• Author: Tiago Forte
  • Full Title: Building a Second Brain
  • Tags: #Inbox #books

Highlights

  • Introduction The Promise of a Second Brain (Location 38)
  • We spend countless hours reading, listening to, and watching other people’s opinions about what we should do, how we should think, and how we should live, but make comparatively little effort applying that knowledge and making it our own. So much of the time we are “information hoarders,” stockpiling endless amounts of well-intentioned content that only ends up increasing our anxiety. (Location 46)
  • It all begins with the simple act of writing things down. (Location 57)
  • The Building a Second Brain system will teach you how to: Find anything you’ve learned, touched, or thought about in the past within seconds. (Location 63)
  • Organize your knowledge and use it to move your projects and goals forward more consistently. Save your best thinking so you don’t have to do it again. Connect ideas and notice patterns across different areas of your life so you know how to live better. Adopt a reliable system that helps you share your work more confidently and with more ease. Turn work “off” and relax, knowing you have a trusted system keeping track of all the details. Spend less time looking for things, and more time doing the best, most creative work you are capable of. (Location 65)
  • Like a bicycle for the mind, (Location 71)
  • PART ONE The Foundation Understanding What’s Possible (Location 101)
  • Chapter 1 Where It All Started (Location 103)
  • If that was true, was it possible that my personal collection of notes was a knowledge asset that could grow and compound over time? (Location 181)
  • You may find this book in the “self-improvement” category, but in a deeper sense it is the opposite of self-improvement. It is about optimizing a system outside yourself, a system not subject to your limitations and constraints, leaving you happily unoptimized and free to roam, to wonder, to wander toward whatever makes you feel alive here and now in each moment. (Location 211)
  • Chapter 2 What Is a Second Brain? (Location 219)
  • According to the New York Times, the average person’s daily consumption of information now adds up to a remarkable 34 gigabytes.1 (Location 226)
  • A separate study cited by the Times estimates that we consume the equivalent of 174 full newspapers’ worth of content each and every day, five times higher than in 1986.2 (Location 227)
  • Research from Microsoft shows that the average US employee spends 76 hours per year looking for misplaced notes, items, or files. (Location 233)
  • we go to work five days per week, but spend more than one of those days on average just looking for the information we need to do our work. Half the time, we don’t even succeed in doing that. (Location 237)
  • We have to recognize that the cognitive demands of modern life increase every year, but we’re still using the same brains as two hundred thousand years ago, when modern humans first emerged on the plains of East Africa. (Location 240)
  • To properly take advantage of the power of a Second Brain, we need a new relationship to information, to technology, and even to ourselves. (Location 246)
  • the commonplace book was more than a diary or journal of personal reflections. It was a learning tool that the educated class used to understand a rapidly changing world and their place in it. (Location 252)
  • In the professional world: It’s not at all clear what you should be taking notes on. No one tells you when or how your notes will be used. The “test” can come at any time and in any form. You’re allowed to reference your notes at any time, provided you took them in the first place. You are expected to take action on your notes, not just regurgitate them. (Location 302)
  • For modern, professional notetaking, a note is a “knowledge building block”—a discrete unit of information interpreted through your unique perspective and stored outside your head. (Location 308)
  • a note could include a passage from a book or article that you were inspired by; a photo or image from the web with your annotations; or a bullet-point list of your meandering thoughts on a topic, (Location 309)
  • Your brain is no longer the bottleneck on your potential, which means you have all the bandwidth you need to pursue any endeavor and make it successful. (Location 387)
  • Chapter 3 How a Second Brain Works (Location 428)
  • There are four essential capabilities that we can rely on a Second Brain to perform for us: Making our ideas concrete. Revealing new associations between ideas. Incubating our ideas over time. Sharpening our unique perspectives. (Location 440)
  • Second Brain Superpower #1: Make Our Ideas Concrete (Location 444)
  • Second Brain Superpower #2: Reveal New Associations Between Ideas (Location 461)
  • In our Second Brain we can do the same: mix up the order of our ideas until something unexpected emerges. (Location 471)
  • Second Brain Superpower #3: Incubate Our Ideas Over Time (Location 473)
  • Too often when we take on a task—planning an event, designing a product, or leading an initiative—we draw only on the ideas we have access to right in that moment. (Location 474)
  • What are the chances that the most creative, most innovative approaches will instantly be top of mind? (Location 476)
  • This tendency is known as recency bias. (Location 478)
  • Now imagine if you were able to unshackle yourself from the limits of the present moment, and draw on weeks, months, or even years of accumulated imagination. (Location 480)
  • Second Brain Superpower #4: Sharpen Our Unique Perspectives (Location 484)
  • the ultimate purpose of a Second Brain is to allow your own thinking to shine. (Location 486)
  • In other words, the jobs that are most likely to stick around are those that involve promoting or defending a particular perspective. Think (Location 490)
  • “It’s not that I’m blocked. It’s that I don’t have enough research to write with power and knowledge about that topic. It always means, not that I can’t find the right words, [but rather] that I don’t have the ammunition.” (Location 496)
  • When you feel stuck in your creative pursuits, it doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you. You haven’t lost your touch or run out of creative juice. It just means you don’t yet have enough raw material to work with. (Location 498)
  • Choosing a Notetaking App: The Neural Center of Your Second Brain (Location 502)
  • digital notes apps have four powerful characteristics that make them ideal for building a Second Brain. (Location 509)
  • Multimedia: (Location 510)
  • Informal: (Location 512)
  • Open-ended: (Location 514)
  • Action-oriented: (Location 517)
  • You can find a free, continually updated guide to choosing your notes app and other Second Brain tools at Buildingasecondbrain.com/resources. (Location 524)
  • Remembering, Connecting, Creating: The Three Stages of Personal Knowledge Management (Location 532)
  • The second way that people use their Second Brain is to connect ideas together. (Location 541)
  • They use their Second Brain in ways that complement the current season of their lives. As those seasons change, they will be able to adapt how they use their notes so that they remain relevant and useful. (Location 557)
  • Introducing The CODE Method: The Four Steps to Remembering What Matters (Location 559)
