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

by Tiago Forte

Maybe you conceived of a brilliant new idea while driving or in transit, but by the time you arrived at your destination, it had evaporated. How often have you struggled to recall even one useful takeaway from a book or article you read in the past?

Maybe you conceived of a brilliant new idea while driving or in transit, but by the time you arrived at your destination, it had evaporated. How often have you struggled to recall even one useful takeaway from a book or article you read in the past?

To be able to make use of information we value, we need a way to package it up and send it through time to our future self. We need a way to cultivate a body of knowledge that is uniquely our own, so when the opportunity arises—whether changing jobs, giving a big presentation, launching a new product, or starting a business or a family—we will have access to the wisdom we need to make good decisions and take the most effective action. It all begins with the simple act of writing things down.

Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.

Anything you might want to accomplish—executing a project at work, getting a new job, learning a new skill, starting a business—requires finding and putting to use the right information. Your professional success and quality of life depend directly on your ability to manage information effectively.

estimates that we consume the equivalent of 174 full newspapers’ worth of content each and every day, five times higher than in 1986.2

This digital commonplace book is what I call a Second Brain. Think of it as the combination of a study notebook, a personal journal, and a sketchbook for new ideas. It is a multipurpose tool that can adapt to your changing needs over time. In school or courses you take, it can be used to take notes for studying. At work, it can help you organize your projects. At home, it can help you manage your household.

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It is a laboratory where you can develop and refine your thinking in solitude before sharing it with others. A studio where you can experiment with ideas until they are ready to be put to use in the outside world.

if a piece of content has been interpreted through your lens, curated according to your taste, translated into your own words, or drawn from your life experience, and stored in a secure place, then it qualifies as a note.

Your brain is no longer the bottleneck on your potential, which means you have all the bandwidth you need to pursue any endeavor and make it successful. This sense of confidence in the quality of your thinking gives you the freedom to ask deeper questions and the courage to pursue bigger challenges.

There are four essential capabilities that we can rely on a Second Brain to perform for us: Making our ideas concrete. Revealing new associations between ideas. Incubating our ideas over time. Sharpening our unique perspectives.

It’s not about having the perfect tools—it’s about having a reliable set of tools you can depend on, knowing you can always change them later.

“CODE”—Capture; Organize; Distill; Express.

The insights you uncovered through serious mental effort remain hidden in forgotten folders or drifting in the cloud.

The solution is to keep only what resonates in a trusted place that you control, and to leave the rest aside.

The best way to organize your notes is to organize for action, according to the active projects you are working on right now.

There is a powerful way to facilitate and speed up this process of rapid association: distill your notes down to their essence.

Every time you take a note, ask yourself, “How can I make this as useful as possible for my future self?” That question will lead you to annotate the words and phrases that explain why you saved a note, what you were thinking, and what exactly caught your attention.

Your notes will be useless if you can’t decipher them in the future, or if they’re so long that you don’t even try. Think of yourself not just as a taker of notes, but as a giver of notes—you are giving your future self the gift of knowledge that is easy to find and understand.

Take a moment now to write down some of your own favorite problems. Here are my recommendations to guide you: Ask people close to you what you were obsessed with as a child (often you’ll continue to be fascinated with the same things as an adult). Don’t worry about coming up with exactly twelve (the exact number doesn’t matter, but try to come up with at least a few). Don’t worry about getting the list perfect (this is just a first pass, and it will always be evolving). Phrase them as open-ended questions that could have multiple answers (in contrast to “yes/no” questions with only one answer).

There are always certain parts that are especially interesting, helpful, or valuable to you. When you realize this, the answer is obvious. You can extract only the most salient, relevant, rich material and save it as a succinct note.

Capture Criteria #1: Does It Inspire Me?

Capture Criteria #2: Is It Useful?

Sometimes you come across a piece of information that isn’t necessarily inspiring, but you know it might come in handy in the future. A statistic, a reference, a research finding, or a helpful diagram—these are the equivalents of the spare parts a carpenter might keep around their workshop.

