PDF Summary:Building a Second Brain, by Tiago Forte

In today’s modern age, we get overwhelmed and frustrated because we have access to more information than our brains can possibly store. Consequently, we feel like we’re failing to reach our full potential—we forget important information, waste time trying to recall old knowledge, or record important notes but lose track of their location. In Building a Second Brain, Tiago Forte presents a solution to these problems—a straightforward method of recording, organizing, and utilizing valuable information so you can easily recall it and accomplish goals to the best of your ability.

Forte recommends storing valuable information in a digital storage center that he calls a “Second Brain.” This guide will discuss the benefits of using a Second Brain, how to build one, and how to use one to maximize your productive and creative potential. Throughout the guide, we’ll discuss alternative note-taking methods, organizational systems, and techniques that can improve your productivity, citing books like The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker and Getting Things Done by David Allen.

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Allen also recommends creating a number of folders to manage the progress and deadlines of your goals and projects: a waiting-for list folder to manage tasks you’re waiting on others to accomplish, a tickler list folder with date-specific reminders about when you need to get future tasks done, a calendar list folder to keep track of other important dates, and a next actions folder to contain your to-do list. In contrast, Forte recommends simply managing your progress and keeping a to-do list of your active goals in your management folder.

How to Effectively Use Your External Storage System

Once you’ve organized your external storage system, Forte explains that you must learn how to use it in a way that increases your productivity and creative potential. His process for utilizing your ESS mirrors the creative process, which he explains has two modes: expansion and contraction. (Forte calls these modes divergence and convergence, respectively.) First, you must expand the possibilities of a project or goal to include all relevant information and resources. Then, you must contract by narrowing your scope, cutting extra information, and refining your product or idea until you have a final result.

Forte explains that the first two steps of using your ESS are to record information and sort it into relevant folders where you can utilize it (these are the condense and organize steps of Forte’s CODE system for saving information). These steps are part of the expansion mode of the creative process—they’re designed to gather relevant information that gets your creative juices flowing and sparks new ideas.

The second two steps of using your ESS are to refine your notes to their most important parts and use them to create something (these are the distill and express steps of Forte’s CODE system). These steps are part of the contraction mode of the creative process—they’re designed to narrow the scope of your information and propel you toward the completion of your goals.

The Five-Stage Creative Process

While Forte presents the creative process as having two modes with two steps each (totaling four steps), others break the creative process into five stages.

In this alternative model, the first stage is preparation: brainstorming ideas and gathering information. The second stage is incubation: stepping away from the project and letting your mind process the information. These first two stages correspond to the expansion mode. The preparation stage closely corresponds to Forte’s record step, and the incubation stage is intended to produce similar results to Forte’s sort step—processing information and producing new ideas.

The third stage is illumination—having an “aha” moment in which you connect new ideas and develop a clear sense of how to accomplish your project. Chronologically, this stage could take place at the start of the convergence mode. However, inspiration can arguably strike at any time, so the illumination stage might occur at any point before Forte’s final step: create.

The fourth stage is evaluation: You ensure that your idea and the information informing it are valid. The fifth stage is verification: executing your idea and bringing it to life. These two stages seem to loosely correspond to the steps in Forte’s convergence mode. The evaluation stage is similar to Forte’s refine step, which is intended to help you identify valid information and discard the rest. Step five, verification, is identical to Forte’s final step, create.

The following sections will explain in detail each step of using your ESS and how it will contribute to the creative process.

Expansion Step #1: Record

Before you start recording your notes, Forte says you should pick one platform that will house your ESS and make sure all your saved information is sent there. There are numerous information storage apps to choose from, a list of which Forte explains can be found on his website. Once you’ve selected your platform, ensure that the information you save on other platforms—like ebook apps, social media apps, or mobile phone notes apps—is sent to your ESS inbox folder. Some content storage apps feature an automatic export function, but others may require you to export saved information manually.

(Shortform note: Automatically exporting notes from one platform to another is getting increasingly difficult due to issues involving privacy and copyright. Rather than clicking a button and having a compilation of notes exported, people often have to copy and paste each note individually or re-type information from one source to another when the “copy” function isn’t available. However, Evernote, a popular note-taking software, allows you to directly import digital information using its Web Clipper tool. This will save you time and effort when content apps like Kindle don’t have automatic export features or don’t allow you to copy and paste text.)

