Building A Second Brain Podcast Notes

Mindful Notes by Broc

August 02, 2023

This article contains the notes I captured while listening to Tiago Forte’s podcast Building a Second Brain. He recorded this with a friend before publishing his book with the same title. The podcast is conversational and fairly to the point.

Tiago made a comment that they recorded all of the episodes, two “seasons” worth, in just a day. They opened up their notes apps and organized all of the information they’ve captured and expressed it efficiently.

I admire them for practicing what they’re teaching, and the result is impressive!

Podcast Link 🎧:

I recommend starting with this episode…

…followed by all of the episodes published in March, then moving on to…

…followed by all of the “Myth” episodes published in April.

 10 Principles of a Second Brain

  1. Borrowed creativity

    1. Don’t start from scratch. Stand on shoulders of giants.

  2. Capture

    1. Don’t use your mind to remember things. Use it to create.

  3. Idea recycling

    1. Reuse your own ideas and make them more valuable each time.

  4. Projects over categories

    1. Don’t silo your knowledge into sub sub sub categories.

  5. Slow burns

    1. Not everything has to be a heavy lift. Keep projects on the back burner and then when it’s ready it feels like it didn’t take much effort.

  6. Start with abundance

    1. Gather resources then distill down instead of starting with a blank canvas.

  7. Intermediate packets

    1. Don’t try to climb Mount Everest in one trip. Build a project like legos.

  8. You only know what you make.

    1. Taking action is the best way to discover what you don’t know.

  9. Make it easier for your future self

    1. You will arrive later. Package and preserve the paradigm shifts and breakthroughs for when you’re ready to implement them.

  10. Keep your ideas moving

    1. No need to be stuck on one problem just save your work and move on to the next one.

Gold Nuggets of Knowledge

  • The second brain is a distributed system, not a single concentrated appliance. It is interconnected with various nodes like websites, apps, people, and institutions.

  • Every individual possesses a form of a second brain, whether simple or sophisticated, such as a personal finance system or for example when you take a picture of a whiteboard and it saves to your photos library.

  • Design thinking is a problem-solving approach that can be used to generate creative solutions to various challenges. This part was intriguing and worth digging into…studying creative frameworks.

  • Working externally (outside your mind) in a second brain allows for multitasking and moving to the next task when blocked, while working internally (with your working memory) requires single-task focus. Refer to the “Hemingway Bridge” in the book.

  • Consider who you want to be in the future and write down ideas now to aid future performance and personal growth.

  • Your second brain should save you time not take up your time. If it’s too formal and takes too long to maintain, it’s not worth it.

  • A second brain is for people who want to practically use knowledge to their advantage. It’s for people with a chaotic schedule who have a lot of incoming information. It’s for creators. It’s for managing your life.

  • Project management = life management

  • A second brain will let you easily capture inspirations for your creativity to run with and ultimately help you express it.

  • THERES NO RIGHT WAY. There’s SO many ways. Pick what works for you.

  • …and you don’t need technical skills to create and maintain it. By the way, it doesn’t have to be digital.

  • A second brain isn’t a hack. It’s a sustainable system.

  • You don’t have to overhaul your life to get started.

The most profound thing that was said in this podcast, for me, was the idea of, “What if all of your notes deleted at the end of the year?” This thought brought me anxiety. Immediately.

The “so what” was that we should be expressing regularly (remember CODE - last one is Express) in order for our capturing, organization, and distillation to be useful.

I believe that sharing knowledge gives me the biggest return on investment. When it sits there or when I’m the only one who can use it, it’s only worth so much. I hope this helps you.

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Happy learning,

Broc