Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organise Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential

To enhance the discoverability of this note, I need to add a second layer of distillation. I usually do this when I have free time during breaks or on evenings or weekends, when I come across the note while working on other projects, or when I don’t have the energy for more focused work. All I have to do is bold the main points within the note.

Sometimes the goal is nothing more than a personal mantra such as ‘keep it simple’ or ‘something perfect’ or ‘economy’ to remind me of what I was thinking at the beginning if and when I lose my way. I write it down on a slip of paper and it’s the first thing that goes into the box.”

Any one of these subjects could become its own resource folder. You can also think of them as “research” or “reference materials.” They are trends you are keeping track of, ideas related to your job or industry, hobbies and side interests, and things you’re merely curious about.

Part of what makes modern work so challenging is that nothing ever seems to finish. It’s exhausting,

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?”

without our thoughts as distractions, we are left to sit with uncomfortable questions about our future and our purpose.

Instead of inventing a completely different organizational scheme for every place you store information, which creates a tremendous amount of friction navigating the inconsistencies between them, PARA can be used everywhere, across any software program, platform, or notetaking tool. You can use the same system with the same categories and the same

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. The

Here’s what most people miss: it’s not enough to simply divide tasks into smaller pieces—you then need a system for managing those pieces. Otherwise, you’re just creating a lot of extra work for yourself trying to keep track of them. That system is your Second Brain, and the small pieces of work-in-process it contains I call “Intermediate Packets.”