Building A Second Brain - A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential
By Tiago Forte
Opening funfact: Human brains process 34GB of information every day
C - Capture
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Capture the right things
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Capture to one place only
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Export/integration must exist (no lock-in)
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Potent & urgent things only, only the two key takeaways per day on average
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Don't organize immediately, but at a later point in time. That makes your going over more analytical
O - Organize
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The environment matters for inspired thinking -> focus time&place
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Don't sort by subject like a library, but sort like in a kitchen. Efficiency and process optimization matters -> Intuitive
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Projects - the domains of second brain projects often have deadlines
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Areas - Topics
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Resources - Interesting, but no goal (yet)
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Archives - finished or irrelevant
D - Distill
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Getting more knowledge means adding information, getting wisdom means subtracting information
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Distill is about subtracting
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First iteration is to summarize == only relevant parts remain, like for an executive summary
E - Express
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Knowledge assets like lego bricks, software modules, movie scenes, ...
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"Intermediate packages" with which you can use to get fast & early feedback
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Examples like vision, agenda, mission statement
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Rephrasing things is helpful but not perfect. You need to use the knowledge to really grasp its meaning.
Only start projects where you did already 80% of the research. Then you're more likely to finish them.