Building a Second Brain: Solving Information Overload

Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte helps solve information overload by capturing, organizing, distilling, and expressing ideas effectively.

### Building a Second Brain: Tiago Forte's Framework for Managing Information Overwhelm
* 📚 "The second brain system helps combat information overload by providing a **digital commonplace book** to capture ideas and insights from various sources."
* 💡 "Whether you're a content creator or involved in knowledge work, a **second brain** can help you **store and organize ideas for future use**."
* 🗂 Tiago Forte's code framework consists of **capturing resonant ideas**, **organizing them by actionability**, **distilling the essence of information**, and **expressing your knowledge through various outputs**.
* 🧠 "By freeing up your brain from **memorizing random information**, you can focus on **creativity, making connections, and self-care**."
* 📝 "Capturing ideas manually or automatically, such as through highlights, is a **key step in building a second brain**."
* 🔍 "Organizing notes based on where you'll use the information, rather than by source or topic, can make it **easier to find and apply them**."
* 🎨 "The ultimate goal of a second brain is to help you **share your ideas and creations with others**, as most jobs involve some form of **expression**."

Ali (00:00):
All right. So one of the most annoying problems that
I face in my life is information overwhelm. I read all these books, listen to all these
podcasts, watch all these YouTube videos, and consume all this stuff, but I end up information
overloaded and don't really know what to do with that information. And that is what this book claims to solve. This is Building a Second Brain, by Tiago
Forte, which is what we're discussing in this episode of Book Club, the ongoing series,
where we distil and discuss highlights and summaries from some of my favourite books. And the whole idea is that this system, the
second brain system, helps you solve that problem. Now, I've been using this system for the last
several years. I took Tiago's course, Building a Second Brain. And so in this video, we're going to be talking
about why you should build a second brain.

and then how to build a second brain using
the code framework. And I'm going to share a bunch of examples
about how this kind of thing has helped my life so hopefully, it can help yours as well. Ali (00:41):
All right. So let's start with the question of what is
a second brain and why should you have one? And to answer this, we need to start from
the root problem, which is this idea of information overwhelm. We all have these dozens and dozens, apparently,
34 gigabytes a day of information is what we consume. There was this other news article that said
we consume the equivalent of 174 full newspapers every single day of our lives with all of
the content that we get deluged with. Now, the easy solution to this problem of
information overload is to write things down. And honestly, this is the first step that
most of us don't even take. We don't bother to write things down.

If you listen to something in a podcast or you come across a quote, or you have an interesting thought, or you think of an interesting story that happened in your life or an anecdote, we tend not to default to, I should probably write this down somewhere. Ali (01:21): We tend to think, Oh, I will just remember the thing. If it's from a podcast or a video, you think, Yeah, I'm going to apply it to my life, and you never end up applying it to your life. Now, if we do decide to write things down as a way of combating information overload, one old school way of doing that is called a commonplace book. This is the sort of thing that the great artists in our time, and before, used to use to write their thoughts down. You've got people like Taylor Swift, who talk about how, whenever they have an interesting thought in their day-to-day life, they write it down.

You've got comedians like Jerry Seinfeld, who say that whenever they think something interesting or a funny little quip in the shower, they make sure to write it down on a piece of paper. This is a standard part of the creative process for so many people. 
Jerry Seinfeld (01:55): I know you think people are going to be interested in this, but they're not. 
Ali (01:58): Even back in the day, people like Leonard DaVinci used to apparently have a commonplace book where, as he was kind of going about his life, he would gather inspiration and he would do these little sketches and he'd put them all into a single book. And then, that book became the source of his creativity. It's where he would generate those ideas from. Now, I do, in fact, carry a physical journal with me at all times to try and do this commonplace book type thing. But it's just doing it in an analogue system is pretty inefficient.

You can't search. You can't organise. It's a bit of a faff. And so thanks to this tech-enabled world that
we live in, instead of making an analogue commonplace book, we can make a digital commonplace
book. So hypothetically, we could have a single
source where anytime we come across inspiration from anything at all in our lives, internally
or externally, so externally might be books or movies or podcasts or quotes, or a friend
says something, and that sparks an interesting thought in you, you have a place where you
write it down in a digital kind of system. Ali (02:45):
Internally, it might be a random musing that you have, or you're in the shower and you
think of something, or you're on a car journey and you think, oh, this would be a cool thing
to do. It might be related to your job. It might be related to your family. And you think, you know what?

