About a decade ago, I came across a video on YouTube that profoundly shaped my view of how culture works. Everything Is A Remix by documentary filmmaker Kirby Ferguson argues that all new creative works are built from preexisting ones in an endless process of what he calls “remixing.” From music to movies to video…
Mike St. Pierre invited me to speak at his 2022Â 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 had the honor of interviewing Dr. Jason Frand, THE personal knowledge management (PKM) pioneer. In 1999, Dr. Jason Frand and Carol Hixon wrote the revolutionary paper ‘Personal Knowledge Management: Who, What, Why, When, Where, How?’. This article coined the term PKM and changed its trajectory forever. In this interview, we discussed: Where the idea for PKM…
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 sat down with Sachit Gupta on the Conscious Creators Show to discuss the business of Building a Second Brain. We covered… Why I thought of shutting down my company How I went from solopreneur to a team of 10 The biggest mistakes creators make The lessons I learned from my artist dad The importance…
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…
Series Navigation: 12 Favorite Problems<< How to Thrive in a World of UncertaintyOne 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…
The future has become so uncertain that goals are now obsolete. The stable, predictable world we grew up in is gone. The idea that you can make a “5-year plan” and execute it one step at a time is laughable. No one knows what’s going to happen in the next 5 years or even the next 5 weeks. Goal-setting was once central to our conception of what it means to navigate the future successfully. But goals can no longer serve as guides to an unfolding future that we have so little control over.
It was a pleasure to sit down with Pomp to chat about all things Second Brain. We dove deep into a host of topics, including: Are we consuming too much? How many hours do I read a day? How to create projects from your notes Why removing risk from your life is wrong Do our…
Your favorite problems will likely stay consistent over many years, but that doesn’t mean they can’t evolve. I’ve found that in most cases I never actually arrive at a final, definitive answer to a question. Instead, the question changes as I learn more. Let me illustrate this with a case study. I’ll show you how one of my favorite problems – teaching – changed over time as my life went through different stages.
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