This month, I’ve been following the course for Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain program, a productivity system designed to increase creative output and workflow. The idea is simple: there’s too much information in the world for us to handle on our own, so in addition to our first brain, we need a second brain that works the same way. But, because it’s a digital brain, it has a perfect memory; that way, you can use it to hold onto all the information you need.
The Second Brain allows you to gather information, whether it’s blog posts, youtube videos, PDFs, other digital files, etc., and use it further down the line when creating content. By building uncommon connections and leaving notes in an interconnected mass, you can link ideas and create content that truly intrigues you.
P.A.R.A.
The central tenet of the Second Brain system is the P.A.R.A. organization system. This splits all notes, files, and ideas into four categories that you can keep consistent across all platforms and file systems. These four categories are:
Projects: These are tasks with a start and endpoint that are very clear, varying in scope from “Collaborate with Jonathan” to “write a novel.”
Areas of Responsibility: These are ongoing tasks with no defined endpoint (or recurring necessity). “Take out the trash,” “Balance the checkbook,” etc.
Resources: These are topics of ongoing interest. Art, music, writing, marketing, sales, ballroom dance, etc. It’s a necessarily more broad category
And finally the Archives: This section is comprised of anything from the previous three sections that are no longer relevant.
I’m only a month into using this system, but the difference it’s made is already night and day. Most amazing has been the Archive aspect. Moving things out of the way once they’ve served their purpose is incredibly freeing and helps to keep the current projects streamlined.
Below is a recording I made showcasing how I’ve set up my Evernote in accordance with the P.A.R.A. system.
Progressive Summarization
This is my absolute favorite part of the Second Brain system. In short, it’s a way of taking content and distilling it into denser, bite-sized chunks over time so that you can save time during review. Instead of reading 13 full articles that might be relevant to the project, you can read 13 summaries of articles to decide if they’re relevant to your project before delving into them further.
To see how I’ve used this, please see the video below where I explain the concept of Progressive Summarization in full and show the examples from the research project I was engaged in at the time:
Content Creation
This is what the previous steps all lead to: actually making content. By drawing upon your sources and insights, you can essentially build up a deliverable module database. In other words, instead of locking yourself in the cave for several hours, distraction-free, until the current project is done, you can pull different aspects of previous projects together to finish the current project.
When I wrote my role research pieces this month, the Evernote system was vital to streamlining the process. Progressive Summarization shaved off hours of time that might have been spent reading and re-reading entire articles. The distilled notes from those were central to drafting, reviewing, and publishing these pieces.
In the following video, I discuss how the Second Brain system allows you to maximize your return on attention:
Moving Forward
It’s probably the best organizational system I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve encountered plenty for a lifetime. Its superlative quality lies in the fact that it isn’t just an organizational system, but one geared specifically towards mimicking the human brain in its interconnectivity and optimizing the creation of content.
I’ve noticed that the more comfortable I become with the Second Brain system (and I wasn’t very comfortable with it to start), the sooner I completed projects. Going from finishing weekly projects on the due date to finishing them two days in advance is a marvelous feeling and I really don’t think I could have done it without having a firm grip of my Second Brain system.
Now that this system is in place, it all relies on keeping up the habits I’ve developed with it: daily organization of saved notes, a weekly review of their relevancy, and consistent organization sticking to the PARA system. The benefits I’ve seen in this first month of using the Second Brain system have left me a bit awestruck. I couldn’t be more excited to see how much more I’ve improved in a year from now.