The name is Abbie. Abbie-normal

So, What’s This Second Brain Thing? A Trick For More Productivity? We’ll See…

(Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash)

The human brain isn’t fond of schedules. Or To-dos. It just wants to create, to have inspiration from the outside.

This is why Leonardo DaVinci carried what was called a ‘Vision Book’.

An invention idea came to him? He wrote it down — or in his case, sketched the idea. He heard something interesting in a local tavern conversation? He wrote it down. Found an interesting passage in a a text he read (my history skills are lousy. Were they still on scrolls)? He wrote it down.

He got it out of his head, then read it again. It could spark ideas and was the inspiration for some of his them.

That ‘Vision Book’ is like the Second Brain today.

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David Allen’s book is a similar idea (put every idea in one of 32 folders, get them out your head to avoid feeling overwhelmed) … but it’s too analog.

Some of us don’t have the floor space, and filing cabinets may save space, but are too bulky and too heavy to leave your house so you either have to carry around a pile of sticky notes, or a tape recorder, OR a notebook — THEN transcribe these back to your folders…

Just typing that left me exhausted!

For something that claims to be stress-free it sounds stressful.

Enter:

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Tiego Forte gives a lot of productivity advice on YouTube, including — but not limited to — ways to achieve inbox zero in your email, note-taking (say, in Evernote)… here, he talks about (duh) Second Brain.

He got it out of his head, then read it again. It could spark ideas and was the inspiration for some of them.

He often recommends one of the methods of building a Second Brain

Notion

This is a site you can use for many things: to coordinate a team for a project, personal things like making a list of all the movies you’ve seen/music in your books or magazines you’ve collected… and, of course, a Second Brain.

Pros

- as a guy on a fixed income, I like this one (students and pretty much everyone): the cost for a Personal account is… 0. Nada. Zip. Gratis You know, free.

You can’t complain about that!

• Tiego has a template, but there are a bunch online too. There are others . Just do a Google search on ‘Notion templates’.
• templates are easy to customize. Delete parts you don’t need add things you do. Even then templates inside other templates. For example I have a Content Calendar template linked into my main one.
• It has a desktop app, so you can use it offline.
• It also has a cellphone app, although all you can see are your Tasks and To Do lists. The rest is too big.
• There’s a Web clipper extension for Chromium-based browsers.
• There’s also a site that takes all your Kindle book highlights into your Reading List.
• There are many tutorials on YouTube.

Cons

• It has a learning curve. It’s not steep, but it’s there.
• You end up needing more accounts than the one to access all the goodies available.
• some people say you spend more time designing it than creating

I see that point, but also disagree. Yes, it takes a lot of fiddling, but that’s what happens when there’s so much power. Plus, once designed it takes just a few minutes to update task and to do lists.

My verdict: It takes time to learn, but there’s a lot of power to learn. Plus, it’s free. S’all good, man.

(not the sleazy lawyer. For that, Better Call Saul.)

Obsidian

For those preferring a minimalist approach, Obsidian has become the darling. Similar to Evernote, it involves note-taking notes. Unlike Evernote called a Backup Brain) you link your notes.

Pros

• Like Notion the Personal account is Free. The Personal account has no feature is limited, same as Notion. Difference is, you also get the API.
• Notes can be linked by tags or just by common words.
• You can work offline, and it syncs with the online version. Same as Notion.
• It too has a phone app.
• There’s a vibrant community. There’s a Discord server, a message board, and over 600 plugins (rhus the API).

Cons

• While the Obsidian website calls this a Second Brain. To me it looks more like a digital Vision Book.

My Verdict: I don’t get it. The Community is large, and could explain it to me, and explain it — but for now, I just don’t get it.

Make your own choice. Both have good and bad points. It just depends on how you best choose to best make your Second Brain.