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Creating your Second Brain
Over 325 million terabytes of data are created every day. Let's look at how you can store your contribution to the human experience.
Why do we need a second brain?
Each and every day we are inundated with information and responsibilities. A lot of us try to keep everything we need to know in our working memory, which works until it doesn't. In Getting Things Done, David Allen shares how to get things out of your head and reach a level of what he calls "relaxed control." Tiago Forte introduced the idea of a second brain in his book Building a Second Brain. As teachers we are constantly thinking and overthinking tasks we have to get done, concepts we have to learn, events we have to attend. Being able to store all of that somewhere else is the key to getting things done.
The second brain is your metaphorical hard drive where you take data from your working memory to be recalled later. Once you create your second brain, things seem to fall into place, and even the most stressful situations aren't as stressful anymore.
START SMALL!
Sorry for yelling, but if you're like me, you want to get this show on the road and speed up this trip to Stresslessville, population 1. The journey is more akin to traveling to Mordor and less like following the yellow brick road. What I propose may or may not work for you. If you search YouTube for "building a second brain" you will get hundreds of different videos attempting to help you in this quest. You have to figure out what works for you, and that means you may be using a system for 3 months before deciding to chuck it all and learn something new.
What do we need to organize?
A lot of life boils down to three things: information, events, and tasks. If we are going to rely on our second brain for everything, then we are going to need a system that:
- is available everywhere and futureproof
- can quickly capture what is happening RIGHT NOW
- allows us to organize and curate that data
- guides us to what we have to do and what we can do right now
Using a to do list as our second brain
What I'm proposing may seem a little off the beaten path. A lot of productivity experts promote note taking software such as Notion, Evernote, Google Keep, and others. Those are great but with great power comes great responsibility...and a steep learning curve. As you start out, you want to get into the habit of offloading to your second brain, not spending time figuring out how to organize it. That's why I'm recommending a to do list called TickTick.
I settled on TickTick after experimenting with several different apps, ideas, and organizational methods. TickTick came out on top for a few reasons.
Besides adding tasks to a list, a list can also contain notes. This opens up the possibility of recording longer form content or grouping a bunch of disparate ideas into one place. For example, you could keep a journal in a note. I use my journal for all of the one off ideas or memories that happen during the day.
Cost is always at the back of my mind, am I getting the utility out of this service for what it is costing me. TickTick's free level is generous, allowing 9 lists. Each list can have up to 99 items. That's enough to get started and use it for months! And if you hit those limits, a year subscription is $35.99.
Finally, a to-do list by its very nature helps start out organized. You don't have to worry about folders and file names, plus you can easily drag and drop items to put them in different places.
Getting stuff into our second brain
Now that we're signed up, let's get some of these tasks and memories out of our head. You have a few different ways to add items:
- Using the web interface or phone app - Enter your data directly into the list where you want to save it.
- Using your phone's sharing functionality - on any content, click your share icon on your phone and send that directly to TickTick.
- Using a browser extension - On any webpage, you can right click and select Add to TickTick to add the current page and address to your inbox.
- Use your private TickTick email address - Each account has a private email address which allows you to send items to your Inbox for you to triage later.
Triage
Added content to TickTick starts out in your inbox. From there you can organize it, set due dates, set tasks to repeat, etc. I triage my information throughout the day or at the very least, right before I go to bed. By getting everything out of my head before bedtime, I get to sleep without worrying; well, in theory. At least once a night it seems I wake up thinking about something I forgot to write down. But, since I sleep with my AppleWatch, I can add that item to my list and go back to sleep without ruminating about it the rest of the night.
One tip for organizing your lists is to set a due date for every item. That helps resurface the item in case you've forgotten.
At least once a week (set a repeating task if it helps). I'll go through and see what I need to do in the upcoming weeks and what items I need to offload or move to my archive. I have a folder named Alexandria which contains a list for the year. Items in this list are just things I want to remember but have no time commitment.
Busier than ever
We are busier than ever and by lowering our cognitive load we can work smarter, stress less, and most of all, have fun! Yes, I mean it, life isn't for the weak and fun should be at the top of your list!
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