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

by Tiago Forte

Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them. —David Allen, author of Getting Things Done

David Allen, author of the classic productivity book Getting Things Done, has been one of my chief sources of inspiration. This classic quote of his highlights perhaps the unifying principle between his work and mine: that our brains are very good at imagining new things, but terrible at remembering those things for long. Which is why we have to outsource the job of remembering to external systems that we adopt to complement our own abilities. While his advice is focused on actionable tasks, mine is about notes and the rest of your digital life. Ask yourself: what kinds of information that you are currently trying to remember with your biological memory could just as easily be remembered by your digital memory?