I should probably write this down, and it goes into a digital system. And this digital commonplace book is what Tiago Forte calls a second brain. But why should you have a second brain in the first place? What is the point of writing all this stuff down? Now, again, if you are in the creative world, it's really abundantly obvious. If you're a songwriter, if you're a poet, if you're a book writer, if you're a YouTuber, if you're a podcaster, you need a place to capture ideas from all the world around you, because it really helps you express your creativity. Ali (03:19): Because now, it's not the case that you are sitting down and thinking, Shit, what do I write this week for my book or for my blog or for my newsletter? You're thinking, I have all these abundant ideas, and I can just go through my little second brain, and I can decide what I want to write about this week.

And this is how basically all creatives have done it since the beginning of time. But the question is, what if you're not? What if you're one of those people that does not want to be a content creator in some capacity, you'd have no aspirations of writing a book or starting a podcast or a newsletter or anything obviously creative that requires you to do this kind of stuff. Well, the thing that Tiago argues, and I fully agree with him on this, is that basically every job in the world these days involves knowledge work of some kind. Ali (03:56): Bertrand Russell, back in the day, used to say that a job is moving matter at or above the Earth's surface, which I think it's quite funny. In the world that we live in today, there is a third form of job and that's moving knowledge, moving information. Getting information as inputs, doing something with it.

Are you processing it and then turning it into outputs of some sort? Even something like being a doctor involves information. You've got this profound amount of information as inputs, i.e. from medical journals and textbooks and things, that turns into a knowledge bank in your head, but also externally. And then you do stuff with that information and it gives you a result, i.e. tells you what to do with your patient or what dose of drugs to prescribe or anything like that. If you're working in a more normal job, like, I don't know, investment banking or consulting or anything that involves making loads of PowerPoint slides, it's really all about information input, processing, and output. And that's basically what every single job involves. Ali (04:39): We're now going to talk about the four parts of the methodology for building a second brain, which is the code system, C, O, D, and E.

And once we've done that, I'm going to share
with you some of my personal use cases, so you can see what effect a second brain has
had in my life, and then you can decide if you want to build one for yourself, you want
to get the book, any of that kind of stuff. Ali (04:56):
Now, the key insight here is a quote from David Allen, from the book, Getting Things
Done, amazing productivity book, which is that your brain is for having ideas, not for
holding them. We spend so much of our kind of mental brain
space trying to remember random stuff, whereas, if we were able to capture all that random
stuff into a note-taking app or a second brain or into even pen and paper, any kind of system,
it frees up our own brain to do the important things, like be creative or make connections
or self-care or relaxation, or just having fun, rather than having to remember what was
on my calendar, what's on my to-do list.

Now, the easy way of solving this problem for most people, and this is sort of the standard part of any productivity system, is to have a calendar and a to-do list, so that you don't have to remember what you're supposed to be doing at any given minute of the day. Ali (05:36): And also, you don't have to remember what all those random tasks were, your shopping list, that kind of thing. That would be a real faff to remember in your head. But one step beyond that, which is what the second brain talks about, is about how we should capture any kind of idea that resonates with us and put it into this note-taking app. If you're interested, that the app that I use these days is actually Apple notes. I use Apple notes for most of my second brain use cases. I use Notion for all the team-based stuff, when it comes to making videos, podcasts.

and things, because it's very good for team
collaboration. But Apple Notes is my second brain. I just capture everything. Anytime I have a thought, it just goes straight
into Apple Notes. And basically, the idea is that anything that
feels resonant, anything that resonates with me personally, is something I'm going to write
down. Ali (06:11):
So this could be highlights from a book, for example. It could be an interesting quote that I've
come across on a podcast or in real life. It could be a website that I've liked, and
I'm like, Oh, this is a sick website. I really want to remember this website, or
I really want to remember this blog post from this website. Let me just save it into Apple Notes. It could be notes from a meeting. So, for example, anytime I have a coaching
call or if I have lunch with an author or a creative friend, often we talk about interesting
stuff and often I'll just think, you know

what? Pause for a second. That was really good point. I'm just going to write that down. And then I open up Apple notes and I write
it down. Oh, and speaking of capturing, quick thing. If you have any video ideas that you'd like
me to make on this channel, you can submit them in a form that's linked down in the video
description. Ali (06:43):
And if you submit an idea and we make the video, we will pay you $100, either in U.S.
dollars or in Bitcoin, depending on whichever one is easier to send to you, depending on
where you are in the world. So $100 for video ideas, little competition
envelope. The other thing that I capture as well is,
for example, my own thoughts. So often, if I'm on a train journey, I'll
just bust out the iPad, I'll open up Apple notes and I'll just think, okay, what are
some thoughts I've had in the last week that