  • we also have a creative code that is hardwired into our imagination. (Location 568)
  • Capture: Keep What Resonates (Location 573)
  • Like a scientist capturing only the rarest butterflies to take back to the lab, our goal should be to “capture” only the ideas and insights we think are truly noteworthy. (Location 578)
  • The solution is to keep only what resonates in a trusted place that you control, and to leave the rest aside. (Location 583)
  • just look inside for a feeling of pleasure, curiosity, wonder, or excitement, and let that be your signal for when it’s time to capture a passage, an image, a quote, or a fact. (Location 587)
  • Organize: Save for Actionability (Location 592)
  • The best way to organize your notes is to organize for action, according to the active projects you are working on right now. Consider new information in terms of its utility, asking, “How is this going to help me move forward one of my current projects?” (Location 600)
  • Distill: Find the Essence (Location 606)
  • There is a powerful way to facilitate and speed up this process of rapid association: distill your notes down to their essence. (Location 612)
  • there is always a way to convey the core message in just a sentence or two. (Location 615)
  • midst of a busy workday, you won’t have time to review ten pages of notes on a book you read last year—you need to be able to quickly find just the main takeaways. (Location 618)
  • Every time you take a note, ask yourself, “How can I make this as useful as possible for my future self?” That question will lead you to annotate the words and phrases that explain why you saved a note, what you were thinking, and what exactly caught your attention. (Location 621)
  • Think of yourself not just as a taker of notes, but as a giver of notes—you are giving your future self the gift of knowledge that is easy to find and understand. (Location 624)
    • Tags: favorite
  • Express: Show Your Work (Location 625)
  • A common challenge for people who are curious and love to learn is that we can fall into the habit of continuously force-feeding ourselves more and more information, but never actually take the next step and apply it. (Location 630)
  • This is why I recommend you shift as much of your time and effort as possible from consuming to creating.V (Location 637)
  • Information is always in flux, and it is always a work in progress. Since nothing is ever truly final, there is no need to wait to get started. You can publish a simple website now, and slowly add additional pages over time. You can send out a draft of a piece of writing now and make revisions later when you have more time. The sooner you begin, the sooner you start on the path of improvement. (Location 648)
  • PART TWO The Method The Four Steps of CODE (Location 678)
  • Chapter 4 Capture—Keep What Resonates (Location 680)
  • Second Brain gives us a way to filter the information stream and curate only the very best ideas we encounter in a private, trusted place. Think of it as planting your own “knowledge garden” where you are free to cultivate your ideas and develop your own thinking away from the deafening noise of other people’s opinions. (Location 689)
  • Building a Private Collection of Knowledge (Location 697)
  • For Swift, writing songs is not a discrete activity that she can do only at certain times and in certain places. It is a side effect of the way her mind works, spinning off new metaphors and turns of phrase at the most unexpected times: (Location 712)
  • Creativity depends on a creative process. (Location 731)
  • Creating a Knowledge Bank: How to Generate Compounding Interest from Your Thoughts (Location 732)
  • Knowledge capture is about mining the richness of the reading you’re already doing and the life you’re already living. (Location 749)
  • A knowledge asset is anything that can be used in the future to solve a problem, save time, illuminate a concept, or learn from past experience. (Location 752)
  • External knowledge could include: Highlights: Insightful passages from books or articles you read. Quotes: Memorable passages from podcasts or audiobooks you listen to. Bookmarks and favorites: Links to interesting content you find on the web or favorited social media posts. Voice memos: Clips recorded on your mobile device as “notes to self.” Meeting notes: Notes you take about what was discussed during meetings or phone calls. Images: Photos or other images that you find inspiring or interesting. Takeaways: Lessons from courses, conferences, or presentations you’ve attended. (Location 754)
  • Stories: Your favorite anecdotes, whether they happened to you or someone else. Insights: The small (and big) realizations you have. Memories: Experiences from your life that you don’t want to forget. Reflections: Personal thoughts and lessons written in a journal or diary. Musings: Random “shower ideas” that pop into your head. (Location 765)
  • What Not to Keep (Location 778)
  • this sensitive information you’d like to keep secure? (Location 780)
  • your notes. Is this a special format or file type better handled by a dedicated app? (Location 783)
  • Is this a very large file? (Location 785)
  • Will it need to be collaboratively edited? (Location 787)
  • Twelve Favorite Problems: A Nobel Prize Winner’s Approach to Capturing (Location 790)
  • Ask yourself, “What are the questions I’ve always been interested in?” (Location 820)
  • The power of your favorite problems is that they tend to stay fairly consistent over time. (Location 836)
  • Ask people close to you what you were obsessed with as a child (Location 849)
  • Don’t worry about coming up with exactly twelve (Location 850)
  • Don’t worry about getting the list perfect (Location 851)
  • Phrase them as open-ended questions that could have multiple answers (Location 852)
  • Capture Criteria: How to Avoid Keeping Too Much (or Too Little) (Location 856)
  • Don’t save entire chapters of a book—save only select passages. (Location 869)
  • The biggest pitfall I see people falling into once they begin capturing digital notes is saving too much. (Location 872)
  • Here are four criteria I suggest to help you decide exactly which nuggets of knowledge are worth keeping: (Location 879)
  • Capture Criteria #1: Does It Inspire Me? (Location 880)
  • There is a way to evoke a sense of inspiration more regularly: keep a collection of inspiring quotes, photos, ideas, and stories. (Location 882)
  • For example, I keep a folder full of customer testimonials I’ve received over the years. Any time I think what I’m doing doesn’t matter or isn’t good enough, all I have to do is open up that folder and my perspective is completely shifted. (Location 884)
    • Tags: favorite
  • Sometimes you come across a piece of information that isn’t necessarily inspiring, but you know it might come in handy in the future. A statistic, a reference, a research finding, or a helpful diagram—these are the equivalents of the spare parts a carpenter might keep around their workshop. (Location 889)
  • Capture Criteria #3: Is It Personal? (Location 894)
  • your own thoughts, reflections, memories, and mementos. (Location 895)
  • Capture Criteria #4: Is It Surprising? (Location 900)
  • Surprise is an excellent barometer for information that doesn’t fit neatly into our existing understanding, which means it has the potential to change how we think. (Location 906)
  • If what you’re capturing doesn’t change your mind, then what’s the point? (Location 915)