Next, record all important information that you come across—this can be anything from personal insights or realizations to quotes from articles or meeting notes. However, Forte warns to only save information that resonates with you or makes you reflect—it must be either inspiring, useful, personally important, or something that changes your current ideas or beliefs. If you’re not selective with the information you save, your ESS will end up being cluttered and unmanageable.

(Shortform note: In Getting Things Done, David Allen recommends a similar system for recording important information; however, his opinion on what to save differs from Forte’s. Rather than only saving information that’s either inspiring, useful, personally important, or changes your beliefs, as Forte recommends, Allen suggests saving any idea that’s stuck in your head. Doing so will rid your brain of all “mental clutter” and therefore restore your mental energy, which you’ll need later when it’s time to sort ideas into different folders.)

When you record information, save only what’s necessary for it to be actionable and for you to remember why it’s important. For example, if you liked one photo from an article you read, save the photo instead of the whole article. Or, if you find an article that you don’t have time to read but think might be useful, record the link and include a brief note explaining why you’re saving it to remind yourself later.

(Shortform note: Some education experts agree with Forte that good notes only capture the components necessary for you to understand and utilize them later. They add a few tips to make this recommendation more actionable. First, record any questions you have or confusing parts of the content so you can fill in logic gaps later and ensure you fully understand the information. Second, use a visually clear and concise note-taking format, and use the same format every time—this will ensure notes are easy to read and understand in the future. Third, use abbreviations, symbols, bullet points, or short phrases rather than complete sentences in your notes to help you focus on the main concepts and record information quicker.)

Expansion Step #2: Sort

Next, Forte explains that you should sort your saved information out of your inbox and into your folders at a designated time, not immediately after saving something. He recommends setting time aside at least once a week to clear your inbox and sort information into folders and sub-folders.

(Shortform note: While Forte recommends clearing your ESS inbox once a week, experts argue that you should clear your inbox each day to increase productivity. Despite the fact that this advice pertains to your email rather than your ESS inbox, the benefits arguably still apply. Clearing your inbox daily will give you a clean mental slate and help you stay more aware of what you can accomplish immediately, ultimately expediting the creative process. For example, you might realize after clearing your inbox and sorting information on a Monday night that you have enough material to start executing a project on Tuesday. This would give you six extra days of work that you would have wasted if you’d waited until the following Sunday to clear your inbox.)

When sorting information, Forte says that you should first see if it fits in any of your current goals sub-folders. If not, consider your ongoing engagements subfolders. If it doesn’t fit there, see if it’s relevant to any of your areas of interest subfolders. If you can’t find a sub-folder to sort the information into but still feel like it might be relevant someday, put it into your hold folder.

How to Effectively Sort Information

In Getting Things Done, David Allen recommends an alternative process for sorting important information so you can either apply it to current projects or save it for a future, more relevant project. Rather than sorting information into folders and subfolders based on where it’s most relevant, as Forte recommends, Allen suggests sorting information based on its actionability.

First, if the information doesn’t require any action (or isn’t relevant to an action you’re working toward, like a current project), move it to your reference files. (In an ESS, this would be your topics of interest, ongoing engagements, or hold folder, as discussed in previous commentary.) If the information requires an action that takes less than two minutes (such as sending a message to a friend), do it immediately.

Next, if the information requires an action that takes longer than two minutes, decide whether or not it’s something you can or should act on in the near future. If you should act on it, create a new project to complete the action (a new subfolder in your current goals folder). If you can act on the information (meaning it already applies to one of your commitments or interests), then determine what you should do with it. (Sort it into one of your current goals, ongoing engagements, or topics of interest subfolders.) Finally, if it’s not currently actionable, move it to your someday/maybe folder (what we refer to as your hold folder).

Contraction Step #1: Refine

Forte explains that refining your notes—distilling them into their most basic format and removing any irrelevant information—should take place right before you create something based on those notes. This shouldn’t take place at the same time as recording or sorting.

