We recently crossed the astounding milestone of 100,000 copies sold of my book Building a Second Brain! That’s just in the U.S. and UK, and over the next few months, it will go on sale in 20+ other countries and languages around the world. I have to be honest: every goal that I ever imagined for this book has been fulfilled.
Our digital world is constantly colliding and overlapping with the digital worlds of others. No one is an island, and that is especially true in our hyperconnected age where information can be so easily shared and intermixed. I’ve long advocated for individuals to create a personal system of knowledge management to help them skillfully navigate…
Imagine for a moment the perfect organizational system. A system that told you exactly where to put every piece of information in your life – every document, file, note, agenda, outline, and bit of research – and exactly where to find it when you needed it.
This research project started with a simple question that has crossed every author’s mind: How can I tell which books are successful? TV shows have Nielsen ratings, music albums have the Billboard Top 100, and movies regularly publicize their box office earnings, but not books. Bestseller lists like The New York Times are notoriously subjective, while more objective ones like Amazon and The Wall Street Journal only provide rankings, not raw numbers.
This month will be the last time I teach a cohort of Building a Second Brain. After teaching 6k graduates in 16 cohorts over 6 years, it’s time to pass the torch to new instructors who will take over from here on out. Here’s why I’m making this decision: At every point in my journey, I’ve been surprised…
Over the past few weeks, I did something I’ve never done before: I read through all my old journals going back 10 years. I’m not a hardcore journaler, as you can probably tell by the fact that only 7 notebooks cover a full decade of my life. Journaling is more of a crisis intervention tool…
Mike St. Pierre invited me to speak at his 2022 Nonprofit Productivity Summit. In less than 25 minutes, we covered… Why I’m not a fan of digital minimalism The simple mindset shift to step out of the information overload crisis How taking notes can have a miraculous impact on you and your career The under-appreciated benefits…
Ryder Caroll, the creator of the Bullet Journal, invited me to discuss all things personal knowledge management (PKM) and Building a Second Brain. We covered: First vs Second Brain What a Second Brain looks like How to use a notebook as a Second Brain Goals vs Projects The Second Brain and reflection The future of…
I joined best-selling author Daniel Pink on The Pinkcast to discuss how to take notes and capture like a pro. In 193 seconds, we also discussed: Why we should offload information? The 30-day experiment to make you a pro at notetaking How to retrieve your notes quickly and efficiently Watch our quick chat here:
I joined fellow productivity nerd Mike Vardy on the Productivityist podcast to discuss the depths of PKM and what it really means to Build a Second Brain. We dived into: Why notetaking needs to be a little chaotic, messy, and informal Why most life management systems fail The difference between productivity and personal knowledge management When I…
I joined Chris Hutchins on the All the Hacks Podcast to discuss all things Second Brain. We dived into: How you can remember and use the things you learn Why you should only save the quote and not the whole book Why there is no one app to rule them all Why you need to…
One of my favorite things about open questions is that they can be freely borrowed anywhere you encounter them. In my course Building a Second Brain, I lead students through an exercise to identify their own favorite problems. They can then serve as a filter for what to capture in their notes, a guide for…
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