Capture Criteria #3: Is It Personal?

Capture Criteria #4: Is It Surprising?

it conflicts with your existing point of view in a way that makes your brain perk up and pay attention. Those are the ideas you should capture.

Ultimately, Capture What Resonates

It’s a good idea to capture key information about the source of a note, such as the original web page address, the title of the piece, the author or publisher, and the date it was published.

Here are some of the most popular ways of using capture tools to save content you come across: Capturing passages from ebooks: Most ebook apps make it very easy to highlight passages as you read. On Amazon Kindle, you can simply drag your finger across a sentence or paragraph you like to add a highlight. Then use the share menu to export all your highlights from the entire book all at once straight to your digital notes. You can also add comments right alongside the text as you read, which will help you remember what you found interesting about a passage. Capturing excerpts from online articles or web pages: When you come across an online article or blog post you want to read, save it to a “read later” app, which is like a digital magazine rack of everything you want to read (or watch or listen to) at some point. Whenever you have some free time (such as on breaks or in the evening after work), scroll through the articles you’ve saved and pick one to read. You can make highlights, just as with ebooks, and they can also be automatically exported to your notes app using a third-party platform. Capturing quotes from podcasts: Many podcast player apps allow you to bookmark or “clip” segments of episodes as you’re listening to them. Some of them will even transcribe the audio into text, so you can export and search it within your notes. Capturing voice memos: Use a voice memo app that allows you to press a button, speak directly into your smartphone, and have every word transcr...

Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives. These four categories are universal, encompassing any kind of information, from any source, in any format, for any purpose.†

With the PARA system, every piece of information you want to save can be placed into one of just four categories: 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.

“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

Examples of projects could include: Projects at work: Complete web-page design; Create slide deck for conference; Develop project schedule; Plan recruitment drive. Personal projects: Finish Spanish language course; Plan vacation; Buy new living room furniture; Find local volunteer opportunity. Side projects: Publish blog post; Launch crowdfunding campaign; Research best podcast microphone; Complete online course.

Knowing which projects you’re currently committed to is crucial to being able to prioritize your week, plan your progress, and say no to things that aren’t important.

Each of these is an example of an area of responsibility, and together they make up the second main category of PARA. All these areas, both personal and professional, require certain information to be handled effectively, but they’re not the same as projects.

For a work-related area like “product development,” you might need to save product specifications, R&D findings, notes from customer research interviews, and customer satisfaction ratings. You could also have photos of products you admire to use as design inspiration, manufacturing blueprints, or color palettes. It all depends on your relationship to that area of your life, and how you want to manage it or move it forward.

Examples of areas from your personal life could include: Activities or places you are responsible for: Home/apartment; Cooking; Travel; Car. People you are responsible for or accountable to: Friends; Kids; Spouse; Pets. Standards of performance you are responsible for: Health; Personal growth; Friendships; Finances. In your job or business: Departments or functions you are responsible for: Account management; Marketing; Operations; Product development. People or teams you are responsible for or accountable to: Direct reports; Manager; Board of directors; Suppliers. Standards of performance you are responsible for: Professional development; Sales and marketing; Relationships and networking; Recruiting and hiring.

Resources: Things I Want to Reference in the Future

What topics are you interested in? Architecture; Interior design; English literature; Beer brewing. What subjects are you researching? Habit formation; Notetaking; Project management; Nutrition. What useful information do you want to be able to reference? Vacation itineraries; Life goals; Stock photos; Product testimonials. Which hobbies or passions do you have? Coffee; Classic movies; Hip-hop music; Japanese anime.

Archives: Things I’ve Completed or Put on Hold

Projects that are completed or canceled Areas of responsibility that you are no longer committed to maintaining (such as when a relationship ends or after moving out of your apartment) Resources that are no longer relevant (hobbies you lose interest in or subjects you no longer care about)

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.