I just want to write down? And one of the learnings that I've picked
up over the last couple of years is really recognizing that my own perspective is actually
quite valuable. And now that I'm, for example, writing a book,
I'm coming across thoughts that I saved into my note system a year ago, two years ago,
and thinking, oh, this thought was actually pretty reasonable, and this could actually
form the basis of a few paragraphs or even a whole book chapter. Ali (07:26):
And I completely forgot that I had the thought. It wasn't in my first brain, because my brain
is bad at remembering things. It was in my second brain. It was in my note-taking system, and then
I could expand on that, and it could become kind of material for my book. Within capturing so far, we've talked about
manual ways of capturing stuff, like writing things down, but there's also automatic ways
of capturing stuff.

I've got a video up there about five apps
that changed my life, and that talks about an automated way of capturing highlights from
books and articles and podcasts, and I use that as well. And so, over the last, I don't know, many,
many, many years, I've built up hundreds, if not thousands of highlights from all of
the books and all of the articles that I've ever read. Ali (07:58):
And that's been incredibly valuable for, again, my own book project, but also for me thinking.
I read this book about this thing, and I know I want to apply some of the insights from
that to my life, but I can't remember what those are, so let me revisit my highlights
from that. And people often ask, Ali, how are you so
productive, et cetera, et cetera. How do you seem to do the things without worrying
about it so much? Oh, to be honest, a big part of it is having
a decent productivity system, having a way.

to capture things into a digital system, so
that my own brain does not have to remember it. And when you can free your own brain up of
having to remember all the crap in your life, then it really kind of reduces your own stress
levels. Ali (08:31):
All right. So the next step of the code framework is
organised. Now the idea here is now that we've captured
all this stuff into this big-ass inbox, we now want to organise it in some capacity. Now, the wrong way, as Tiago says, the wrong
way to organise notes is in terms of where you found them. So people will be tempted to be like, I want
to have a book notes folder. I want to have a podcast notes folder. I want to have a lesson notes folder. And the problem with that is that it's just
not particularly useful. Unless you decide one day, I just want to
happen to look through my book notes, you're

probably not going to look through your book
notes, because we don't have that much time in our lives to revisit the stuff that we
once thought was useful. Instead, what Tiago suggests, and he talks
about it extensively in the book, which kind of gives a whole system for this, is to organise
things by actionability. Where will I potentially use this information? Ali (09:11):
So I've taken this onboard, and now anytime I come across anything at all, whether it's
a quote or a blog post or a podcast or whatever, and it's relevant to the book that I'm writing,
it goes straight into my book project folder. And then I don't bother categorising and tagging
and doing all of that crap. I'm pretty messy in the way I do things. I just chuck it into the book folder, knowing
that it will be resurfaced whenever I need it. And knowing that, the nice thing about a digital
system is that I can always use control F.

or command F if I need to. I can always search. And search is now so good these days that
you almost don't need a specific hierarchical organizational system. I'm, at the moment, really interested in the
idea of longevity, really interested in how do we live longer? Ali (09:47):
And so I've been reading books like Lifespan by David Sinclair, listening to David Sinclair's
podcast, listening to Huberman Lab's podcast, and initially, I was tempted to organize it
by topic. Oh, these are my notes about health or about
longevity. But I know that's not particularly useful. Instead, I'm organizing it by actionability. So I'm working on the script for a video called
How I'm Trying to Live Forever, the Basics of Anti-Ageing, and as I'm reading stuff,
it's going into that particular project, which means it's organized by this unit of output,
the fact that I'm making a video about it,

or I might be writing a newsletter, or sharing
a blog post about it. And even if I never end up making the thing,
the fact that I'm organizing it based on that project rather than based on a topic means
that I'm far more likely to be more targeted in my approach. Ali (10:23):
This is the advice I give to students at university and students in school of writing essays. It's actually not very helpful to think, I'm
going to study philosophy today, or I'm going to study biochemistry today, because how do
you know? What are you going to do? What are you going to work on? It's really hard to figure out what that means. But if you organize your notes in the sense
of, I need to answer the question of what is the structure and function of the sodium
potassium pump? At that point, when you do your reading, it's
very targeted. You're looking for stuff around the sodium
potassium pump.

