Building a Second Brain
From: LIFE/BOOKS/Building a Second Brain
- Borrowed Creativity - creativity is all about remixing knowledge
- The Capture Habit - whenever you come up with an idea you should write it down. Whenever you read, watch or listen to something and there is an idea behind it you should try to write it down in your own words:
- Listen - god to have a recorder - watch might be handy since it is always near and you can use it without interrupting your listening even when you are driving
- Read paper/Watch video - always read with a pen in your hand LIFE/BOOKS/How to take smart notes
- Read e-reader - highlight text and paraphrase it
- Idea Recycling - reuse the ideas, materials and notes down the line, when you put all your thoughts in your second brain you won’t forget them and be able to use them again in another projects
- Projects Over Categories - instead of categorizing notes the better solution is to put them in specified projects. In this way you would be able to take advantage of them straight away in your projects. You doesn’t have to put it in a specified folder - just link or bookmark them in the specified project.
- Slow Burns - the opposite of heavy lift - the situation when you want to do all the work at once in some short amount of time. Instead you can work on all your project at once and let them “burn” slowly - whenever you come to an idea related to the project or link some note to it (see previous point) you are actually developing this project and you slowly moves it forward.
- Start With Abundance - whenever you start to work on something you never start from the blank page because with all the information you gathered in your second brain you can start with the abundance of information
- Intermediate Packets (content blocks) - paragraphs or points like this note - each of this point is a separate intermediate packet which you can reuse in some other project you are working on. Moreover working on the small pieces of information is easier and less scarry to begin with and there is less chance to procrastinate because of it. Working on a small piece is always easier - how to eat an elephant? piece by piece :)
- You Only Know What You Make - you can read, watch and listen to everything but you are able to memorize it all better if you implement and start using it or at least try it. Imagine all the books you read and all ideas you had, all texts you wrote and didn’t store them somewhere - where are they now? Probably gone forever and what if you had it in your brain - you would be able to reuse and get back to it whenever you like to. You can say that you have lost the time spent on reading, watching and listening because nothing came of it.
- Make it Easier for Your Future Self - when making notes you should do it in the way you could be able to understand it in the future without the context.
- Keep Your Ideas Moving - there is a catch - you shouldn’t just take notes and make huge database of information. Unless it becomes useful and you can implement it or make use of it all the information is useless. It is not about perfect note taking system - it is about the system which allows to keep your ideas moving - linking them together and be able to take advantage of them whenever you can.
(71) How to Organise your Life - Building a Second Brain - YouTube