Building a second brain - Neuroscience PhD student

Summary

The video script discusses the concept of building a 'second brain' as a tool for enhancing creativity and managing information overload. The main idea is to create a curated library of information that resonates with you, which can be captured through various means like notebooks or apps like Notion or Evernote. The process involves four steps: Capture (recording information that resonates), Organize (structuring your notes), Distill (making notes comprehensive for future use), and Express (using the gathered information to create new ideas or projects). The speaker emphasizes the importance of starting with what you already have, rather than seeking new information, and working in focused 90-minute blocks. The benefits include incremental value creation, becoming a curator of information, and gaining new perspectives that can inspire future projects. The video also features a sponsored segment on language learning with Linguda, highlighting the importance of practicing with native speakers.

Takeaways

• 📚 Building a second brain involves creating a curated library of information that resonates with you, which can later be used for creative inspiration.
• 💡 The main idea behind the second brain is the 'CODE' method: Capture, Organize, Distill, and Express.
• 🔍 Capture what resonates with you to become a curator of information, rather than a passive observer.
• 📝 When capturing information, focus on what is new and surprising to avoid redundancy and fill your library with novel ideas.
• 🎨 Capture various forms of information, including text, images, and audio clips, to enrich your second brain visually and information-wise.
• 📈 Over time, capturing resonant moments adds value to your personal library, even without an active plan.
• 🌐 The second brain can be a physical notebook or a digital tool like Notion or Evernote, but the key is having a dedicated place for information storage.
• 📋 Organize your notes into dedicated places, but keep it simple to avoid spending too much time on organization rather than creation.
• ✍️ When distilling notes, aim to make them comprehensive for future use, rewriting key messages in your own words where possible.
• 🚫 Be cautious about removing original text, as it may contain valuable information that could be useful later on.
• 🎭 Expressing is where most of the creative work happens; use the gathered information to create new projects, blog posts, or research papers.
• ⏳ Work in focused 90-minute blocks during the express phase, combining old information to generate new ideas without seeking new data.
• 🌟 The benefits of a second brain include incremental value creation over time and the development of a curatorial perspective on information consumption.
• 🤝 Collaborate with others by sharing your second brain, which can lead to new insights and creative ideas.
• 📈 Use the second brain to shift from a consumer to a creator, valuing and utilizing the information you already have.

Q & A

What is the concept of a 'second brain' as described in the transcript?

The 'second brain' is a system or place where you capture and store different types of information that you encounter throughout your day. It is a tool for organizing and re-encountering information to create your own creative ideas, and it could be a physical notebook or a digital application like Notion or Evernote.

What are the four steps of the 'CODE' method for building a second brain?

The 'CODE' method stands for Capture, Organize, Distill, and Express. It involves capturing information that resonates with you, organizing your notes into dedicated places, distilling your notes to make them comprehensive for future use, and expressing by creating new content with the gathered information.

How does capturing what resonates with you help in building a second brain?

Capturing what resonates allows you to become a curator of information rather than a passive observer. It helps in leaving behind information that you already know and fills your 'second brain' with new and novel ideas that can spark creativity and innovation.

What is the significance of capturing visual content like pictures or clips in addition to text?

Capturing visual content along with text makes your projects more interesting both visually and information-wise. It can provide a different perspective and can be particularly insightful when you are starting a new course or learning something new, as it captures your initial reactions and thoughts.

How does the use of a language learning platform like Linguda benefit someone trying to learn a new language?

Linguda provides native speaker teachers to help practice pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. It allows for flexibility to fit into a busy schedule, offers the choice of topics of interest for focused practice, and enables frequent practice sessions to gradually improve language skills.

What is the recommended approach to organizing notes in the second brain?

The recommended approach is to keep it as simple as possible. Over-organizing can lead to spending too much time on categorization rather than creation. Using a few apps for different purposes, like Notion for ideas, a to-do list manager for tasks, and a basic notebook for journaling, can help maintain simplicity.