It goes into that particular essay. And now, as you're doing that, you're building
up a mental map of the subject as a whole, within this specific niche, rather than thinking,
I'm going to study physiology. Ali (10:58):
So it's the same concept, organised by actionability rather than by topic. It can sound pretty complicated. It's sort of hard to explain this in a video,
but you can get the book. That'll be linked down below, if you want
it. At this point, we have captured loads of stuff. We've organised it by actionability, but now
we're left with this mess. There's random quotes, random highlights,
random blog posts. How do we know what the important essence
of that thing is? And that's where distilling comes in. Basically, Tiago talks about this whole method
called progressive summarization, which is basically highlighting, but highlighting on
steroids. Loads of us used to highlight in stuff when
we were in school.

It's not particularly effective for retention
in your own personal brain, but it is effective for flagging up the areas which are particularly
important. Ali (11:35):
And in the book, he's got a bunch of specific examples about how to do this. He also talks about this in his really expensive
online course. I took this course, and I was a mentor on that
course. I'll put a link down below if you want it. And then the final method of the code framework
is E for express. And the idea basically here is you want to
show your work. Now, what am I doing? Here, I am expressing. I am converting my knowledge of personal knowledge
management and reading this book and my favorite highlights and stuff from this book into a
video. This is me expressing; this is me showing
my work. But if I wasn't making a video, if I wasn't
a YouTuber, there are loads of other ways

to express work as well. And really, that's the whole point of this
second brain system, at the end of the day. It's all well and good, hoarding ideas and
keeping them in a note-taking app. Ali (12:13):
But unless we're expressing those ideas in some way, unless we're sharing those ideas
with the world, unless we're using them to create something or make something of value,
they're kind of useless. I mean, I guess you could just sort of hoard
the knowledge and then you could apply it to your own life, but it's way nicer if you
can share it with other people. And basically, the point that Tiago makes
is, again, almost every job involves expressing, in some capacity. If you're a management consultant and you're
making a PowerPoint slide deck, you are expressing. You are creating something. That is your output from all of that information
you've inputted and then you've then processed.

If you're an investment banker, you are creating
something like your trading strategy. If you're a musician, obviously you're creating
stuff. An artist, a writer, or a photographer, you
are creating these tangible units of output. Ali (12:48):
And that's the whole idea behind this whole framework, capturing, organising, and distilling,
ultimately helps us express. It helps us show our work. It helps share our creativity, share whatever
the thing we've been working on with other people, and being able to do it with a digital
commonplace, a second brain, a digital note-taking system that brings all the ideas together,
makes it way easier, way less friction, and way less stress to do all of that stuff, which
is an important part of our jobs anyway. Ali (13:09):
I want to now just share a couple of ways in which the second brain has really helped
me in terms of helping me be more productive.

but also be more creative and help my life
become basically a lot less stressful. And the first one is the idea of slow burns
versus heavy lifts. Before I discovered this system, when it came
to making YouTube videos, for example, or when it came to working on any kind of project,
at the time I was working on a bunch of publications that I was trying to go for, because I was
applying for medical specialty training, et cetera, et cetera. Ali (13:33):
I used to think of those things as a very heavy lift project. It was like, okay, I need to sit down and
make a video this week. What's the video going to be? All right, let's do it. I need to sit down and bash out this presentation
I'm doing for the European Society for Gynaecological Oncology, and figure out what I'm saying about
this thing. But one of the things that the course taught
me, and he talks about this in the book as

well, is the idea of slow burns. What you can do is work on multiple projects
in parallel. So right now, I've got about eight video ideas
that I'm slowly tinkering with and working on. I've got various book chapters that are in
various stages of completion. Back in the day, when I was in medicine, I
had a bunch of medical projects that were at various stages of completion. Ali (14:06):
And the idea is as I'm going through my life, as I'm coming across interesting information
that I can put into these projects, it's going into my system, and it's going into the projects,
and therefore, all of the projects are on a bit of a slow burn, and they sort of simmer
away and get slowly, progressively more cooked over time, which means when it comes to sit
down and actually turn it into a book chapter, or turn it into a video, or turn it into a
presentation, or a poster for a medical conference,