  • Ultimately, Capture What Resonates (Location 916)
  • When you use up too much energy taking notes, you have little left over for the subsequent steps that add far more value: making connections, imagining possibilities, formulating (Location 919)
  • The secret to making reading a habit is to make it effortless and enjoyable. (Location 922)
    • Tags: favorite
  • generally useful to save in your notes. It’s a good idea to capture key information about the source of a note, such as the original web page address, the title of the piece, the author or publisher, and the date it was published.III (Location 944)
  • Also, it’s often helpful to capture chapter titles, headings, and bullet-point lists, since they add structure to your notes and represent distillation already performed by the author on your behalf. (Location 946)
  • Beyond Your Notetaking App: Choosing Capture Tools (Location 949)
  • How does capturing work exactly? (Location 950)
  • Ebook apps, (Location 956)
  • Read later (Location 957)
  • Basic notes (Location 958)
  • Social media apps, (Location 960)
  • Web clippers, (Location 960)
  • Audio/voice transcription apps (Location 961)
  • The Surprising Benefits of Externalizing Our Thoughts (Location 991)
  • On average I capture just two notes per day—what are two ideas, insights, observations, perspectives, or lessons you’ve encountered today that you could write down right now? (Location 1024)
    • Tags: favorite
  • Chapter 5 Organize—Save for Actionability (Location 1055)
  • Tharp calls her approach “the box.” Every time she begins a new project, she takes out a foldable file box and labels it with the name of the project, usually the name of the dance she is choreographing. This initial act gives her a sense of purpose as she begins: (Location 1064)
  • “The box makes me feel organized, that I have my act together even when I don’t know where I’m going yet. It also represents a commitment. The simple act of writing a project name on the box means I’ve started work.” (Location 1066)
    • Tags: favorite
  • The Cathedral Effect: Designing a Space for Your Ideas (Location 1106)
  • know that the details of lighting, temperature, and the layout of a space dramatically affect how we feel and think. (Location 1109)
  • Your Second Brain isn’t just a tool—it’s an environment. (Location 1117)
  • Organizing for Action: Where 99 Percent of Notetakers Get Stuck (And How to Solve (Location 1125)
  • Capturing notes without an effective way to organize and retrieve them only leads to more overwhelm. (Location 1131)
  • PARA,I which stands for the four main categories of information in our lives: Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives. (Location 1141)
  • PARA can handle it all, regardless of your profession or field, for one reason: it organizes information based on how actionable it is, not what kind of information it is. (Location 1145)
  • unit of organization for your digital files. Instead of having to sort your notes according to a complex hierarchy of topics and subtopics, you have to answer only one simple question: “In which project will this be most useful?” It (Location 1146)
  • By taking that small extra step of putting a note into a folder (or tagging itIII) for a specific project, such as a psychology paper you’re writing or a presentation you’re preparing, you’ll encounter that idea right at the moment it’s most relevant. (Location 1157)
  • If there isn’t a current project that your note would be useful for, we have a couple of other options of where to put it, including dedicated places for each of the main “areas” of your life that you are responsible for, and “resources,” which is like a personal library of references, facts, and inspiration. (Location 1159)
  • Over time, as you complete your projects, master new skills, and progress toward your goals, you’ll discover that some notes and resources are no longer actionable. I’ll show you how to move them to your “archives” to keep them out of sight but within easy reach. (Location 1161)
  • PARA can be used everywhere, across any software program, platform, or notetaking tool. (Location 1170)
  • How PARA Works: Priming Your Mind (and Notes) for Action (Location 1179)
  • Projects: Short-term efforts in your work or life that you’re working on now. Areas: Long-term responsibilities you want to manage over time. Resources: Topics or interests that may be useful in the future. Archives: Inactive items from the other three categories. (Location 1181)
    • Tags: favorite
  • Projects have a couple of features that make them an ideal way to organize modern work. First, they have a beginning and an end; they take place during a specific period of time and then they finish. Second, they have a specific, clear outcome that needs to happen in order for them to be checked off as complete, such as “finalize,” “green-light,” “launch,” or “publish.” (Location 1186)
  • Side projects: Publish blog post; Launch crowdfunding campaign; Research best podcast microphone; Complete online course. (Location 1199)
  • Areas: What I’m Committed to Over Time (Location 1203)
  • For example, the area of our lives called “Finances” doesn’t have a definite end date. (Location 1205)
  • Activities or places you are responsible for: Home/apartment; Cooking; Travel; Car. People you are responsible for or accountable to: Friends; Kids; Spouse; Pets. Standards of performance you are responsible for: Health; Personal growth; Friendships; Finances. (Location 1219)
  • In your job or business: (Location 1221)
  • Departments or functions you are responsible for: Account management; Marketing; Operations; Product development. (Location 1222)
  • People or teams you are responsible for or accountable to: Direct reports; Manager; Board of directors; Suppliers. (Location 1223)
  • Standards of performance you are responsible for: Professional development; Sales and marketing; Relationships and networking; Recruiting and hiring. (Location 1224)
  • Resources: Things I Want to Reference in the Future (Location 1233)
  • This is basically a catchall for anything that doesn’t belong to a project or an area and could include any topic you’re interested in gathering information about. (Location 1234)
  • Any note or file that isn’t relevant or actionable for a current project or area can be placed into resources for future reference. (Location 1243)
  • Archives: Things I’ve Completed or Put on Hold (Location 1244)
  • Projects that are completed or canceled (Location 1246)
  • What PARA Looks Like: A Behind-the-Scenes Snapshot (Location 1253)
  • It can and should be used everywhere, such as the documents folder on your computer, your cloud storage drives, and of course, your digital notes app. (Location 1255)
  • For example, here are the folders for each one of my active projects: (Location 1259)
  • The number of active projects usually ranges from five to fifteen for the average person. (Location 1261)
    • Note: Compare with projects discussion from Everything in its Place
  • Where Do I Put This?—How to Decide Where to Save Individual Notes (Location 1284)
  • The harder question that strikes fear into the heart of every organizer is “Where do I put this?” (Location 1285)
  • where they should go and what they mean. Here’s the problem: the moment you first capture an idea is the worst time to try to decide what it relates to. (Location 1288)