Refining your notes to their core essence will increase productivity and creativity. It’ll save time in the future by allowing you to understand the note’s utility as soon as you look at it. It’ll also make it easier for you to apply the information to other relevant current or future projects. To effectively refine your notes, Forte recommends using the following process (which he calls Progressive Summarization):

Since you’ve already saved the smallest bit of information from the source, as we discussed in the Record section, you’ll start the refinement process by bolding the main points of the small chunk of information you’ve saved. For example, if you’ve saved a paragraph from an article, find and bold the main points of the excerpt—the thesis, sentences that provide important explanations, keywords that remind you why you saved the information, or parts that especially stuck out to you. If you have an especially long or complex note, you can further distill it by highlighting or underlining the most important or surprising points of the bolded sections.

Then, for especially unique or valuable notes, Forte recommends including a short summary that explains the main points of the source and why you’ve saved it (if you might forget) in as few words as possible. Using bullet points may be helpful for this step.

Do the Pros of Forte’s Refinement Outweigh the Cons?

While Forte argues that his method of refining notes increases productivity and creativity, critics of this process argue that it might actually decrease these abilities for a few different reasons.

First, these critics argue that Forte’s recommendation to refine information right before creating, rather than immediately after saving, encourages you to over-collect information. This is because refining a note helps you identify how useful it is—if you don’t at least start to refine notes before saving them, you might be saving massive amounts of irrelevant information and cluttering your ESS.

Second, critics argue that Forte’s refinement process (bolding, highlighting, then summarizing) causes you to focus more on understanding the original source’s perspective than on developing your own original insights from it, ultimately decreasing productivity.

Third, refining your notes might actually decrease the progress you make toward your goals due to the Collector’s Fallacy: collecting and engaging with information is easy and makes you feel like you’ve made progress toward goals even if you haven’t actually created anything. Spending multiple work sessions refining your notes might make you feel like you’ve done something productive with your ESS information when you haven’t actually created anything. This false confidence might ultimately prevent or slow your progress toward your goals.

Contraction Step #2: Create

Forte explains that in the final step of contraction, you’ll use your previous work—organizing your ESS, recording information, sorting information, and refining information—to create something new. This “something” may be a personal project like a travel itinerary or a professional project like a speech.

Regardless of what you create, Forte’s recommendations on how to complete a project can be broken down into three strategies.

Strategy #1: Discard Useless Information and Create Task Bundles

Once a current goals subfolder has accumulated enough information to provide you with sufficient context on the topic and an idea of where to start, it’s time to sort through your material and outline all the tasks you must complete to finish the project.

First, sort through all the information in the project sub-folder to determine what you’ll use and what can be moved to your hold folder. This step should be applied to entire notes and pieces of information within a note. For example, if an entire note is no longer helpful, move it to hold. If a note is relevant but you’ll only use two of the main points, save those points and move the rest of the note to hold.

(Shortform note: Education experts emphasize that if, during this step, you find yourself discarding a large quantity of information, you may need to go back to the drawing board. In other words, if a good portion of the information you’ve saved turns out to be irrelevant, this might indicate that you either need to narrow the scope of your project or go back into expansion mode to collect more relevant information.)

Next, identify each small task necessary to complete your project, create a subfolder for each task within your project subfolder, and order the subfolders chronologically. Forte calls these subfolders “Intermediate Packets,” but we’ll call them “task bundles” for clarity. The task bundles for an essay might look like “research material,” “thesis,” “paragraph 1,” and so on.

Finally, sort the information and notes within the main project subfolder into the task bundle(s) that they’ll be used for. Creating task bundles and sorting information into them based on relevance will improve productivity and make your work less overwhelming by portioning the entire project into small tasks that can be completed in one sitting. Once each of the task bundles is complete, your project will be complete.

Forte also recommends saving and reusing task bundles—when completing a current project, try to reuse old task bundles whenever possible to save time repeating work that you’ve already done. For example, if you’re writing an essay on a topic you’ve written about before, you might be able to reuse notes or even entire paragraphs from your old essay.

Comparing and Contrasting Forte’s Method of Task Planning With David Allen’s

In Getting Things Done, David Allen’s advice for outlining tasks for projects is similar to Forte’s, yet it has some key differences.

First, Allen and Forte both recommend creating a list of essential project tasks and ordering them chronologically. However, Allen’s method recommends that you store the information and resources needed to complete projects in one big project support materials folder, rather than in smaller task bundles. Further, the chronological list of tasks needed for a project is kept in a separate next actions folder, whereas Forte’s method simply orders the task list chronologically within the project subfolder itself.

