Building a Second Brain

Date Finished: 2023-02-21 Author:: Tiago Forte Highlights: Tiago - Building a Second Brain Kindle Highlights Rating:: 8/10


🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

  • Capture ideas and information into a personal knowledge base
  • Organize by actionabillity and elevate insights with progressive summarization
  • Apply knowledge to projects and goals

🎨 Impressions

How I Discovered It

Through Tiago’s advertising after discovering his Blogpost series on PARA

Who Should Read It?

Anyone interested in PKM, who wants to become more organized digitally and is unsure how to starting taking notes effectively or who thinks he has it already figured out.

☘️ How the Book Changed Me

I started using the PARA organizational system everywhere. I applied it to my digital notes, local & cloud files and task manager. And converted every device to use the same structure.

✍️ My Top 3 Quotes

Asking yourself “How can I make this as useful as possible for my future self?”

📒 Summary + Notes

See my Amazon Kindle Highlights here: Tiago - Building a Second Brain Kindle Highlights

Feynman’s 12 Problems

Richard Feynman kept 12 Core Problems open in his mind. Everytime he’d come across some information, he’d test it on his problems. Eventually that led him to solve his problems in a “genius” way.

I’m currently doing something similar. Everytime I come across new information. I immediately try to put it to use. Either through my system or put it somewhere where I will find it later.

Choosing a capturing Tool

Missing the abillity to capture full emails and directly transcribing voice memos.

Generation Effect … Writing in your own words makes you remember things better Detachment Gain … Externalizing Writing/Speaking enables you to gain new insights

Hidden Chapter 11: Tagging System

Create personalized tags for your use cases.

Find your own use cases and create tags on demand.

Tagging according to the final product a note will be used in: [Presentation],

[Essay], [Report], [Website], [Project plan], [Meeting agenda], or [Budget]

• Tagging according to the kind of information a note contains: [Arguments],

[Theories], [Frameworks], [Evidence], [Claim], [Counterpoint], or [Question]

Use tags to track the progress of notes.

Avoid tagging based on category. Track their status instead.

Tag notes retroactively and only as needed.

Use tags to be able to provide a different “View” of your notes.