Building a second brain to organise our lives

We consume increasing amounts of information on a daily basis. Researchers estimated that we take in 34GB per day, equivalent to 100,000 words read or heard - approximately the length of The Hobbit. Others have estimated the equivalent of 174 newspapers.

These are big numbers. But this research was undertaken over a decade ago; the volume of information we consume daily has increased significantly since then.

Having all this information has obvious advantages. However, the sheer amount of it can be overwhelming; and processing, retaining and utilising all of it is likely impossible. Think about the times you've read an article during a busy day at work but then struggled to recall key facts from it.

Information overload can lead us to lose information that could be useful in the future, therefore expending time and mental resources in consuming knowledge and producing ideas which are ultimately wasted.

A second brain is a tool which can help solve this problem.

The second brain

A second brain is a place to outsource the storage and organisation of knowledge and thoughts to, be it in a simple physical notebook or in a digital note taking app. Personal knowledge management allows us to harness the full potential of our ideas, focussing mental energy on more value-add tasks like being creative with information instead of just trying to retain it.

Think about the writer jotting down a plot idea in a notebook whilst on a train, or the keynote speaker saving a quote they've read on their phone. Later on when it comes to the creative process, both can refer back to previously saved notes and focus their efforts on drawling links between all their creative thoughts and converting those inputs into valuable outputs.

But this can apply to simple day-to-day information. Imagine you're planning Christmas but you can't remember where you stored the decorations last year, what presents you got your family previously and what dishes went down well. If you'd stored a couple of notes on that in your 'Christmas' page in your digital notes app last year, you could just refer back to it easily and get on with planning, saving time and stress with a simple keyword search.

Implementation idea

Experiment with creating a second brain and saving thoughts, ideas, and information over the next few weeks. Save notes by intended application to make it easier to refer back to and action the information stored.

I personally use pen and paper and write down quick daily notes in a physical journal, allowing me to keep track of all my thoughts and in the future refer back to my own personal wisdom, and I save quotes, links, paragraphs of text etc in a digital note-taking app which is synchronised across my devices. I frequently review my written notes and save the most important points in the digital system.

A digital set up may be easier for both indexing and then retrieving the information. It is recommended to save the information according to use cases (e.g. creating different folders for different topics like 'running the marathon next year', 'new business venture', 'travel tips' etc). Storing by intended use allows for easier retrieval and actioning than when purely saving information in a single note, or by date as you would with a daily planner.

Powerful benefits from a simple tool

A second brain system which is well-designed captures information, organises it by intended use case, distills it down to the most important points, and then allows this information to be expressed so it is utilised most productively.

Hit reply on this email to let me know what system you use and the benefits it gives you.

Best, Alex Joshi