  • because forcing yourself to make decisions every time you capture something adds a lot of friction to the process. (Location 1290)
  • it’s so important to separate capture and organize into two distinct steps: “keeping what resonates” in the moment is a separate decision from deciding to save something for the long term. Most notes apps have an “inbox” or “daily notes” (Location 1292)
  • Separating the capturing and organizing of ideas helps you stay present, notice what resonates, and leave the decision of what to do with them to a separate time (such as a “weekly review,” which I will cover in Chapter 9). (Location 1295)
  • This order gives us a convenient checklist for deciding where to put a note, starting at the top of the list and moving down: In which project will this be most useful? If none: In which area will this be most useful? If none: Which resource does this belong to? If none: Place in archives. (Location 1302)
  • you are always trying to place a note or file not only where it will be useful, but where it will be useful the soonest. (Location 1306)
  • Organizing by actionability counteracts our tendency to constantly procrastinate and postpone our aspirations to some far-off future. (Location 1312)
  • Knowledge is best applied through execution, which means whatever doesn’t help you make progress on your projects is probably detracting from them. (Location 1315)
  • There is a parallel between PARA and how kitchens are organized. (Location 1317)
  • Instead of organizing ideas according to where they come from, I recommend organizing them according to where they are going— (Location 1326)
  • PARA isn’t a filing system; it’s a production system. (Location 1329)
  • You might save a note on coaching techniques to a project folder called “Coaching class,” for a class you’re taking. Later, when you become a manager at work and need to coach your direct reports, you might move that note to an area folder called “Direct reports.” (Location 1337)
  • At some point you might leave that company, but still remain interested in coaching, and move the note to resources. One day you might lose interest in the subject altogether and move it to the archives. (Location 1339)
  • It doesn’t matter how organized, aesthetically pleasing, or impressive your notetaking system is. It is only the steady completion of tangible wins that can infuse you with a sense of determination, momentum, and accomplishment. (Location 1383)
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  • When it comes to PARA, that step is generally to create folders for each of your active projects in your notes app and begin to fill them with the content related to those projects. (Location 1394)
  • Start by asking yourself, “What projects am I currently committed to moving forward?” and then create a new project folder for each one. (Location 1396)
  • Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you think of the projects that might be on your plate: Notice what’s on your mind: What’s worrying you that you haven’t taken the time to identify as a project? What needs to happen that you’re not making consistent progress on? Look at your calendar: What do you need to follow up on from the past? What needs planning and preparation for the future? Look at your to-do list: What actions are you already taking that are actually part of a bigger project you’ve not yet identified? What communication or follow-up actions you’ve scheduled with people are actually part of a bigger project? Look at your computer desktop, downloads folder, documents folder, bookmarks, emails, or open browser tabs: What are you keeping around because it is part of a larger project? (Location 1397)
  • Although you can and should use PARA across all the platforms where you store information—the three most common ones besides a notetaking app are the documents folder on your computer, cloud storage drives like Dropbox, and online collaboration suites like Google Docs—I recommend starting with just your notes app for now. (Location 1411)
  • Each time you finish a project, move its folder wholesale to the archives, and each time you start a new project, look through your archives to see if any past project might have assets you can reuse. (Location 1414)
  • As you create these folders and move notes into them, don’t worry about reorganizing or “cleaning up” any existing notes. You can’t afford to spend a lot of time on old content that you’re not sure you’re ever going to need. (Location 1416)
  • Start with a clean slate by putting your existing notes in the archives for safekeeping. If you ever need them, they’ll show up in searches and remain just as you left them. (Location 1418)
  • Chapter 6 Distill—Find the Essence (Location 1432)
  • Quantum Notetaking: How to Create Notes for an Unknown Future (Location 1479)
  • This is where even the most dedicated notetakers usually stop. They aren’t sure what to do next. They’ve gathered some interesting knowledge, but it hasn’t led anywhere. Our notes are things to use, not just things to collect. (Location 1481)
  • Discoverability—The Missing Link in Making Notes Useful (Location 1502)
  • Highlighting 2.0: The Progressive Summarization Technique (Location 1528)
  • To enhance the discoverability of this note, I need to add a second layer of distillation. (Location 1549)
  • All I have to do is bold the main points within the note. This could include keywords that provide hints of what this text is about, phrases that capture what the original author was trying to say, or sentences that especially resonated with me even if I can’t explain why. (Location 1551)
  • Look only at the bolded passages you identified in layer two and highlight only the most interesting and surprising of those points. This will often amount to just one or two sentences that encapsulate the message of the original source. (Location 1560)
  • There is one more layer we can add, though it is quite rarely needed. For only the very few sources that are truly unique and valuable, I’ll add an “executive summary” at the top of the note with a few bullet points summarizing the article in my own words. The best sign that a fourth layer is needed is when I find myself visiting a note again and again, clearly indicating that it is one of the cornerstones of my thinking. (Location 1567)
  • recommend using bullet points to encourage yourself to make this executive summary succinct. Use your own words, define any unusual terms you’re using, and think about how your future self, who may not remember anything about this source, might interpret what you’re writing. (Location 1572)
  • Progressive Summarization helps you focus on the content and the presentation of your notes,IV instead of spending too much time on labeling, tagging, linking, or other advanced features offered by many information management tools. (Location 1596)
  • Progressive Summarization is not a method for remembering as much as possible—it is a method for forgetting as much as possible. (Location 1687)
  • The Three Most Common Mistakes of Novice Notetakers (Location 1692)
  • Mistake #1: Over-Highlighting (Location 1694)
  • A helpful rule of thumb is that each layer of highlighting should include no more than 10–20 percent of the previous layer. (Location 1703)
  • If you save a series of excerpts from a book amounting to five hundred words, the bolded second layer should include no more than one hundred words, and highlighted third layer no more than twenty. (Location 1704)