it means most of the work has already been
done. And now, my job is to just assemble things. And secondly, the system has also really helped
with my own teaching work. I enjoy teaching. Teaching is my jam at the end of the day,
whether it's making videos or going on podcasts or doing workshops in real life. Ali (14:40):
The other day, I was doing a real-life talk for 100 students of a part-time YouTuber academy. And I had about, I don't know, two minutes
to prepare the talk. And I just went through my app thing. Off the top of my head, I came up with a few
bullet points, found some supporting evidence in the second brain, and now the talk was
ready within two minutes, while I was in an Uber on the way to the conference venue. And if you like this video, you might like
to check out this over here, which is my long-form

interview with Tiago Forte on my deep dive
podcast. That'll be on the deep dive YouTube channel. Or, alternatively, if you're interested in
building your own productivity system, you should check out this video over here, where
I break down how mine works and talk about how second brain physically and digitally
ties into that productivity system. So thank you so much for watching. Do hit the subscribe button if you're not
already, and I'll see you in the next video. Bye-bye.

How to Organise your Life - Building a Second Brain

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Hey, I'm Ali, a doctor turned entrepreneur, and the world’s most followed productivity expert 😜 

On this channel, we explore evidence-based strategies and tools that can help us be more productive, and build a life that we love. 

If that sounds interesting, consider subscribing! See you in the next video x

Ali Abdaal

The book "Building a Second Brain" addresses the problem of information overwhelm and offers a system to solve it.

The second brain system involves writing down and organizing thoughts and ideas to effectively manage the large volume of information consumed daily.

Many famous individuals, from Taylor Swift to Leonardo da Vinci, have used similar methods to capture and utilize their creative thoughts.

The Significance of a Digital Commonplace Book

A digital commonplace book serves as a centralized source for capturing inspiration from various aspects of life, both internally and externally.

It is particularly valuable for individuals in creative fields, providing an abundance of ideas and enhancing creativity.

However, in today's knowledge-based work environment, where almost every job involves some form of knowledge work, a digital commonplace book can be a valuable tool for processing information and generating meaningful outputs.

Capturing ideas in a second brain, like Apple Notes, can free up mental space for creativity and self-care.

The second brain concept goes beyond a simple to-do list, focusing on capturing any resonant idea, from book highlights to interesting quotes, and even meeting notes.

This approach allows for a more relaxed and creative use of the primary brain, offloading the burden of remembering random information.

The Value of Capturing Ideas and Thoughts

Capturing ideas and thoughts can be valuable for generating content and insights, as well as for personal productivity.

Manual and automatic methods, such as writing things down and using apps to capture highlights, are both effective for this purpose.

A well-organized note-taking system can serve as a valuable resource for creative projects and personal development.

Organizing Digital Notes for Reduced Stress and Increased Productivity

Capturing information in a digital system can reduce stress by freeing up the brain's memory.

The key to organizing notes effectively is to prioritize actionability over categorization by topic, allowing for easy retrieval when needed.

This approach not only streamlines the process but also supports the creation of specific projects or outputs.

Organizing thoughts and projects based on actionability rather than topic leads to a more targeted approach.

Progressive summarization, a method that involves distilling important information, is key to capturing the essence of a subject.

The "express" method of the code framework emphasizes the importance of showing your work, whether it's through creating a video or other means of expression.

The Significance of Expressing Work in the Second Brain System

The Second Brain system emphasizes the importance of expressing and sharing ideas with the world to create value.

It highlights how almost every job involves some form of expression, whether it's through creating tangible output or sharing creativity.

The system is designed to help individuals be more productive, creative, and less stressed by capturing, organizing, and distilling ideas to facilitate easier expression and sharing of work.

Managing Multiple Projects for Productivity

Working on multiple projects in parallel allows for a "slow burn" approach, where ideas are continuously developed over time.

This method reduces the workload when it's time to turn the projects into a final product, such as a book chapter or a video.

The approach also benefits teaching work, as it allows for quick and efficient preparation for talks and presentations.