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

many of us share the feeling that we are surrounded by knowledge, yet starving for wisdom. That despite all the mind-expanding ideas we have access to, the quality of our attention is only getting worse. That we are paralyzed by the conflict between our responsibilities and our most heartfelt passions, so that we’re never quite able to focus and al

Why even try? Why keep attempting to do the impossible? Why resist the temptation to watch another Netflix episode or scroll through social media? Without the time and energy to move things decisively forward, what’s the point of starting?

area of responsibility,

Unlike with your house or garage, there is no penalty for keeping digital stuff forever, as long as it doesn’t distract from your day-to-day focus.

you are always trying to place a note or file not only where it will be useful, but where it will be useful the soonest.

Instead of organizing ideas according to where they come from, I recommend organizing them according to where they are going—specifically, the outcomes that they can help you realize.

people need clear workspaces to be able to create.

Progressive Summarization helps you focus on the content and the presentation of your notes,IV instead of spending too much time on labeling, tagging, linking, or other advanced features offered by many information management tools.

My mentor advised me to “move quickly and touch lightly” instead. To look for the path of least resistance and make progress in short steps.

James W. Pennebaker, “Writing about Emotional Experiences as a Therapeutic Process,” Psychological Science 8, no. 3 (May 1997), 162–66.