    • Tags: favorite
  • Mistake #2: Highlighting Without a Purpose in Mind (Location 1706)
  • “When should I be doing this highlighting?” The answer is that you should do it when you’re getting ready to create something. (Location 1707)
  • You can’t afford such a giant investment of time without knowing whether it will pay off. Instead, wait until you know how you’ll put the note to use. (Location 1710)
  • That way I have a predictable, not-too-difficult task to get me warmed up for writing, the same way an athlete might have a warm-up and stretching routine. (Location 1713)
  • You have to always assume that, until proven otherwise, any given note won’t necessarily ever be useful. (Location 1716)
  • This assumption forces you to be conservative in the time you spend summarizing notes, doing so only when it’s virtually guaranteed that it will be worth it. (Location 1717)
  • The rule of thumb to follow is that every time you “touch” a note, you should make it a little more discoverable for your future selfVII—by (Location 1719)
  • Mistake #3: Making Highlighting Difficult (Location 1723)
  • When the opportunity arrives to do our best work, it’s not the time to start reading books and doing research. You need that research to already be done. (Location 1742)
  • Chapter 7 Express—Show Your Work (Location 1791)
  • If there is a secret to creativity, it is that it emerges from everyday efforts to gather and organize our influences. (Location 1855)
  • As knowledge workers, attention is our most scarce and precious resource. (Location 1857)
  • The challenge we face in building a Second Brain is how to establish a system for personal knowledge that frees up attention, instead of taking more of it. (Location 1862)
  • The final stage of the creative process, Express, is about refusing to wait until you have everything perfectly ready before you share what you know. (Location 1875)
  • Intermediate Packets: The Power of Thinking Small (Location 1878)
  • it’s time we treated the things we invest in—reports, deliverables, plans, pieces of writing, graphics, slides—as knowledge assets that can be reused instead of reproducing them from scratch. (Location 1899)
  • Distilled notes: Books or articles you’ve read and distilled so it’s easy to get the gist of what they contain (Location 1903)
  • Final deliverables: Concrete pieces of work you’ve delivered as part of past projects, which could become components of something new. (Location 1906)
  • Documents created by others: Knowledge assets created by people on your team, contractors or consultants, or even clients or customers, that you can reference and incorporate into your work. (Location 1908)
  • You become less vulnerable to interruptions, because you’re not trying to manage all the work-in-process in your head. (Location 1919)
  • Assembling Building Blocks: The Secret to Frictionless Output (Location 1937)
  • There is a cost to your sleep, your peace of mind, and your time with family when the full burden of constantly coming up with good ideas rests solely on your fickle biological brain. (Location 1971)
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  • How to Resurface and Reuse Your Past Work (Location 1973)
  • Those four retrieval methods are: Search Browsing Tags Serendipity (Location 1984)
  • Retrieval Method #1: Search (Location 1987)
  • Retrieval Method #2: Browsing If you’ve followed the PARA system outlined in Chapter 5 to organize your notes, you already have a series of dedicated folders for each of your active projects, areas of responsibility, resources, and archives. (Location 1997)
  • Retrieval Method #3: Tags (Location 2016)
  • I don’t recommend using tags as your primary organizational system. It takes far too much energy to apply tags to every single note compared to the ease of searching with keywords or browsing your folders. However, tags can come in handy in specific situations when the two previous retrieval methods aren’t up to the task, and you want to spontaneously gather, connect, and synthesize groups of notes on the fly.III (Location 2028)
  • It usually takes me less than thirty seconds on average to review a highlighted note, which means I can set aside just ten minutes and review twenty of them or more. (Location 2044)
  • Third, sharing our ideas with others introduces a major element of serendipity. (Location 2049)
  • Three Stages of Expressing: What Does It Look Like to Show Our Work? (Location 2055)
  • Remember: Retrieve an Idea Exactly When It’s Needed (Location 2058)
  • Connect: Use Notes to Tell a Bigger Story (Location 2069)
  • 80 percent of the work is already done.” (Location 2081)
  • Create: Complete Projects and Accomplish Goals Stress-Free (Location 2084)
  • Reframing your work in terms of Intermediate Packets isn’t just about doing the same old stuff in smaller chunks. That doesn’t unlock your true potential. The transformation comes from the fact that smaller chunks are inherently more shareable and collaborative. (Location 2101)
  • you can’t usually know which notes are cornerstones up front. (Location 2115)
  • You discover them by sharing your ideas with others, and seeing which ones resonate with them. (Location 2115)
  • The CODE Method is based on an important aspect of creativity: that it is always a remix of existing parts. (Location 2118)
  • Having a Second Brain where all your sources are clearly documented will make it much easier to track them down and include those citations in the finished version. (Location 2130)
  • Instead of thinking of your job in terms of tasks, which always require you to be there, personally, doing everything yourself, you will start to think in terms of assets and building blocks that you can assemble. (Location 2135)
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  • Every little digital artifact you create—the emails, the meeting notes, the project plans, the templates, the examples—is part of the ongoing evolution of your body of work. (Location 2141)
  • One of my favorite rules of thumb is to “Only start projects that are already 80 percent done.” That might seem like a paradox, but committing to finish projects only when I’ve already done most of the work to capture, organize, and distill the relevant material means I never run the risk of starting something I can’t finish. (Location 2172)
  • PART THREE The Shift Making Things Happen (Location 2176)
  • Chapter 8 The Art of Creative Execution (Location 2179)
  • Building a Second Brain is really about standardizing the way we work, because we only really improve when we standardize the way we do something. (Location 2206)
  • One of the most important patterns that underlies the creative process is called “divergence and convergence.” (Location 2219)
  • When you distinguish between the two modes of divergence and convergence, you can decide each time you begin to work which mode you want to be in, which gives you the answers to the questions above. In divergence mode, you want to open up your horizons and explore every possible option. (Location 2254)
  • If you decide to enter convergence mode, do the opposite: close the door, put on noise-canceling headphones, ignore every new input, and ferociously chase the sweet reward of completion. Trust that you have enough ideas and enough sources, and it’s time to turn inward and sprint toward your (Location 2257)
