Build a second brain and watch the knowledge accumulate

The concept of a second brain has been talked about for a while but how do you actually go about it and what tools are there to help you. This blog post will help you get there.

Our lives are so busy and with masses of information being pushed at us it feels as though our brains are saying “enough” and struggling to take on new information.

But there are actions you can take to get round this issue which will help with all areas of your life.

So what actually is a second brain?

Imagine a fully searchable record of every meeting you’ve had at work, every podcast you’ve listened to, every recipe you tried (and failed) and every book, article or blog post you’ve found useful. Imagine never forgetting to buy milk or pick up your dry cleaning when you’re in town. All these things are possible if you build the right systems.

It doesn’t need to be complicated and different people will have different approaches. The following list is what works for me (most of the time!).

Keep a journal

I don’t mean scribbling in a notebook. Download an app such as Day One. I use this as the centre of my second brain. I have been journaling for a while. It started off as just a great way to order my thoughts and just spew out what my brain was trying to process. I’d definitely recommend that.

But it’s grown into more than that. I have Day One installed on all my devices. I get an idea, it goes in the journal and tagged appropriately. I watch a top YouTube video or listen to a podcast, it gets sent to DayOne.

Very quickly you will find you will start to build up a valuable repository of things you have consumed and ideas for working on later.

Create a system for capturing thoughts when they come to you

You don’t know when a good idea will come to you. To be honest, it’s unlikely to be when you are sitting at your desk with your laptop in front of you. It’s more likely to be when you’re on a walk or run or cooking the dinner.

The brain is very bad at holding those ideas for later so you need to capture that idea immediately. A good system I use is to send myself a WhatsApp message. Why WhatsApp? Well, WhatsApp is easily accessible on my phone. I have my work phone “chat” pinned to the top so I’ll easily be able to find it and send myself the idea for later.

So far, I haven’t accidentally sent my dad a random message about a new blog post idea! This is a potential pitfall of this approach. If you think this is too much of a risk you could just open DayOne but it is a little more fiddly.

Make great notes

Sitting in meetings it is so easy to just sit there, simply listen to what is being said and then totally forget everything 5 mins after the meeting.

Making great notes was something I knew I needed to improve on. It started with something I noticed my boss doing. They would always know exactly what we talked about in our last 1:1. In fact they knew what we’d talked about in our 1:1 from 5 months ago. It was scary.

But they weren’t remembering it all. They had simply made really good searchable notes that they were able to call up in an instant.

Making notes as you listen is also a great way of actively listening. By simply writing down what you’re hearing you can stay engaged in what the other person is saying. It really works.

Tools to help you

Above all else the tools and systems you adopt need to be simple. Here are the four tools I use everyday in my life which together form my “second brain”. You may find others that work for you.

1. Day One

This forms the centre of my second brain. It’s a very simple app that follows a calendar entry style. You can add text, web-links, audio, photos and even drawings.

2. One Note

This one may sound rather boring but I like it because it’s integrated into the Microsoft stack. It’s easy to send meetings to One Note from your calendar and bring across all the documents associated with that meeting, meeting attendees and then you can tag and share with people.

If you aren’t wedded to the Microsoft stack you might also want try Notion. With all the other apps in this list I don’t think I need Notion but you may find it works for you.

3. WhatsApp

As I explained before, this is my go to place for quickly adding ideas and sending them to myself if I’m out and about. This is really just about having a quick access place to record an idea so it could be just into Day One but I like the feel of just writing one line ideas in WhatsApp rather than a whole new post in Day One each time.

4. Microsoft To Do

Again, this ticks the box for simplicity. Keep shared lists of things you need to do, grocery lists or it could be another repository for ideas for your next blog.

The basic idea is to write down as many of your thoughts as possible so that your brain can get on with doing better things such as coming up with new ideas or building on the ideas you’ve been noting down.

Your system for doing this should be as simple as possible so that you don’t need to think about it. Any friction could mean that amazing idea just pops out of your head and it’s lost.

Thank you for reading Never Stop Learning. This post is public so feel free to share it.

You may also enjoy this video from Ali Abdaal. Check it out.

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