Why is it important to distill notes to make them comprehensive for future use?

Distilling notes helps in extracting the key message from the information you've captured. Rewriting notes in your own words makes it easier to use the information later in your projects without having to reinterpret or re-understand the original source material.

How does the 'Express' step of the CODE method contribute to the creation of new ideas?

The 'Express' step involves creating new content using the information gathered in your second brain. It encourages starting from a place of abundance by leveraging existing information rather than starting afresh each time, which can lead to more efficient and inspired creative processes.

What are the benefits of building and focusing on a second brain?

Building a second brain allows for incremental value creation over time, provides a curatorial perspective on information consumption, and can spark new inspiration by re-encountering past notes. It also promotes a shift from consuming to creating, and emphasizes the importance of using what you already know.

How does working in 90-minute blocks during the 'Express' phase of the CODE method help with idea generation?

Working in 90-minute blocks helps maintain focus on one aspect of creation at a time without the distraction of looking up new information. This concentrated effort can lead to surprising new ideas by combining existing information in novel ways.

What advice does the transcript provide for someone who is just starting to build their second brain?

The transcript advises starting by capturing what resonates with you, keeping the organization of your notes simple, and being cautious about removing original text notes. It also encourages capturing a variety of information sources, including visual content, and recommends using the second brain to spark new ideas by re-encountering past notes.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Building a Second Brain for Creativity and Information Management

The first paragraph introduces the concept of a 'second brain' as a method to capture and store information, which can later be used to generate creative ideas. The second brain is a curated collection of information from various sources that one has consumed, such as books, movies, and music. The author has been influenced by Thiago Forte's book, 'Building a Second Brain,' and aims to share how this concept can be implemented in one's life. The paragraph also outlines the 'CODE' method: Capture, Organize, Distill, and Express, which is central to building a second brain. The focus is on capturing what resonates with the individual, which transforms them into a curator of information rather than a passive observer.

05:01

🗂️ Organizing and Simplifying Your Second Brain

The second paragraph delves into the 'organize' step of the CODE method, emphasizing the importance of a simple organizational system. The author suggests that spending too much time organizing can be counterproductive and recommends using a few key apps for different aspects of information management. Notion is used for broader ideas and projects, Todoist for task management, and a basic notebook for journaling and jotting down thoughts. The 'distill' step is also covered, where the goal is to make notes comprehensive and valuable for future reference, suggesting rewriting notes in one's own words for better integration and use.

10:02

🎨 Expressing Creativity and the Benefits of a Second Brain

The third paragraph discusses the 'express' step, which is about creating new work from the gathered information. It encourages starting with an abundance mindset, utilizing the information already gathered in one's second brain rather than conducting new searches. The author also recommends working in focused 90-minute blocks without seeking new information to foster creativity. The benefits of building a second brain are highlighted, such as the incremental value creation over time and the shift from passive consumption to active curation of information. The paragraph concludes with a quote from Thiago Forte that encapsulates the philosophy behind the second brain concept.

Keywords

💡Creativity

Creativity is the ability to generate new ideas, concepts, or solutions. In the context of the video, it is portrayed as a collaborative process between an individual and the various forms of media they consume, such as books, movies, and music. The video emphasizes the importance of nurturing creativity by curating and distilling information from various sources into a personal 'second brain'.

💡Second Brain

The term 'second brain' refers to a system or place where one can capture and store different types of information encountered throughout the day. It is a concept introduced by Thiago Forte and is central to the video's theme. The speaker discusses how they have implemented a second brain in their life using tools like notebooks and apps, which helps in organizing thoughts and ideas for future use.

💡Capture

Capture is the first step in building a second brain, which involves recording new information as it is encountered. The video suggests capturing information that resonates with the individual, turning them into curators of information. This selective capturing process helps in creating a valuable library of personally significant insights and ideas.