  • When you sit down to finish something—whether it’s an explanatory email, a new product design, a research report, or a fundraising strategy—it can be so tempting to do more research. It’s so easy to open up dozens of browser tabs, order more books, or go off in completely new directions. Those actions are tempting because they feel like productivity. They feel like forward progress, when in fact they are divergent acts that postpone the moment of completion. (Location 2263)
  • There are three powerful strategies for completing creative projects I recommend to help you through the pitfalls of convergence. Each (Location 2267)
    1. The Archipelago of Ideas: Give Yourself Stepping-Stones (Location 2270)
  • Now each chapter starts life as a kind of archipelago of inspiring quotes, which makes it seem far less daunting. All I have to do is build bridges between the islands. (Location 2278)
  • about 1,500 miles of the Pacific Ocean. To create an Archipelago of Ideas, you divergently gather a group of ideas, sources, or points that will form the backbone of your essay, presentation, or deliverable. (Location 2281)
  • Once you have a critical mass of ideas to work with, you switch decisively into convergence mode and link them together in an order that makes sense. (Location 2283)
  • An Archipelago of Ideas separates the two activities your brain has the most difficulty performing at the same time: choosing ideas (known as selection) and arranging them into a logical flow (known as sequencing). (Location 2305)
    1. The Hemingway Bridge: Use Yesterday’s Momentum Today (Location 2314)
  • He would always end a writing session only when he knew what came next in the story. Instead of exhausting every last idea and bit of energy, he would stop when the next plot point became clear. This meant that the next time he sat down to work on his story, he knew exactly where to start. (Location 2317)
  • Write down ideas for next steps: (Location 2327)
  • Write down the current status: (Location 2328)
  • Write down any details you have in mind that are likely to be forgotten once you step away: (Location 2329)
  • Write out your intention for the next work session: (Location 2331)
  • To take this strategy a step further, there is one more thing you can do as you wrap up the day’s work: send off your draft or beta or proposal for feedback. (Location 2336)
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  • The next time you sit down to work on it again, you’ll have their input and suggestions to add to the mix of material you’re working with. (Location 2338)
    1. Dial Down the Scope: Ship Something Small and Concrete (Location 2340)
  • One of the best uses for a Second Brain is to collect and save the scraps on the cutting-room floor in case they can be used elsewhere. (Location 2370)
  • And sharing before I feel ready has completely altered the trajectory of my career. (Location 2377)
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  • Whatever you are building, there is a smaller, simpler version of it that would deliver much of the value in a fraction of the time. (Location 2378)
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  • Divergence and Convergence in the Wild: Behind the Scenes of a Home Project (Location 2393)
  • Start by picking one project you want to move forward on. (Location 2422)
  • Move all the notes and IPs you might want to use into a new project folder. (Location 2433)
  • Set a timer for a fixed period of time, such as fifteen or twenty minutes, and in one sitting see if you can complete a first pass on your project using only the notes you’ve gathered in front of you. (Location 2434)
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  • You will probably be tempted to go off and “do more research,” but you are not completing the entire project in one sitting. You are only creating the first iteration—a draft of your essay, a sketch of your app, a plan for your campaign. Ask yourself, “What is the smallest version of this I can produce to get useful feedback from others?” (Location 2438)
  • Chapter 9 The Essential Habits of Digital Organizers (Location 2460)
  • When we have confidence in our creative process, we don’t have to think about it as much, significantly reducing the background stress of constantly worrying whether we’re going in the right direction. (Location 2467)
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  • Being organized is a habit—a repeated set of actions you take as you encounter, work with, and put information to use. (Location 2473)
  • The Mise-en-Place Way to Sustainable Productivity (Location 2476)
  • We tend to notice our systems need maintenance only when they break down, which we then blame on our lack of self-discipline or our failure to be sufficiently productive. (Location 2495)
  • The three habits most important to your Second Brain include: Project Checklists: Ensure you start and finish your projects in a consistent way, making use of past work. Weekly and Monthly Reviews: Periodically review your work and life and decide if you want to change anything. Noticing Habits: Notice small opportunities to edit, highlight, or move notes to make them more discoverable for your future self. (Location 2504)
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  • The Project Checklist Habit: The Key to Starting Your Knowledge Flywheel (Location 2511)
  • Checklist #1: Project Kickoff (Location 2526)
  • If we consider that these projects are our biggest investments of attention, it’s worth adding a little bit of structure to how we start them. This is where the Project Kickoff Checklist comes in. Here’s my own checklist: Capture my current thinking on the project. Review folders (or tags) that might contain relevant notes. Search for related terms across all folders. Move (or tag) relevant notes to the project folder. Create an outline of collected notes and plan the project. (Location 2533)
    1. Capture my current thinking on the project. I often find that the moment a project begins to form in my mind, I start to have ideas and opinions about it. I like to start by creating a blank note and doing a brainstorm of any thoughts that come to mind. This first note is then placed inside a new project folder dedicated to storing all the notes I’ll be creating related to (Location 2538)
  • Here are some questions I use to prompt this initial brainstorm: What do I already know about this project? What don’t I know that I need to find out? What is my goal or intention? Who can I talk to who might provide insights? What can I read or listen to for relevant ideas? (Location 2542)
    1. Review folders (or tags) that might contain relevant notes. (Location 2548)
    1. Search for related terms across all folders. The third step is to perform searches for any notes I might have missed. Sometimes there are valuable ideas buried in unexpected places, which I may not find through browsing alone. (Location 2553)
    1. Move (or tag) relevant notes to the project folder. (Location 2561)
  • Fourth, any notes found in the previous two steps I move to the project folder, titled after the name of the new project I’m starting. Alternatively, depending on the capabilities of your notes app, you can also tag or link any relevant notes with the project, so you don’t have to move them from their original location. (Location 2561)
