Imagine you sit down to work at your computer determined to really get things done. You brew a strong cup of coffee, turn off your phone, put on your favorite playlist, and resolve to not get up before you’ve made real progress on your most important tasks. Even if you already know what your top…
“Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.” —Gustav Flaubert “We carry within us the wonders we seek without us.” —Sir Thomas Browne “The ability to ‘fantasize’ is the ability to survive. It’s wonderful to speak about this subject because there have been so many…
As soon as cohort 12 of Building a Second Brain finished earlier this year, my team and I sat down to start designing the next cohort. We looked at everything: Feedback from students Ideas for improvements saved in our notes New apps and features that have been released And our long-term plans for making this…
We are officially launching cohort 13 of Building a Second Brain (BASB), our flagship online course on how to save your best ideas, organize your knowledge, and use it to lead a fulfilling life with more ease and less stress. We’ve spent the last 5 months making a new round of radical improvements to every…
One of the most powerful shifts I see people make in the way they work is breaking down their large projects or goals into smaller chunks, which I call “Intermediate Packets.” I use the term “packet” because it reminds us that so much of our work today is digital, which means it is malleable and can…
I’m often surprised when people find the idea of a “Second Brain” – a system of knowledge management that lives outside one’s head – to be fanciful or unrealistic. When in fact, the practice of saving and storing important information in a trusted place is ubiquitous. Professionals of all kinds have developed ways of documenting…
Octavia Estelle Butler was born in 1947 in Pasadena, CA. Known in her early years as “Estelle,” she was raised by a single, widowed mother who worked domestic jobs to make ends meet. Painfully shy and introverted from a young age, Estelle became an easy target for bullying at school. Her shyness combined with slight…
In 1969, studio executives at Paramount Pictures were desperate to find a film director for a new movie they had purchased the rights to. It was to be a crime drama based on the New York Mafia. One after another, all the top directors of the era turned the project down. They all found it…
In my PARA Method, I teach people how to organize all their digital notes and files using a simple, 4-part system. Your computer is your working environment for many of your waking hours. Until you take control of it and design it to support the kinds of thinking you want to do, every minute spent there…
I recently taught this workshop on How to Take Digital Notes, hosted by Teachable, the online learning platform I use for my courses. This is an introductory workshop for people just getting into this crazy world of Second Brains, personal knowledge management, and digital notetaking. I presented some of the core concepts you’ll need to know…
A “Second Brain” is a trusted system that lives outside your head and helps you organize your digital world, cultivate your best ideas, and dramatically expand your creative output. By creating your own Second Brain, you can make use of the time you’re already spending reading, listening, watching, and communicating to create a valuable asset…
Introducing Season 2 of the Building a Second Brain podcast! Available on: Spotify, Libsyn, and Apple Podcasts. In this season I talk about 9 of the biggest myths and misconceptions that people have about Second Brains, and what it means to create one for themselves. Based on years of experience teaching, writing, and coaching people on this subject,…
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