These differences make Allen’s method slightly less organized and arguably more time-consuming, as you’ll have to navigate back and forth between different folders to identify what to do next, find information, and get work done. Meanwhile, Forte’s method of creating task bundles arguably makes tasks easier to complete—when you want to work on tasks for a project, everything you need is in one location. You open the project subfolder, open the task bundle you want to work on based on its chronological location, and complete the work for that task within the bundle where all the information you need is already housed.

Further, Forte’s recommendation to reuse old task bundles for current products might boost productivity more than Allen’s system. Saving task bundles from old projects and reusing them in current ones will save time that would be wasted re-doing work you’ve already done.

On the other hand, Allen makes a recommendation to improve productivity that Forte’s method lacks. Allen suggests that you clearly define the amount of time, energy, and resources needed to complete each task. This ensures that you’re fully prepared to complete a task before starting it: otherwise, you might find yourself starting a task and having to stop at an inconvenient time. For example, if you start to replace the radio in your car but find out that it takes twice the amount of time you’ve allotted and that you’re missing a part that costs $500, you might have wasted time and resources on a task that you can’t complete at the moment.

Strategy #2: Plan Your Next Session

Next, Forte says that at the end of every work session, you should identify the next steps to guide your next work session. To do this, record:

1. The status of your project, such as your biggest challenges or unanswered questions
2. Any barriers that you anticipate cropping up in the future
3. Any small details that you might forget before the next session, such as how one idea relates to another or why you changed your mind about something

This will maximize your productivity by allowing you to pick up exactly where you left off and continue your train of thought despite hours or days separating you from the last session.

(Shortform note: In Deep Work, Cal Newport takes Forte’s recommendation to plan your next work session a step further, recommending that you create a “workday shutdown ritual.” In addition to the steps Forte recommends taking, this routine includes the following practices: (1) checking your email for any last-minute updates or urgent items that might impact your next work session; (2) reviewing deadlines for your project if there are any; and (3) using a signal phrase like “all done” to get your brain out of work-mode and explicitly end the day. Newport claims that these practices will help increase your productivity by allowing your brain to fully check out of work mode so it can properly rest before your next work session.)

Strategy #3: Prioritize Completion Over Perfection

Forte notes that the desire for perfection often prevents us from completing projects in a productive manner—we get caught up on small details, thinking up additional components we want to add, or trying to find the best information. This causes us to go in circles until we get burnt out and eventually delay or cancel the project altogether.

If you find yourself getting caught up in perfection—continually looking for new information or getting overwhelmed by the number of task bundles—consider narrowing the scope of your project. While the scaled-down project might not be perfect, making it smaller will allow you to keep your momentum and ensure that the project gets done. While pausing parts of your project might seem difficult, Forte explains that it’s always possible to revisit the project at a later date to revamp it.

For example, imagine that you’re working on building a car and decide that you want to add fancy features like leather seats, a radar detector, and a rear camera. However, these items are complicated to install, hard to find, or over your current budget, and trying to include them is delaying the project. Instead of keeping the car in the garage until these tasks are feasible, narrow the scope of the project and revisit these components at a later date so you can get a basic version of the car on the road and complete your project.

How to Overcome Perfectionism

Like Forte, Elizabeth Gilbert explains in Big Magic that perfectionism is one of the biggest barriers to creativity and productivity. She elaborates that perfectionism is a psychological ailment that takes time and practice to overcome.

Forte’s method of simply narrowing the scope of your project might help overcome perfectionism in the moment, but it’s likely not enough to solve the underlying psychological issue that’s causing your perfectionist urges. To solve this issue at its core and overcome perfectionism for good, Gilbert recommends that you regularly practice the following methods:

• Try to be more realistic right out of the gate—before starting a project, decide what you can reasonably accomplish within the allotted amount of time.

• Take pride in completion rather than perfection—celebrating the accomplishment of finishing a project will encourage you to aim for completion rather than perfection in the future.

• Don’t worry about what others think—often, we strive for perfection because we think others will look at us negatively if we finish a project that’s less than perfect.

• Take joy in moving on—rather than getting held up on making your project perfect, look forward to the new endeavors you can take on once you’re done.