💡Organize

Organize is the second step in the 'CODE' method for building a second brain, which stands for Capture, Organize, Distill, and Express. It involves arranging the captured notes into dedicated places or categories. The video emphasizes the importance of keeping this process simple to avoid spending excessive time on organization at the expense of creativity.

💡Distill

Distillation in the context of the second brain refers to making notes comprehensive and valuable for future reference. It is part of the 'CODE' method and involves extracting the key message from captured information. The video suggests rewriting key points in one's own words to facilitate easy integration into future creative works.

💡Express

Express is the final step of the 'CODE' method and is where the majority of time should be spent according to the video. It involves creating and making new content using the information gathered in the second brain. The video encourages starting with an abundance mindset, utilizing existing information rather than searching for new information from scratch.

💡Curating Information

Curating information means selectively collecting and maintaining items of significance. In the video, the speaker becomes a curator by capturing only what resonates, which helps in building a personalized library of valuable insights. This curation process is essential for the second brain concept as it ensures that the stored information is meaningful and useful.

💡Lingoda

Lingoda is a language learning platform mentioned as a sponsor in the video. It is highlighted for its feature of having native speakers as teachers, which is beneficial for practicing pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. The speaker uses Lingoda to maintain and improve their French language skills, illustrating the application of the second brain concept in language learning.

💡Information Overload

Information overload refers to the difficulty in understanding or making decisions due to the excessive amount of information. The video suggests that building a second brain can be a solution to this problem by providing a structured and personalized space to store and organize information, making it more manageable and useful.

💡Notion

Notion is a productivity app used by the speaker to organize their second brain. It is one of the tools mentioned for capturing and storing information. The video describes how the speaker uses Notion to categorize ideas and projects, demonstrating its utility in the second brain methodology.

💡Value Creation

Value creation is the process of generating something of worth or usefulness. In the context of the video, creating a second brain is a form of value creation where the individual accumulates and organizes information over time, which can later spark new ideas and projects. The video emphasizes the long-term benefits of this incremental value creation.

Highlights

Creativity is a collaboration between you and the books, movies, and music you have consumed.

The concept of a 'second brain' is a curated library of your experiences and knowledge.

Building a second brain involves capturing and storing information encountered throughout the day.

The 'CODE' method stands for Capture, Organize, Distill, and Express.

Capturing what resonates with you turns you into a curator of information.

Capturing information passively over time adds value to your personal library.

Lingudao is a language learning platform that connects you with native speakers for practice.

Organizing your notes should be kept simple to avoid wasting time.

The 'Distill' step involves making notes comprehensive for future use.

Expressing is where most of the time should be spent, focusing on creating with the gathered information.

Starting projects from the idea of abundance by using existing information can be more effective than starting from scratch.

Building a second brain allows for incremental value creation over time.

Curating the type of information you let into your second brain can lead to more valuable insights.

Thiago Forte's quote emphasizes using what you know, creating more, and valuing what you have.

The benefits of a second brain include sparking new inspiration from re-encountered information.

Creating a second brain can shift your perspective from consuming to creating.

Working in 90-minute blocks during the 'Express' phase can lead to surprising new ideas.

