B. A. S. B.

How to Build A Second Brain

Over the last month I have followed a course by Tiago Forte called Building A Second Brain. While that may sound odd or even unsettling, the course was incredibly educational and has expanded my horizons in organizations, memory, and workflow.

So What is this “Second Brain”

Just like your actual brain, this refers to a digital data bank filled with ideas, thoughts, notes, memories, etc.. We live in a world where we are constantly processing information. Our day to day lives are filled with things our brain has to take in, and as impressive as our minds are, they aren’t capable of holding on to all of that information. This is where your second brain comes in, a system organized and designed to help improve efficiency in note taking, progress tracking, and memory.

I will fully admit that at first I was very skeptical of the real world use of this system. I have never been someone who takes a lot of notes or keeps references. I have always just relied on my classic human memory to keep everything I need in place. It wasn’t until going through this course that I realized, our memory is great but heavily flawed. There were hundreds of things I found myself putting into my new BASB system that I definitely wouldn’t have remembered on my own.

Retaining Ideas And Information

So far this has been the biggest thing I have used this system for. At the beginning of the course, Tiago introduced us to an organization concept known as “PARA”. Using four separate folders to hold your important information or ideas. PARA is an abbreviation standing for

Projects - Long or short term projects that you are currently working on with a set deadline and an end goal you are trying to reach

Areas - Where items pertaining to certain aspects of your work, a kind of limbo where different resources exist that are related to specific topics

Resources - As the name would suggest, these are your important resources, things you may need to reference later or keep for future use

Archives - Items you want to backlog and put away for later. A vault for things that aren’t important to keep on hand but still serve a purpose

This concept was put into use within a program called Evernote, which is a digital database for your notes and thoughts. Over the last month I have worked on building and organizing my BASB system within Evernote, and I am excited to keep going with it and see the impact it’s going to have in my life.

Getting started with BASB

In the beginning it was a slow learning process for me. Any notes or info I had (which there wasn’t much of) was all spread out throughout physical notebooks. It took me a while to even integrate the PARA system. It you watch the video below, you can see my initial explanation on getting started with my BASB system. It’s missing many components that I have since added, but it gives an idea of the impact it can have.

Progressive Summarization

It was at this point in the course I started to really get excited for how I was going to use this system in my professional and personal life. I immediately saw a change in what I was able to remember and how easy it was to access important ideas once I implemented this strategy. Progressive summarization is a simple concept with a 3 step process for picking your notes apart into categories of usefulness, each ranked in succession. The video below shows and explains the use of this strategy within my BASB Evernote system.

In this video I explain the usage of “Progressive Summarization” in Evernote

Workflow Strategies

By far my favorite part of this course was Taigo’s “workflow strategies”. These are all different tools you can use to increase productivity in your BSAB system, and even everyday work. This really sold me on the idea of this program and is something I’ve found myself implementing in almost everything I do. In the video below I explained a couple of my favorite workflow strats covered in the course, but many more can be found within his actual lessons, which are linked at the bottom of this thread.

In this video I explain the use of workflow strategies in Evernote

Closing Remarks

This system is truly incredible, especially for someone like me who is dealing with a constant in-flow of information. My “second brain” has helped increase my productivity and retention in all the work I do, and I believe it would do the same for anybody. As I continue to grow this digital landscape of information throughout the following years of my life. I believe it will become more and more useful as more time passes. I plan on sticking with this system both for my work life, and my personal ventures, and I would recommend anyone who comes across this thread to do the same.

-Braden Schmidt 10/28/19