Do you another brain?

Starting last Fall and continuing on through this whole year, I’ve been exploring and playing with Personal Knowledge Management. I wrote another blog post on the topic, but today I want to talk about another new-to-me concept: Second Brain.

I’m discovering that this is something other people have been thinking about for a long time. In 2015 David Allen published his book Getting Things Done: The art of Stress-free Productivity*. It started a revolution.

Later, a man named Tiago Forte popularized the expression “Second Brain” as a method of note taking and keeping track of your life — everything from to do lists to keeping track of information. He teaches the PARA method:

Projects: short term things you want to do which have a specific outcome. For example, “write a short story for newsletter.” I know what I need to do, I know it’s not going to take a great deal of time. And I know precisely who my audience is and where this story is going to published.

Areas: these are on-going things in your everyday life. Exercise, diet, finances, etc.

Resources: Information you’ve saved and will need in the future, ie all that research you’ve done for the book you’re writing.

Archives: Information you no longer need at the tips of your fingers, but aren’t going to get rid of because you may…