12-Mar-23 How to Build Your Second Brain

Hey there!

I'm excited to share with you my personal journey of using digital notes as a way to sustain my learning habits and effectively organize my notes. Since January 1st, 2022, I've been documenting my everyday learnings on Notion and sharing them on Instagram. Some of my friends have been curious about my process and have asked me how I do it. In this newsletter, I'll share how I started my journey and some of my recent reflections.

Are you ready to dive in?

1. Choosing the Right Notes Taking Tool that suit your notes taking style

When I was still a freshman in CUHK, I started my digital note-taking journey with Apple Notes and Evernote. I used them to jot down my university lecture notes, but I quickly realized that my notes were fragmented and unorganized. This made it hard for me to revisit them later on for exam revision. Luckily, one of my close friends recommended Notion, and it has become my most frequently used application and "second brain" ever since.

What I love about Notion is its flexibility. As an INTJ, I tend to approach note-taking as if I am designing a blueprint for a building. Notion's modular design and customization options allow me to create a tailored system that suits my specific needs. I can categorize and tag my notes in a more systematic and organized way, making it easier for me to retrieve information when I need it.

With that being said, I am not suggesting Notion would be the perfect tool for everyone. In a video by Tiago Forte, a productivity guru who wrote the book "Build Your Second Brain," he discusses the three types of note-takers: Architects🏬,, Gardeners🧑‍🌾,, and Librarians📚.. Architects seek structure and customization in organizing their information, making Notion an ideal tool for them. Gardeners, who want to cultivate new ideas and make spontaneous creative leaps, may prefer tools like Obsidian and Rome Research. Finally, Librarians collect and categorize information for easy retrieval and study, and Evernote is a great option for them.

2. From Capturing everything to only capturing the valuable and relevant items

After using Notion, I tried to build a few dashboard capturing the knowledge from multiple sources, I found that I captured a lot of different "raw" "unprocessed" knowledge on Notion while it isn't super helpful when I need to use them. With that in mind, I tried to be more mindful whenever I come across new information I got by asking myself of these questions:

• Is this related to a topic that I'm interested in?
• Is this going to be helpful reference to my future study or work?
• What information do I already have that might be useful?
• How can I connect and use this information in the future?

3. Organising the Notes to make it discoverable for the “Future You”

Have you ever found yourself struggling to revisit your old notes and wondering what you even meant by some of the things you wrote down? I know I have. That's why I've developed a solution to help myself and others make the most out of their notes. To solve this problem, it's important to consider design and think about our future selves as demanding customers who need to be "sold" on the idea of reviewing a given note.

Additionally, we can balance discoverability and understanding by making notes small, simple, and easy to digest, while still including context, details, examples, and cited sources.

4. Progressive Summary to deepen your understanding towards a topic every time you touch it

When I started using Notion as my "Second Brain," I quickly realized that the knowledge I keep should evolve over time, from source text to something close to an "out of the box" solution or insights. That's why I learned about a technique called “Progressive Summarization” from Forte's Blog, which I found really helpful.

The idea is to organize opportunistically, a little bit at a time, and to add value to a note every time you touch it. This could include adding an informative title the first time you come across a note, highlighting the most important points the next time you see it, and adding a link to a related note sometime later.

By spreading out the heavy work of organizing your notes over time, you not only save time and effort, but you also ensure that the most frequently used (and thus most valuable) notes surface organically, like a ski slope where the most popular routes naturally end up with deeper grooves. Pretty cool, right?

P.S. A quick tip to do progressive summary on Notion is to use the reminder function for you to review your notes on a timely basis

• Revisit (this piece of information) March 19, 2023

In a world where AI tools like ChatGPT and Notion AI are readily available, it's easy to fall into the trap of relying solely on these tools to organize our notes. However, the importance of progressive summarization cannot be overstated. By remixing and recreating our knowledge over time, we add our own unique style and point of view, creating something more valuable than a pure solution provided by AI. So let's not forget to keep evolve our notes and knowledge into something truly special.

Happy notes taking and please share with me any best practices you have developed across time if possible 😄

Sherman

Things that I found interesting this week:

🎬  Video — How to Organise your Life - Building a Second Brain by Ali Abdaal. This is video is very lively sharing from Ali Abdaal on organising his personal life using notes taking app like Notion. I would like to highlight that idea of “slow burn” he mentioned in the video, which can be applied to building a second brain by starting with small, manageable tasks and gradually building up to more complex ones. It also involves consistent and persistent effort over a long period of time, rather than trying to rush through the process.

🎬  Video —  The ULTIMATE Second Brain Setup in Notion by Thomas Frank. I liked how this video by Frank managed to provide a step by step guide to build that system from scratch for beginners in the field, especially on how he used the workflow to automate and optimize his productivity.

📚 Book — Think like A Rocket Scientist by Ozan Varol is a must-read for anyone looking to improve their problem-solving skills and achieve success. With practical examples and insightful advice, this book provides a framework for thinking outside the box and approaching challenges with a fresh perspective. Whether you're a student, entrepreneur, or just someone looking to improve your critical thinking skills, "Think Like a Rocket Scientist" will inspire you to reach for the stars.”