Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential

by Tiago Forte

Thinking doesn’t just produce writing; writing also enriches thinking.

What would capturing ideas look like if it was easy?

On average I capture just two notes per day—what are two ideas, insights, observations, perspectives, or lessons you’ve encountered today that you could write down right now?

Capture isn’t about doing more. It’s about taking notes on the experiences you’re already having. It’s about squeezing more juice out of the fruit of life, savoring every moment to the fullest by paying closer attention to the details.

Organize—Save for Actionability

Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work. —Gustave Flaubert, French novelist

“I believe in starting each project with a stated goal. Sometimes the goal is nothing more than a personal mantra such as ‘keep it simple’ or ‘something perfect’ or ‘economy’ to remind me of what I was thinking at the beginning if and when I lose my way. I write it down on a slip of paper and it’s the first thing that goes into the box.”

The box gave her the security to venture out and take risks:

The box gave Tharp a way to put projects on hold and revisit them later:

“There’s one final benefit to the box: It gives you a chance to look back.

Twyla Tharp’s box reveals the true value of a simple container: it is easy to use, easy to understand, easy to create, and easy to maintain. It can be moved from place to place without losing its contents.

We don’t need complex, sophisticated systems to be able to produce complex, sophisticated works.

Unless you take control of those virtual spaces and shape them to support the kinds of thinking you want to do, every minute spent there will feel taxing and distracting.

Your Second Brain isn’t just a tool—it’s an environment.

I eventually named this organizing system PARA,I which stands for the four main categories of information in our lives: Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives.

Instead of having to sort your notes according to a complex hierarchy of topics and subtopics, you have to answer only one simple question: “In which project will this be most useful?”

Projects: Short-term efforts in your work or life that you’re working on now. Areas: Long-term responsibilities you want to manage over time. Resources: Topics or interests that may be useful in the future. Archives: Inactive items from the other three categories.

Projects: What I’m Working on Right Now

First, they have a beginning and an end;

Second, they have a specific, clear outcome that needs to happen in order for them to be checked off

“A project is identified; a team is assembled; it works together for precisely as long as is needed to complete the task; then the team disbands…

Areas: What I’m Committed to Over Time

areas from your personal life could include:

Activities or places you are responsible for:

People you are responsible for or ac...

Standards of performance you are res...

In your job or business:

Departments or functions you are responsible for:

People or teams you are responsible for or accountable to:

Standards of performance you are responsible for:

While there is no goal to reach, there is a standard that you want to uphold in each of these areas.

Resources: Things I Want to Reference in the Future

What topics are you interested in?

What subjects are you researching?

What useful information do you want to be able to reference?

Which hobbies or passions do you have?

Any note or file that isn’t relevant or actionable for a current project or area can be placed into resources for future reference.

Archives: Things I’ve Completed or Put on Hold

Unlike with your house or garage, there is no penalty for keeping digital stuff forever, as long as it doesn’t distract from your day-to-day focus.

the moment you first capture an idea is the worst time to try to decide what it relates to.

you’ve just encountered it and haven’t had any time to ponder its ultimate purpose, but more importantly, because forcing yourself to make decisions every time you capture something adds a lot of friction to the process.

it’s so important to separate capture and organize into two distinct steps: “keeping what resonates” in the moment is a separate decision from deciding to save something for the long term.

Projects are most actionable because you’re working on them right now and with a concrete deadline in mind. Areas have a longer time horizon and are less immediately actionable. Resources may become actionable depending on the situation. Archives remain inactive unless they are needed.

In which project will this be most useful? If none: In which area will this be most useful? If none: Which resource does this belong to? If none: Place in archives.

The goal of organizing our knowledge is to move our goals forward, not get a PhD in notetaking.

Instead of organizing ideas according to where they come from, I recommend organizing them according to where they are going—

We are organizing for actionability, and “what’s actionable” is always changing.

Every life moves through seasons, and your digital notes should move along with them, churning and surfacing new tidbits of insight from the deep waters of your experience.

Completed Projects Are the Oxygen of Your Second Brain

people need clear workspaces to be able to create. We cannot do our best thinking and our best work when all the “stuff” from the past is crowding and cluttering our space.