Stop Forgetting. Use A Second Brain

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The world is changing fast.

Nowadays, information is drowning us. We watch reels, TikToks, YouTube, blogs, or TV and read blogs, scientific articles, newspapers, etc. If you work or are a student, you depend on your learning skills.

And there are many things to study:

• AI.
• Programming.
• How to communicate.
• Writing.
• Etc.

What can you do to survive this new era?

Well, with a second brain.

Why You Need A Second Brain?

I gave some of the reasons above.

Information is everywhere, constantly bombarding us with new insights and things we need to know: meetings, special dates, relevant news (like elections or something happening where you live), skills, and general knowledge.

Trying to keep all this information in your head is useless.

Because our brains are forgetting machines.

I've been using this term based on neuroscientist Rodrigo Quiroga's book "The Forgetting Machine." (affiliate link). There, he argues that our brain did not evolve to remember the topics described above but instead to remember anything relevant to survival.

That's why we are terrible at remembering dates or even things we study.

The solution to this is … to give up. You read that right. Gave up trying to remember everything in detail because you won't. Instead, create a place where you can store all your relevant knowledge in a single place.

A digital place where things are not forgotten.

That's a second brain.

Softwares To Build A Second Brain

Your second brain's main function is to help you retrieve information.

For example, when you add a date, birthday, or meeting to your Calendar, you are helping your brain retrieve that information more easily. You just check your calendar and remember what you need to do.

The same applies when you use a notebook.

There, you store any notes you have. If you're using it to store key insights from a course or lecture, then once you open it, you are helping yourself to retrieve that information from the past.

Your biological brain may forget, but your notebook won't.

That's the essence of using a second brain.

However, although I like the "classic" style of hand-taking notes in a notebook or a calendar, in today's world, using a digital tool can facilitate retrieval, finding files, and connecting them with other tools and ideas.

There are many software to build a second brain, but the most popular ones are:

• Notion: beginner-friendly, beautiful, powerful databases.
• Obsidian: open-source, note's ownership, setting this up is time-consuming.
• Evernote: I haven't used it for years, so I can't really tell.

What's your favorite one?

I'm aware there are new tools; let me know in the comments :)

My Second Brain

I used Notion, Obsidian, and Evernote.

My favorite one is Obsidian because:

1. It is open-source.
2. I own my notes (I don't store them in a cloud service).
3. Free.
4. Active community of developers.
5. Backlinks to connect notes and enhance ideas and creativity.
6. Plugins to connect it with Zotero (the software I use the most for my PhD).

Besides their amazing plugins, what I love the most about Obsidian is how I can link my knowledge using the Zettekalsten method.

This allows me to create a beautiful universe of notes.

Most of my notes are from books and scientific articles.

I use the citations plugin to connect my Obsidian's vault with Zotero. This allows me to extract the notes from my papers and organize them in Obsidian.

This enhances my creativity by 100%.

It was life-changing.

So I hope this can be useful or serve you as inspiration for your life :)

Ways I can help you:

• Join 3K super learners in The Super Learning Lab newsletter.
• And get my free eBook "Rocket Learning: 7 Hacks To Survive University, Ace Exams, And Learn Anything."

Thanks for reading!

See you,

Axel

Note: I added an affiliate link, so I can earn a small commission if you buy the book through that link at no extra cost for you.