The Second Brain method
A free interpretation
Although second brain is a common expression in our day to designate especially an electronic metaphor about databases, the term became popular with the methodology developed by Tiago Forte. As he puts it:
Building A Second Brain is a methodology for saving and systematically reminding us of the ideas, inspirations, insights, and connections we’ve gained through our experience. It expands our memory and our intellect using the modern tools of technology and networks.
It is a methodology that pushes David Allen’s notion that the brain (mind) is made to produce ideas rather than store them. What Tiago proposes is basically to systematize the steps in Allen’s Getting Things Done — especially the capture step — and organize them around four main axes around the P.A.R.A. anagram, which I’m going to do my own poetical reading (excuse-me😄).
(P)rojects:
Although Tiago defines a project as a succession of tasks, I think that, more than that. It’s also a goal that requires a set of tasks, but has as its purpose any life project we have and demands the use of resources. It’s not just about work or study. It can be applied to any personal interest or hobbies.
The Second Brain lesson — and challenge — is to find out how the projects related to the other letter and how to create a way for them to interconnect.
(A)reas:
Areas are the main topics of interest where the resources we acquire are grouped. They are like national library search filters or categories, such as philosophy, management, or botanical knowledge on how to create your own garden.
(R)esources:
Resources are the large database where the disinterested information we accumulate over a lifetime is located. They demand all the work on how to capture, store, consume, classify that I’ve summarized in another text.
(A)rchives:
Archives are where the projects and resources used for their implementation are located after their completion. It’s important to keep them because we never know when we’ll use them for similar projects or even to replicate them, presenting them as an example to other people.
💭The entire method assumes two previous steps:
1️⃣ One, which is trivial, that we are desiring subjects.
2️⃣ The second is the need to adopt the mindset of saving all disinterested knowledge of all types of content that we consider relevant. If we don’t write about a video that we watch or an article that we read, it will make us forget hours after.
The idea of building a second brain revolves around saving all the information we acquire in a digital database, regardless of whether we think it will have an immediate use or even that it will have a use. The catch is when we build projects around interest that arise when we least expect it, possibly we will already have some resource bank with information that allows its realization.
I believe that this idea says a lot about our times. It says about something that i wrote in another topic about how we are unaccustomed to training our memory and delegating the storage capacity of machines. Just remember that we can no longer remember phone numbers. Or how many times we meet someone and in the middle of the conversation we forget the answer and the other person challenges us not to look it up on Google, but in the depths of our memory palace. By that I mean that our lack of memory is historically determined and its lack says a lot about the emergence of the Second Brain methodology.
💭The second question came to me from asking why nobody thought about it before? Why Second Brain was unfeasible a hundred years ago? It’s emergence also says about the advancement and expansion of cloud technology. How will we manage to keep all the knowledge we have accumulated and archive the projects carried out in a world without terabytes of data available to be accumulated? Therefore, a prerequisite that appears as unspoken in Second Brain is the requirement to join a data package, although there are many free ones and enough quantity, but that will easily be limited.
The truth is that the method developed by Tiago Forte is much more complex than I summarized it, he even has a course on it and is about to launch a book on the method.
