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

Notice that some of these questions are abstract, while others are concrete. Some express deep longings, while others are more like spontaneous interests. Many are questions about how to live a better life, while a few are focused on how to succeed professionally. The key to this exercise is to make them open-ended questions that don’t necessarily

Ask yourself, “What are the questions I’ve always been interested in?” This could include grand, sweeping questions like “How can we make society fairer and more equitable?” as well as practical ones like “How can I make it a habit to exercise every day?” It might include questions about relationships, such as “How can I have closer relationships w

I can’t think of anything more important for your creative life—and your life in general—than learning to listen to the voice of intuition inside. It is the source of your imagination, your confidence, and your spontaneity. You can intentionally train yourself to hear that voice of intuition every day by taking note of what it tells you.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you think of the projects that might be on your plate: Notice what’s on your mind: What’s worrying you that you haven’t taken the time to identify as a project? What needs to happen that you’re not making consistent progress on? Look at your calendar: What do you need to follow up on from the past? Wh

“I think it’s important to put your impressions down on the first reading because those are the initial instincts about what you thought was good or what you didn’t understand or what you thought was bad.”

Start by asking yourself, “What projects am I currently committed to moving forward?” and then create a new project folder for each one.

I took all the files they’d migrated over and moved them all to a new folder titled “Archive” plus the date (for example, “Archive 5-2-21”).

this is the fundamental paradox at the heart of writing: you have to do the research before you know what you will write about.

The true test of whether a note you’ve created is discoverable is whether you can get the gist of it at a glance.