Written and Published by on Feb 20, 2019 BY TIAGO FORTE https://fortelabs.co/blog/basboverview/ 

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.

This methodology is not only for preserving those ideas, but turning them into reality. It provides a clear, actionable path to creating a “second brain” – an external, centralized, digital repository for the things you learn and the resources from which they come.

You’ll have an ongoing record of personal discoveries, lessons learned, and actionable insights for any situation.

Part I: Remember keep it in a single, centralized place

A) Think like a curator

unless we make conscious, strategic decisions about what we consume, we’ll always be at the mercy of what others want us to see.

B) Organize your content by project

Instead of organizing each one of the information management tools you use in a completely different way, use your projects as universal categories across all of them.

C) Keep only what resonates

By training ourselves to notice when something resonates with us at a deeper level, we improve not only our ability to see opportunities, but also our understanding of ourselves and how we work.

Part II: Connect

A) Design notes for your future self

By constantly saving packets of knowledge in a format that our future self can easily consume, we follow a “pay it forward” strategy that we get to benefit from in the future!

B) Summarize progressively, at different levels of detail

read the note in different ways for different purposes: in depth if you want to glean every detail, or at a high level if you just need the main takeaway.

C) Organize opportunistically, a little bit at a time

add value to a note every time you touch it - ensure that the most frequently used (and thus most valuable) notes surface organically

Part III: Create

All of this capturing, summarizing, connecting, and organizing has one ultimate purpose: creating tangible results in the real world

A) Don’t just consume information passively – put it to use

B) Create smaller, reusable units of work

C) Share your work with the world

Ending - Because you know how to capture and make use of anything, every experience you have becomes an opportunity to learn and to grow. Instead of endlessly optimizing yourself, trying to become a productivity machine that never deviates from the plan, it has you optimize an external system that is more reliable than you will ever be. This frees you to imagine, to wonder, to wander toward whatever makes you come alive here and now in the moment.