  • The important thing isn’t where a note is located, but whether you can reference it quickly while staying focused on the project at hand. (Location 2563)
    1. Create an outline of collected notes and plan the project. (Location 2565)
  • The important thing to remember as you move through this checklist is that you are making a plan for how to tackle the project, not executing the project (Location 2571)
  • You should think of this five-step checklist as a first pass, taking no more than twenty to thirty minutes. You’re only trying to get a sense of what kind of material you already have in your Second Brain. Once you do, you’ll have a much better sense of how much time it will take, which knowledge or resources you’ll need access to, and what your challenges will likely be. (Location 2572)
  • Define success criteria: What needs to happen for this project to be considered successful? What are the minimum results you need to achieve, or the “stretch goals” you’re striving for? (Location 2581)
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  • Checklist #2: Project Completion (Location 2586)
  • The completion of a project is a very special time in a knowledge worker’s life because it’s one of the rare moments when something actually ends. Part of what makes modern work so challenging is that nothing ever seems to finish. (Location 2587)
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  • This is where the Project Completion Checklist is essential. It’s a series of steps you can take to decide if there are any reusable knowledge assets worth keeping, before archiving the rest. (Location 2592)
  • Here’s my checklist: Mark project as complete in task manager or project management app. Cross out the associated project goal and move to “Completed” section. Review Intermediate Packets and move them to other folders. Move project to archives across all platforms. If project is becoming inactive: add a current status note to the project folder before archiving. (Location 2594)
  • Each project I work on usually has a corresponding goal. I keep all my goals in a single digital note, sorted from short-term goals for the next year to long-term goals for years to come. (Location 2605)
  • Third, I’ll look through the folder for the completed project to identify any Intermediate Packets I created that could be repurposed in the future. This could include a web-page design to be used as a template for future sites, an agenda for a one-on-one performance review, or a series of interview questions that might come in handy for future hires. (Location 2614)
  • Any IPs I decide could be relevant to another project, I move to that project’s folder. The same goes for notes relevant to areas or resources. This is a forgiving decision, and it’s okay if you don’t catch every single one. (Location 2618)
  • If project is becoming inactive: add a current status note to the project folder before archiving. The fifth step applies only if the project is getting canceled, postponed, or put on hold instead of completed. I still want to archive it so it’s out of sight, but in this special case, there’s one final action I take. (Location 2625)
  • I add a new note to the project folder titled “Current status,” and jot down a few comments so I can pick it back up in the future. (Location 2628)
  • Answer postmortem questions: What did you learn? What did you do well? What could you have done better? What can you improve for next time? (Location 2636)
  • Evaluate success criteria: Were the objectives of the project achieved? Why or why not? What was the return on investment? (Location 2639)
  • Since you don’t know for sure that any of this material will ever be useful again, you should minimize how much extra time and attention you invest in it. Put in just enough effort that your future self will be able to decide if the material is relevant to their needs. If (Location 2643)
  • The Review Habit: Why You Should Batch Process Your Notes (and How Often) (Location 2651)
  • Allen recommends using a Weekly Review to write down any new to-dos, review your active projects, and decide on priorities for the upcoming week. (Location 2655)
  • I suggest adding one more step: review the notes you’ve created over the past week, give them succinct titles that tell you what’s inside, and sort them into the appropriate PARA folders. (Location 2656)
  • A Weekly Review Template: Reset to Avoid Overwhelm (Location 2660)
  • Clear my email inbox. Check my calendar. Clear my computer desktop. Clear my notes inbox. (Location 2664)
  • Choose my tasks for the week. (Location 2666)
  • There is no “correct” location for a given note, and search is incredibly effective, so I put it in the first place that occurs to me. (Location 2681)
  • don’t highlight or summarize them. I don’t try to understand or absorb their contents. I don’t worry about all the topics they could potentially relate to. (Location 2684)
  • While the Weekly Review is grounded and practical, I recommend doing a Monthly Review that is a bit more reflective and holistic. (Location 2694)
  • Area notebooks often contain notes that become the seeds of future projects. (Location 2710)
  • The Noticing Habits: Using Your Second Brain to Engineer Luck (Location 2722)
  • It’s crucial to stay organized, but it needs to be done a little at a time in the flow of our normal lives. (Location 2744)
  • Here are more specific examples of what those opportunities might look like: You decide to visit Costa Rica on your next vacation, so you move a note with useful Spanish phrases from your “Languages” resource folder to a “Costa Rica” project folder to aid in your trip. Your director of engineering leaves for another job and you need to hire a new one, so you move the folder you created last time for “Engineering hire” from archives to projects to guide your search. You schedule the next in a series of workshops you are facilitating and move a PDF with workshop exercises from an area folder called “Workshops” to a new project folder for the specific workshop you’re planning. You notice that you need to buy a new computer because your current one is getting too slow, so you move some articles you’ve saved from the “Computer research” resource folder to a new project folder called “Buy a new computer.” (Location 2746)
  • When you make your digital notes a working environment, not just a storage environment, you end up spending a lot more time there. (Location 2756)
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  • want to remind you that the maintenance of your Second Brain is very forgiving. Unlike a car engine, nothing will explode, break down, or burst into flames if you let things slide for days, weeks, or even months. The entire point of building a Second Brain and pouring your thoughts into it is to make those thoughts less vulnerable to the passage of time. (Location 2767)
  • We have to remember that we are not building an encyclopedia of immaculately organized knowledge. We are building a working system. Both in the sense that it must work, and in the sense that it is a regular part of our everyday lives. (Location 2778)
  • For that reason, you should prefer a system that is imperfect, but that continues to be useful in the real conditions of your life. (Location 2780)
  • Chapter 10 The Path of Self-Expression (Location 2790)
