Stop trying to be productive, do this instead (Second Brain Setup)
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Be more productive, produce more in less time, and become more efficient. While these can all be good things to strive for, the drive for productivity is surrounded by toxic environments, unrealistic goals, and overwhelming systems. What if we set aside productivity and instead tried something simpler? BUILDING A SECOND BRAIN.
A second brain is an idea developed by Tiago Forte where he prioritizes note-taking above productivity. When you watch a TED talk, take notes. When you read a great book, take notes. When you have a great idea, write it down. Our brain is not meant to be a storage dump for every thought, piece of content, and random tidbit that flies through our minds each day. Now, more than ever, we consume content at an incredible rate, but most of it has no purpose unless it’s accessible when you need it.
The idea of second brain is that it can be a place to effectively store all that valuable information until you need it. You can later recall, organize and use the information that’s relevant to the project or process you are working on. Second brains don’t need to be complex, in fact, they thrive on simplicity. You can make your second brain in whatever software, app, or resource you choose, although there is a really common setup that I’m going to show you today.
What does a simple second brain system look like?
One of my favorite parts about a second brain is that it’s entirely personalized to you. That being said, getting started can feel overwhelming. While Tiago forte has some great resources, and even an entire course on the topic, I want to share my super simple system with you, in hopes it’ll inspire you to just create one today and worry about the structure a bit later.
Tiago Forte recommends the PARA system for notes — that’s Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archive. This is incredibly popular among the second brain community since the founder himself developed it, but I found that for my needs, a simpler system worked best.
I use Notion for my second brain. I have three databases that make up the main structures of my system.
- First is my Second Brain database. This is where every piece of content, bookmark, note, or thought lives.
- Second is my Areas database, this is a relational database that helps me to sort all my main entries into 7 main sections.
- Third is my Actions database, another relational database that sorts each entry into an action that should be taken.
When I submit a new entry into my Second Brain, I ALWAYS assign the area that it best fits. If I’m not sure where it belongs or if I want to add to it later, I leave the area blank so it sits in my “inbox” for review at the end of the week.
If a note I take is something I know I want to use in the next month or so, I assign an action to it. Usually, this is for a project (recall), an idea I want to consider (consider), an article to send to someone (share), or a quick entry from my phone of something that needs to get done (quick work). If I’m not sure of its relevance at the time, I’ll leave the action blank and let it live in my areas for now.
Whenever possible, I try to use backlinks to my advantage. If I’m taking a note on editing Youtube videos, I’ll backlink it to an “Editing Tips” note that I have within my system. Rather than having a complex list of tags or projects or categories, I use master pages to help me collect similar entries. I have a page for Business Bookmarks, which are simply resources I may use later in my business. I have a page for Notion templates, where I save any templates I come across that I like the formatting of. I have a page for Books that help me track books I’ve read and link to any relevant book notes I may have taken.
Once per week I go through my inbox and assign areas and actions as needed. Whenever I have a few minutes on a commute while brushing my teeth, or waiting for the coffee to brew, I’ll scroll through random areas and notes to recall info and add relevant actions or backlinks as I see fit. Monthly I review all my actions and check that everything is up to date and relevant for my current projects. And sometimes, notes just become unnecessary or outdated and I’ll mark them with a “Z” at the beginning of the title to note that (ie. a bookmark for a website that’s long gone, or notes on how to grow your social media account that no longer exists)
How do you filter notes from a variety of sources?
This will mostly depend on what system you use for your second brain, every app has different import and API setups — however, the most common setup will include:
- Quick entry from a mobile device — for on-the-fly notes and quick thoughts. When you’re sitting in the middle of chaos and you think to yourself, “I have an idea”, you need a safe place to put that idea so that you can come back to it later when you have more time.
- Web browser entry — for saving bookmarks, highlights, articles, or clips of the web. You want something that’s not intrusive, and that will easily work with your system.
- Journal Format entry — for long-form content, day-to-day entry, and typing out your own ideas into a journal format. I like to do a daily journal entry, so the ability to use a template for this has made that habit much easier.
- Kindle Import for PDFs and eBooks — (Readwise is a good choice if you consume a lot of written content like this). If you don’t read a ton of e-books, you can just get the notes from your Amazon Kindle and copy and paste or import them directly into your system. That’s what I do when it’s been working fine.
- Photo and scanned entry — for uploading random post-its, scanning in important documents, or photographing a highlight from a physical book. I really enjoy reading physical books so this has made it good practice that if an idea is good enough to save it’s worth snapping a photo or typing it out into my phone.
- As a bonus form of entry, audio. I like to take voice memos or use otter.io to flush out ideas or even draft video scripts well I’m driving, playing with my kids, or just don’t feel like typing. I use otter.io for this most of the time and then export that data directly into my own system for flushing out at a later date.
How to take decent notes
The biggest mindset shift you need to make is to focus less on collecting content and focus more on distilling content for your future self. Instead of typing out an article word-for-word or bookmarking an entire 1-hour workshop, focus on writing out the main points. If I read a book about better public speaking, I’d want to highlight key actions I could take to improve my speeches. I might mark down pages with specific techniques to practice or link to famous speeches that I found inspiring. Rather than 100 highlights from one book, I would have a note with only the most important ideas that would be easily scannable and reviewable a year or even a decade from now.
The best system is the system you will use. If you want to see your notes in one big list, do it. If using 400 different tags helps you find what you need, use it. Ultimately your second brain should work well with your first one. If you take away anything from this entire video it’s this: stop focusing on getting more done and focus instead on using a second brain to free up some of your mental load and put all those thoughts, content, and inputs to actual use. Your first brain will feel a little lighter — and ACTUALLY make it a more efficient system.
Grab the Notion Second Brain template here.
Tiago Forte: https://www.youtube.com/c/TiagoForteL...
The PARA Method: https://fortelabs.co/blog/para/
Otter AI for Audio Notes: https://otter.ai/
Readwise for book notes: https://readwise.io/i/stephanie333 (get a free month)
Second Brain Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn...
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