhere.

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. You will start to conceive of “your work” as an integrated whole that you can actually point to, shape, and navigate in a direction of your choosing. 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.

Over time, you will start to recognize that everything you are learning and experiencing makes sense. You can see, mapped in the notes you are cultivating, the underlying structure of your life. Why you do things, what you really want, what’s really important and what isn’t. Your second brain becomes like a mirror, reflecting back to you who you think you are, who you want to be, and who you could become. Because you know how to capture and make use of anything, every experience you have becomes an opportunity to learn and to grow.

You will start combining the ideas together, forming new perspectives, new theories, and new strategies. Ideas about society, about art, about psychology, about spirituality, about technology will start intermixing and spawning ideas you’ve never consciously considered. You’ll be shocked, in fact, at the elegance and power of what pops out of your notes.