What is Second Brain?
I first heard about it in Ali Abdaal’s video:
How to Organise your Life – Building a Second Brain
It is an idea proposed by Tiago Forte in his book Building a Second Brain.
This idea resonated with me so much that I decided to implement it and dive into it full-on.
The basic premise is simple: We consume so much information. We are overloaded by it. But, we retain so little, and implement even less. So, all that time listening to podcasts, reading books, etc, was essentially wasted.
A ‘second brain’ is a knowledge hub made of our notes, ideally, digital, searchable and interlinked.
Logseq: The Base For The Brain
I tried different apps and softwares, like Notion. But, I couldn’t find the perfect solution for me.
Later, a friend, Faiyaz, recommended Logseq. It is very simple and approachable on the surface, but very powerful on the inside.
(Check out Faiyaz’s blog, Neural Notes, where he talks about things like mental models, cognitive biases, logical errors, philosophy, productivity, technology and psychology.)
I use it on my laptop and my phone and sync the database using Syncthing. (Synchting is awesome! Probably more on that later someday.)
Back to Logseq.
It provides you with a journal, defaulting to the page of the current day. You can insert links, cross-reference pages and blocks, insert images, embed websites and videos and so on. There are also whiteboards and flashcards.
Logseq is open source and self-hosted. It is kinda the perfect solution.
My vision is to input all my ideas, write book summaries, learnings from podcasts and so on. And publish some of it on my blog.
This would serve as a great resource for me and others over a long time, God-willing.
Give It A Try
I strongly suggest you give this second brain thing a go, ideally using Logseq, or at least using a Notes app or a physical journal.