[[Tiago Forte]] [[lit/books/Building a Second Brain|Highlights]] > If we consider the focused application of our attention to be our greatest asset as knowledge workers, we can no longer afford to let that intermediate work disappear. If we consider how precious little time we have to produce something extraordinary in our careers, it becomes imperative that we recycle that knowledge back into a system where it can become useful again. Tiago Forte introduces his Second Brain, a concept in the *tool for thought* genre akin to Zettlekasten, Memex, or a Digital Garden. A Second Brain can help (1) make ideas concrete, (2) reveal new associations, (3) incubate ideas over time and (4) sharpen your unique perspective. His journey in personal knowledge management (PKM) starts with a rare, complex health condition which led him to capture and organize notes on his health care and that eventually allowed a doctor to diagnose him. Tiago's perspective on PKM is action-oriented. "Personal knowledge management exists to support taking action—anything else is a distraction." Focusing on what is actionable will help you determine what to collect and what to discard. He recommends to "shift as much of your time and effort as possible from consuming to creating." His Second Brain is organized using his Projects, Areas, Resources, Archive (PARA) system and a workflow of Collect, Organize, Distill, Express (CODE). He relates his CODE workflow to the double diamond of design thinking. ## Collect what resonates Instead of collecting everything, Tiago recommends you curate what resonates. "This special feeling of 'resonance'—like an echo in your soul—is your intuition telling you that something is literally 'noteworthy.'" Curate inspirational, useful, personal, and surprising information. >A garden is only as good as its seeds, so we want to start by seeding our knowledge garden with only the most interesting, insightful, useful ideas we can find. ## Organize for projects By organizing the Second Brain around projects, no project starts from scratch. In fact, Tiago claims he only starts projects that are already 80% done. "When the opportunity arrives to do our best work, it’s not the time to start reading books and doing research. You need that research to already be done." However, Tiago points out that "you have to always assume that, until proven otherwise, any given note won’t necessarily ever be useful. You have no idea what your future self will need, want, or be working on." Thus, the Second Brain is also a means of cultivating your perspective and "seeding" the ground for future projects. "In this sense, notetaking is like time travel—you are sending packets of knowledge through time to your future self." ## Distill in your own words As with other PKM thinkers, Tiago stresses the importance of writing notes in your own words. Your notes are "knowledge building blocks", which build up to your unique perspective over time. "If a piece of content has been interpreted through your lens, curated according to your taste, translated into your own words, or drawn from your life experience, and stored in a secure place, then it qualifies as a note." Tiago recommend leaving each note better than you found it, following the "campsite rule". Progressive summarization is a technique extract key information by first clipping passages, then bolding important text, then highlighting the most important sections, and finally writing an executive summary. ## Express for feedback Once those notes are applied to a project, they truly become your knowledge. "Information becomes knowledge—personal, embodied, verified—only when we put it to use." If you share them with an audience, "you will begin to see yourself as the curator of the collective thinking of your network, rather than the sole originator of ideas." Discoverability is the key to resurfacing notes for future use. > The challenge we face in building a Second Brain is how to establish a system for personal knowledge that frees up attention, instead of taking more of it...The more you outsource and delegate the jobs of capturing, organizing, and distilling to technology, the more time and energy you’ll have available for the self-expression that only you can do. As with the Getting Things Done approach, Tiago recommends a Weekly Review to maintain your Second Brain. ## Anecdotes ### Commonplace books A commonplace book is a journal of personal reflections carried by English intellectuals in the 18th and 19th centuries. Tiago calls his Second Brain a digital commonplace book. ### Feynman's approach > Feynman’s approach was to maintain a list of a dozen open questions. When a new scientific finding came out, he would test it against each of his questions to see if it shed any new light on the problem. This cross-disciplinary approach allowed him to make connections across seemingly unrelated subjects, while continuing to follow his sense of curiosity. ### Hemingway bridge > Hemingway was known for a particular writing strategy, which I call the “Hemingway Bridge.” He would always end a writing session only when he knew what came next in the story. Instead of exhausting every last idea and bit of energy, he would stop when the next plot point became clear. This meant that the next time he sat down to work on his story, he knew exactly where to start. He built himself a bridge to the next day, using today’s energy and momentum to fuel tomorrow’s writing.