  • Now our challenge isn’t to acquire more information; as we saw in the exploration of divergence and convergence, it is to find ways to close off the stream so we can get something done. Any change in how we interact with information first requires a change in how we think. (Location 2802)
  • over the years I’ve noticed that it is never a person’s toolset that constrains their potential, it’s their mindset. (Location 2806)
  • Whatever you are looking for, all these paths eventually lead to the same place, if you are willing to follow: a journey of personal growth. There is no divide between our inner selves and our digital lives: the beliefs and attitudes that shape our thinking in one context inevitably show up in other contexts as well. (Location 2809)
  • I’m saying that the greater the burden you place on your biological brain to give you everything you want and need, the more it will struggle under the weight of it all. You’ll feel more stressed, anxious, like there are way too many balls in the air. (Location 2825)
  • Once you start seeing even your biggest ambitions in terms of the smaller chunks of information they are made up of, you’ll begin to realize that any experience or passing insight can be valuable. (Location 2835)
  • As you build a Second Brain, your biological brain will inevitably change. It will start to adapt to the presence of this new technological appendage, treating it as an extension of itself. Your mind will become calmer, knowing that every idea is being tracked. It will become more focused, knowing it can put thoughts on hold and access them later. I often hear that people start to feel a tremendous sense of conviction—for their goals, their dreams, and the things they want to change or influence in the world—because they know they have a powerful system behind them amplifying every move they make. (Location 2847)
  • Giving Your First Brain a New Job (Location 2852)
  • as the CEO of your life, orchestrating and managing the process of turning information into results. (Location 2853)
  • hand over the job of remembering to an external system, and by doing so, freeing it to absorb and integrate new knowledge in more creative ways. (Location 2854)
  • Emptying ourselves of our jumble of thoughts requires courage, because without our thoughts as distractions, we are left to sit with uncomfortable questions about our future and our purpose. (Location 2867)
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  • The biggest shift that starts to occur as soon as you start creating a Second Brain is the shift from viewing the world through the lens of scarcity to seeing it through the lens of abundance. (Location 2874)
  • We’ve been taught that information must be jealously guarded, because someone could use it against us or steal our ideas. That our value and self-worth come from what we know and can recite on command. (Location 2879)
  • An Abundance Mindset tells us that there is an endless amount of incredibly powerful knowledge everywhere we look—in the content we consume, in our social network, in our bodies and intuitions, and in our own minds. (Location 2888)
  • It also tells us that we don’t need to consume or understand all of it, or even much of it. All we need is a few seeds of wisdom, and the seeds we most need tend to continually find us again and again. (Location 2889)
  • It means giving up low-value work that gives us a false sense of security but that doesn’t call forth our highest selves. (Location 2894)
  • Knowledge is the only resource that gets better and more valuable the more it multiplies. If I share a new way of thinking about your health, or finances, or business, or spirituality, that knowledge isn’t less valuable to me. It’s more valuable! Now we can speak the same language, coordinate our efforts, and share our progress in applying it. Knowledge becomes more powerful as it spreads. (Location 2909)
  • We are constantly told that we should be true to ourselves and pursue our deepest desires, but what if you don’t know what your goals and desires are? What if you have no idea what your “life purpose” is or should be? Self-direction is impossible without self-knowledge. How can you know what you want if you don’t know who you are? (Location 2941)
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  • I’ve spoken with so many people about their stories, and I’ve noticed time and again how many of them have beautiful, moving, powerful things to share. They have unique experiences that have revealed to them deep wisdom, yet they almost always undervalue those stories and experiences. (Location 2969)
  • The world is desperate to hear what you know. You can change lives by sharing yourself with others. (Location 2971)
  • Who are you to speak up? Who says you have anything to offer? Who are you to demand people’s attention and take up their time? The only way to discover the answer to these questions is by speaking and seeing what comes out. (Location 2974)
  • always fall back on the four steps of CODE: Keep what resonates (Capture) Save for actionability (Organize) Find the essence (Distill) Show your work (Express) (Location 2990)
  • Are you hoping to remember more? Focus on developing the practice of capturing and organizing your notes according to your projects, commitments, and interests using PARA. Are you hoping to connect ideas and develop your ability to plan, influence, and grow in your personal and professional life? Experiment with consistently distilling and refining your notes using Progressive Summarization and revisiting them during weekly reviews. Are you committed to producing more and better output with less frustration and stress? Focus on creating one Intermediate Packet at a time and looking for opportunities to share them in ever more bold ways. (Location 2997)
  • here are twelve practical steps you can take right now to get your Second Brain started. (Location 3003)
  • Decide what you want to capture. (Location 3005)
  • Choose your notes app. (Location 3007)
  • Choose a capture tool. (Location 3009)
  • Get set up with PARA. Set (Location 3011)
  • Get inspired by identifying your twelve favorite problems. (Location 3013)
  • Automatically capture your ebook highlights. (Location 3016)
  • Practice Progressive Summarization. (Location 3018)
  • Experiment with just one Intermediate Packet. Choose a project that might be vague, sprawling, or simply hard, and pick just one piece of it to work on—an Intermediate Packet. Maybe it is a business proposal, a chart, a run of show for an event, or key topics for a meeting with your boss. Break the project down into smaller pieces, make a first pass at one of the pieces, and share it with at least one person to get feedback. (Location 3020)
  • Make progress on one deliverable. (Location 3023)
  • Schedule a Weekly Review. (Location 3025)
  • Assess your notetaking proficiency. (Location 3028)
  • Evaluate your current notetaking practices and areas for potential improvement using our free assessment tool at Buildingasecondbrain.com/quiz. (Location 3028)
  • Join the PKM community. (Location 3030)
  • If I could leave you with one last bit of advice, it is to chase what excites you. When you are captivated and obsessed by a story, an idea, or a new possibility, don’t just let that moment pass as if it doesn’t matter. Those are the moments that are truly precious, and that no technology can produce for you. Run after your obsessions with everything you have. (Location 3043)