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

Digital notes aren’t physical, but they are visual. They turn vague concepts into tangible entities that can be observed, rearranged, edited, and combined together. They may exist only in virtual form, but we can still see them with our eyes and move them around with our fingers. As researchers Deborah Chambers and

The first is that people need clear workspaces to be able to create. We cannot do our best thinking and our best work when all the “stuff” from the past is crowding and cluttering our space. That’s why that archiving step is so crucial: you’re not losing anything, and it can all be found via search, but you need to move it all out of sight and out

The more diverse and unusual the material you put into it in the first place, the more original the connections that will emerge.

“CODE”—Capture; Organize; Distill; Express.

You take ten minutes before the meeting starts to organize your notes.

To be able to make use of information we value, we need a way to package it up and send it through time to our future self.

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.

Your Second Brain gives you a place to corral the jumble of thoughts tumbling through your head and park them in a waiting area for safekeeping. Not only does this allow you to preserve them for the long term; there are multiple other profound benefits that come from the simple act of writing something down. First, you are much more likely to remem

Using PARA is not just about creating a bunch of folders to put things in. It is about identifying the structure of your work and life—what you are committed to, what you want to change, and where you want to go.