Transcripts

so your ability to make and create

creative ideas will be what sets you

apart from the crowd creativity is a

collaboration between you and other

books movies and music you have consumed

before you what would it be like if

everything you encountered is stored

memorized and distilled neatly into one

place like a library especially curated

for you we need a creative environment

that we can explore and wander around in

when we are lost in our own ideas so one

solution to our current information

overload that we get from our

environment is building a second brain

an I have encountered the idea of

building a second brain by the book from

Thiago Forte called building your second

brain and I have really loved this book

I think it has changed a little bit the

way I look at information and the way I

interact with information and I hope to

today share the main ideas behind this

book and how I implement it in my life

to create my own second brain but first

of all what is a second brain so Thiago

Fortis says that the second brain is a

place where you capture and store

different types of of information that

you encounter throughout your day and I

think most of you probably already have

a version of a so-called second brain so

this could be for example a notebook

that you have that you capture little

notes in during the day or it could be a

dedicated app on your computer like

notion or Evernote but in general I

think the type of program or the type of

notebook you use is not the most

important behind this building a second

brain method the main idea is that you

have a place where you can store this

information and then re-encounter it and

recreate it into your own creative idea

so I will show you in this video the

different steps of the building a second

brain method such that you can start

building your own second brain so the

biggest idea behind the building a

second brain method is this so-called

code step plan so code stands for

capture organize the steel and express

let's first start with capture so I

think most of us know how to capture

things so that's just whenever you

encounter new information you put it

into a certain notebook or a dedicated

place but the thing is sometimes we're a

little bit unsure of what to capture I

think most people fall into two camps or

they capture way too much they literally

highlight entire paragraphs of a book or

they capture way too little so they

don't know down anything at all when

they're reading something or

encountering new information and I think

one really big tip that I got from the

book is to capture what resonates and I

think if you capture what resonates you

kind of see you kind of become a curator

of information instead of just a passive

Observer and also by only capturing what

resonates or what you find surprising

you will see that you can kind of leave

behind information that you already know

and I think by doing this in the end you

get a notebook filled with really new

novel ideas or quotes that you got from

other information sources and one really

big benefit that I have found from doing

this is that if you slowly capture

throughout your life everything that

resonates you are slowly adding value to

your own Library without having any

active plans or anything active that you

have to do at that moment so for example

I capture passive moments that really

resonate with me during meetings when

reading a book when listening to a song

even movies and I think one thing I

would want to recommend to you is to

also capture for example pictures or

capture parts of Clips because I think

most of us capture parts of text but we

don't really capture thoughts movies and

or pictures whereas I think if you

capture all of these your projects will

become a lot more interesting both

visually as well as information wise and

I think especially when you just start

taking a new course this can be really

insightful later because what you

capture as a novice is quite different

from what you capture as an expert and

sometimes it's really hard to get back

into this novice mindset and one thing

if I look back that I wish I did was

when I was learning different languages

that I had captured my thoughts or

feelings or what I found really

surprising in that language because

right now I'm a little bit more advanced

in some languages and it's sometimes

quite a shame that I don't remember

First Learning these languages so that

also brings me to today's sponsor

linguda so linguda has kindly teamed up

with me to talk to you a little bit

about language learning so throughout my

life I've learned a few languages but

right now I'm really focusing on French

again because I have a good friend in

France and I kind of want to keep my

language skill up but one of the main

issues at least that I face living here

in the Netherlands is that there are not

that many French speakers around me so

and I find it personally really

important to practice with native

speakers so that's one thing I really

like about lingo there that's they

always have a native speaker as a

teacher that can help you really

practice your pronunciation as well as

grammar and vocab so with linguda I am

able to fit it into my super busy

schedule and language classes really

allow me to slowly increase my speaking

abilities also something that I really

like is that you can choose the topic

that you are interested in and you can

practice as often as you want so for

example if you have a job interview in a

certain language you can really zoom in

to this topic and book only classes that

have job interview as their main topic

so during the holidays and the weekend

I'm slowly trying to make it a habit to

have one French class a week I'm not

there yet but I really hope to keep this

habit up such that I can also speak with

my friends abroad in French so linguda

now has offered my subscribers this

amazing deal for Black Friday and that's

50 of your first trial and the discount

code is charlotte50 or you can just

click the link down in the description

