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Building a Second Brain
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Posted by MadaboutDana
Nov 1, 2022 at 09:49 AM
Just a quick word, in the midst of much else, to urge all fellow CRIMPers to read Tiago Forte’s very impressive book on “Building a Second Brain”.
When I first read reviews, I felt rather dismissive about his systems with their prissy acronyms such as PARA or CODE.
Now that I’ve read the book in full, I’ve realised that he’s talking much less about technology and much more about using habits and mindset for self-discovery and cultural/social enrichment (of both self and others).
In short, I’m a convert!
More seriously, it’s actually a valuable meditation on what taking notes and gathering information is really about; while technology (as a way of de-stressing the “biological brain”) is a big part of it, I’d say it’s actually secondary to the real meaning of the work, which is that managing notetaking in a structured, thoughtful way can help you grow as a person in ways you would not necessarily (be able to) identify otherwise.
Okay, okay, so that makes it sound like a standard U.S. self-help work (do this and you will become a Better Person)! But quite apart from the various strategies and habits he discusses, it’s his sensible, down-to-earth analysis that makes this book genuinely valuable.
I’m certainly inspired!
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Dellu
Nov 2, 2022 at 08:01 AM
Thank you for mentioning the book here. I will going to check it out.
I don’t want to be a bummer here. But, I really have very negative view of the idea of “de-stressing the brain”. I have seen this kind of note on a lot of todo apps, note taking apps, and specially the GTD framework: where the author of the GTD system spend a lot of time how removing burden from the brain is important.
I think this idea is absolutely misguided: and opposite to the actual reality on how the brain/biology works. The established science about human biology is that the more use an organ the better it gets. That is where the “if you don’t use it, you will lose it” saying came from. That is why body building works. The more you stress your muscle, the stronger it gets. The same is true of the human brain. The more you stress it, the better it gets.
- and these tools which are claiming to aid our brain are actually doing the opposite. Indeed, the more we depend on those tools, our brain is going to weaker and weaker at remembering and analyzing. You can check this by reading stories of memorizations champions; and chess masters, and even the regular shop keeper. My sister is a shop keeper. The way she does maths in hear head amazes me. This is because not she is a genius; it is because she has used her brain again and again, and it has become better.
- Obviously I am not going to stop using these tools, methods. But, the promise that we will be better thinkers by using cool note taking system is just opposite to reality of our biology. It is better to stress the brain. Studies on Alzheimer also clearly showed that people who use their brain for tasks (for memorization, organization, thinking, learning language etc) are less susceptible to those diseases. So, de-stressing your brain is a bad idea. It is better to stress it.
Did I miss sth on this?
I honestly get very frustrated at the GTD book because of this opinion. I was outraged when he talked about removing the burden off the brain. I still get frustrated when a lot of people talk about destressing the brain.
am I in mistaken?
Posted by Franz Grieser
Nov 2, 2022 at 08:43 AM
@Dellu
Yes, I think you’re missing one thing.
“Getting stuff out of your head to de-stress the brain” means: Getting boring stuff out of your head. Stuff like “I must not forget to pay the bills, to do this and do that…” Yes, these things must not get forgotten but if your brain is occupied with remembering this, it has less capacity to do the “heavy-lifting”, to do interesting, challenging thinking. And challenging thinking is what keeps our brain in good shape.
Just my 2ct.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Nov 2, 2022 at 02:32 PM
In principle, I tend to agree with @Dellu (being all in favour of strengthening my brain!); on the other hand, without my vast list of to-dos (many of them extremely tedious and forgettable), I wouldn’t be able to live, so in practice I agree with @Franz as well. There, how’s that for some magnificent fence-sitting!
Also, I’ve been analysing my own use of notes, and find that to take full advantage of the Forte method, note analysis would have to become a vital part of my day. Now, I’ve always intended to make it such, because I have huge amounts of potentially useful info awaiting Distillation and Expression (the second, “convergence” part of the Forte CODE approach!). But I’m finding his system as described deceptively simple – in practice, organising is always complicated, even if you decide to ditch a large proportion of your collected information because it’s out of date, no longer relevant, doesn’t interest you any more, or for any other reason. Inevitably, I find myself having to resort to multiple layers, despite every attempt to keep things to a simple two.
So I’m giving my (weak!) brain a good workout by formulating an efficient approach to (a) sorting out my existing information and (b) structuring what I want to keep. I’ve finally opted for Obsidian because it’s just so fricking impressive! But I’m still running Craft alongside it because it’s so flexible and has such convenient sharing options.
With any luck, I’ll end up with a Huge, Muscular, Incredibly Fit and Well Organised Brain!
Cheers,
Bill
Franz Grieser wrote:
@Dellu
>
>Yes, I think you’re missing one thing.
>
>“Getting stuff out of your head to de-stress the brain” means: Getting
>boring stuff out of your head. Stuff like “I must not forget to pay the
>bills, to do this and do that…” Yes, these things must not get
>forgotten but if your brain is occupied with remembering this, it has
>less capacity to do the “heavy-lifting”, to do interesting, challenging
>thinking. And challenging thinking is what keeps our brain in good
>shape.
>
>Just my 2ct.
Posted by satis
Nov 2, 2022 at 04:29 PM
Franz Grieser wrote:
> Getting boring stuff out of your head. Stuff like “I must not forget
> to pay the bills, to do this and do that…”
This was the biggest, best lesson I learned when I finally capitulated and came to depend on a task manager. Any little thing that occurs to me to remember to look into, or do, goes into the task manager, sometimes with a date/time notification. Then it’s gone from my mind until I either clear my Inbox (or recategorize tasks into lists, or dates/times) or I get a notification that I often otherwise would have forgotten.
On any given day, while on the go I share into my task manager a half dozen URLs to read, calls to make, things to look up, or briefly enter ideas to flesh out later. There’s no way I would ever have been able to keep track of all these things on my own without a way to quick-enter them somewhere, evaluate them, dismiss them, and get notifications on them.