My Simple Second Brain

Tiago Forte, author of Building a Second Brain, has been blowing up recently.

His collaboration with some of my favourite creators has got me thinking that he must be onto something here.

What is a Second Brain?

A Second Brain is a centralised system, usually online, that takes care of all of the tasks and jobs that you need to remember that take up valuable space in the brain.

What was it you had to buy for dinner again? I can't find the Katsu Curry recipe I really liked last time. How much am I spending a month on bills?

All of these are important to keep a track of. But as David Allen said: 'your mind is for having ideas, not holding them'.

So with this in mind (currently) do you have a system right now that can help you with those tasks you always seem to forget about?

There are plenty of apps that are out there, and plenty of walkthroughs, but some are just SO confusing?!?!?

Jeff Su did a great video about this and his second brain actually inspired my one.

I think I've now found the right tools and apps that helps me achieve just that.

Todoist. Obsidian. Google Calendar.

These three tools have given me some conscious thought back.

Whilst it isn't the most all-encompassing, for me as a newbie to this second brain malarkey, it's been really useful having a system that I've managed to keep up for a while now.

Let me talk you through them.

Todoist - Capture.

It is vital that you immediately capture any thoughts, links, articles, ideas that you have so that it doesn't take up cognitive space in your mind.

I use Todoist as my capture platform.

This is a task tracker that allows you to track your to do list and assign due dates and a whole host of other functionalities.

It has a language model that allows you to 'talk' to it. Instead of setting a due date, you can simply say 'on Monday I want to blah blah blah'. It automatically places the due date for the next happening Monday.

It's great.

I use Todoist to capture articles I want to read, thoughts I have and tasks I need to do (funnily enough).

I capture them on my phone through the app and widget. It's really easy to use and a frictionless process.

I also have it integrated with my Google Calendar. Any tasks/events I have coming up can be synced to my Google calendar and I now get notifications on my phone reminding me.

All of this - FREE.

Every few days, I then go through my Todoist, see what is there and start to sort into my second brain.

Any irrelevant thoughts I delete, any articles I read, I then capture into my 'system' (which I'll talk about in a bit) and then remove from Todoist, keeping it nice and empty.

It then allows me to have a healthier relationship with my phone. I'm starting to use it as a tool more than I am a procrastination device.

Obsidian - Retain

My notetaking app of choice is now Obsidian. I've tried Notion, I've tried Monday and neither have worked for me.

But with Obsidian, I have notes that I'm able to link together and generate a mind map so that I know how everything is connected.

My process from Todoist to Obsidian is as follows:

I take any links that I have captured into Todoist, open them up on my laptop (which I sit down at every few days) and then capture them into Obsidian.

Once captured, I remove from Todoist.

I then read the article and, if appropriate, I make a notes page to help me capture my thoughts and content from the article that I've learnt.

Once written, I then remove the link entirely and now have a new notes page with newly acquired knowledge.

This then helps with content creation across my socials.

Now whilst Notion has the capability to be more all encompassing with it's own coding and functionality tables and different templates, I've found it to be very overwhelming.

In Obsidian, you start with a blank canvas and you can just start writing.

Everything I do is placed into its own folder. And whilst I can't generate a table into Obsidian, I can capture documents like spreadsheets.

Whilst it isn't directly embedded into Obsidian, it is captured in one system.

This means that I get to have all of my thoughts, budgets, ideas etc. into one system and I don't need to worry about trying to remember.

I've also gone over previously written notes and forgotten that I wrote the thing down which has helped proved my point for developing this system.

Google Calendar.

Google Calendars biggest role is to be linked to my Todoist.

I don't enjoy mixing work with leisure so for my personal calendar it is very rewarding. This is a system that I can 100% use at work as well.

Being able to capture a task, attribute a time to it and have it automatically sync into my calendar is extremely helpful and frictionless.

The last point is the most important. This syste has is frictionless.

I can easily capture ideas and process them into my brain all without giving it too much concious thought.

And that's the whole point right? To create a system that works around me.

Yes some concious effort is needed on my part to actually go through Todoist and switch over. But this is part of becoming a better person.

Your second brain can't work for you. But it can remember.

That's the important part.