below and if you're learning a language

at the moment I would be really curious

what language you are learning and what

kind of Trials you're facing because I

think we could perhaps help each other

but let's get back to the video so the

second part of the code method is

organize and that's where you organize

your notes into their dedicated places

and Thiago for the head has this whole

schema of how to do this but I

personally try to just keep it as simple

as possible I think most people spend

too much time on organizing their notes

and I do think having a nice organized

place for all your ideas is really good

but in the end if you spend 90 of your

time organizing your different notes and

ideas you're perhaps wasting a little

bit of your time so I think keep it as

simple as possible that's my only tip so

I just use three apps I have notion

which I talked about before in this

video and there I just literally put

everything I sometimes put it into

different projects folders or I create a

specific Pages for different projects

but in general I just put all my ideas

there then the second app I use is to do

this and this is just a really easy to

do list manager I think the way I use it

every time I think of something small I

have to do or an earns I have to run I

put it in there and finally I just have

a basic notebook I do journaling in

there I make to-do lists I write

different thoughts things I have on my

mind I'm the third part of the code

method is the steel so the steel is

where you try to make your notes as

comprehensive as possible for your

future self so you really try to get the

key message from the little notes you

make so for example if you highlighted a

passage from a book try to find a key

sentence and I especially like to

rewrite it in my own words because if I

rewrite it already in my own words I can

literally just copy paste to use it

later in a piece I'm writing or a video

I'm creating but sometimes I am a little

bit lazy and then I just highlight the

main message or the main words that I

see in the text and I do have to say

with this part I would be a bit careful

removing the original text because I

think sometimes when we're really

involved in the information we are

sometimes the least qualified person to

really judge the information we have

collected and that's because we're too

involved in it so I think sometimes

leaving the original note with the

Rewritten Passage under it is better

than removing the original note because

maybe in a later part in your life you

want to use the original note as well

and the last part of the code method is

Express and I personally think Express

is actually where 90 of your time has to

be focused on because expressing is

creating and making the information you

have gathered in a new way such that it

can become a project for example or a

blog post or a paper you're writing for

your research and the main message in

the book for this part is to start from

the idea of abundance so I know I have

the tendency when I start on a new

project to not look at all the

information I have already created but

to start almost afresh with a fresh

search on the internet and trying to

find new information that I can put in

my projects but usually actually when I

look at all the information I have

gathered of my life in my notion and

notebooks I already have 50 of the

project done because a lot of projects

that I nowadays start already things

that I have fun about for a long time

during my research during my Masters or

even during my bachelor's am I looking

what you already have in your second

brain and reassembling these information

pieces you can sometimes get a lot

further than starting from scratch every

time you start a new project and one of

the main messages also in this part is

to then work in these 90 minute blocks

so I think if once you're in the express

part of the code method it's good to

work in these 90 minute blocks and focus

on one thing you try to create with your

already gathered information so during

those 90 minutes you're not allowed to

look up any new information and I think

you sometimes will surprise yourself the

new ideas you come up with by combining

old information together instead of

starting a project from scratch again so

then the last thing I want to talk a

little bit about are the benefits of

building a second brain so one of the

things that I've really noticed by

creating a second brain and focusing in

on it every day is that I am creating

value slowly in increments over time so

every time I read a book even if it's

for pleasure I usually highlight

different passages that I really like

and even if I don't immediately use

those passages in a project I sometimes

re-encounter those passages a year later

two years later and then it really

Sparks new inspiration for a project

that I'm currently working on or a

project that I want to start also a big

benefit I think is that you kind of

create this perspective of a curator so

instead of passively observing

information and passively interacting

with information you actually become

pretty specific about the type of

information you let into your second

brain and also the type of information

that could be valuable because before

I've really noticed that I started to

focus a lot on Neuroscience which is my

study and I would only consume

information on Neuroscience but now I

noticed that actually going to a museum

going to an R art show and sometimes for

me give a lot more new information or

new ideas for Neuroscience projects than

just learning about Neuroscience itself

and also I want to leave you with one

final quote from Thiago Forte that I

really like and that's this only when we

put it to use we get confidence in what

we know shift from consuming to creating

more is not better and with and what we

have needs to be valued and I hope that

with this quote I will leave you and I

hope you enjoyed this video if you're

also working on creating your second

brain please leave me some tips for how

you're doing it and otherwise see you

next week bye