New Year, New Second Brain?

A new year is at hand! As the autumn ended and the winter arrived, I’ve continued using my three biggest productivity tools in tandem with one another: my bullet journal, second brain, and pocket notebook (which I will refer to here as a memo book to distinguish it from a “full-sized” notebook). Still, when I got more use out of my pocket notebook, I started to notice less overall use from my bullet journal and significantly less utility from my second brain.

Trying to balance all three together is the subject of another time entirely (and it is a topic I will think over for a future write-up), but I did want to focus on something else I foreshadowed last time in my more recent Sudo Science Book Club post.

I decided to start all over with a new second brain.

Why Start Fresh?

It wasn’t a decision I took lightly.

The more I thought about it, the more appealing the idea of starting a new second brain appealed to me. When the thought crossed my mind, I thought it didn’t really seem necessary. I already had so much in my second brain, after all! Besides, I could just throw anything I didn’t want into the “Archive” part of PARA, right?

Still, the longer I thought about it, the more I looked at the big picture. While I did attempt to address the issues on why I wasn’t using my second brain as often as I used to, there were still those occasional lingering, nagging feelings of not wanting to really open up my second brain. It wasn’t as bad as it had been just before I wrote about the subject, but I still wasn’t getting as much use from it as a year ago. Doing my Sudo Science Book Club post analyzing the Building A Second Brain book by Tiago Forte made me consider as well that perhaps the “honeymoon phase” of having a second brain was over for me. It wasn’t as neat and exciting, so I was no longer throwing everything else I could find into it.

…one of the biggest advantages of using a second brain, to link seemingly unrelated ideas together to spur creativity, was gone.

Still, while that was a good thing for me, it wasn’t helpful in the fact that I only started to use my second brain just a tad more often than I had before. But regardless of all that, I continued to think it over and came to the difficult conclusion that it was likely much more sensible to start all over again with something much simpler. Yes, I already covered doing a plugin purge, but this time, I really needed to go back to basics.

That said, what were the major reasons to start my new second brain to usurp my old one?

So Many Disconnected Files

One of the biggest appeals of building a second brain was “linking my thinking,” so to speak. While I did do this more often when my notes were new, I eventually stopped linking things together. Most of my notes simply existed on their own, most notably my drafts for these posts. Not a bad thing on its own, except that one of the biggest advantages of using a second brain, to link seemingly unrelated ideas together to spur creativity, was gone.

I suppose a part of the reason I gravitated toward analog over my second brain is because of its more tangible and intentional nature.

This was the big thing that really gave my second brain a superpower over my analog means of tracking personal knowledge. Somewhere along the way, I stopped remembering to connect everything together. As a result, even when I would remember to open my second brain, I would have to consciously and specifically think about what note I wanted to open. No more linking together between newer ones.

Still, I did link older ideas together only to do nothing with them months later. Speaking of which:

No Need To Revisit Older Files

My PKM devolved into a form of digital hoarding. I had to save this little article that only tickled my fancy for a moment here, save a note about something I would never think about again, and quickly log a download or tutorial that I would only need to see a grand total of once. It took a while for me to realize that linking so many ideas together felt a little unnecessary, as it would result in myself building a series of rabbit holes that I would never bother to venture into.

“Why not throw stuff into Archive again? You even mentioned it as an option.”

Completely fair point, and yes, I did mention that. Still, it got to a point where I had dozens upon dozens of files that didn’t really hold any meaning or use to me anymore. I suppose a part of the reason I gravitated toward analog over my second brain is because of its more tangible and intentional nature.

In reality, I would create these intermittent packs and never revisit them more than once or twice at the absolute most.

There’s only so much paper for me to write on, so I need to be mindful of what I save into it before running out. With a second brain, there wasn’t much of anything to stop me from trying to save too much or be more mindful about what I wanted to keep and use again, even as I created intermittent packs. That also leads to me to my next point.

I Wasn’t Using My Intermittent Packs

I spent so much time at the start of my second brain crafting intermittent packs (or “int packs” as I like calling them), but the obvious truth of the “quality over quantity” mantra had never occurred to me until later.

That’s not to knock the overall quality of the annotated articles and int packs I painstakingly created, but it felt as if I had purposely created them as a form of busywork for myself, to feel like I was doing something productive and useful. Honestly, the way that the BASB book made them sound made them seem so appealing. How amazing would it be if I could create tons of int packs to streamline my workflow in the future? It was a genius idea.

In reality, I would create these int packs and never revisit them more than once or twice at the absolute most. At best, I would merely be impressed with how much care and attention I put into applying CODE to an article I found months ago and never revisited.

As a result, I did build a hefty toolbox of int packs. Unfortunately, they spent more time collecting dust on the shelf than actively being useful. They were great int packs, sure, but they just weren’t useful to me for too long. What was the point of such a useful tool if nobody was going to get use from it?

Baggage From Plugins

Despite my attempts to simplify and streamline last time by cutting out the plugins I didn’t need, I still felt like I had several other ones I didn’t feel like weeding out. I had tried, in my attempt to get more mileage from my second brain, to time block using a few additional extensions, but it felt overly-complicated compared to time blocking on paper, and my pocket notebook already did a tremendous job of that.

Additionally, some of the plugins I had purged left behind files they previously needed to function. The loom extension left some loom files that no longer served a purpose after I found the plugin a little too hard to grapple with compared to making tables manually. The kanban board and time blocking plugins required other notes to store tasks, which would boil down to checkbox lists at their core. A “project management” plugin overcomplicated things by needing its own folder and notes nested within itself. The list of examples goes on, and when I would remove these plugins, the notes they created and needed were still there, like unwanted dependencies on a Linux system. Even the act of throwing them into my Archive made everything feel more cluttered and “unclean” than it had to be, and that leads me to another major point.

The Feeling of “Clutter” Within My Second Brain

The feeling in the back of my mind that my second brain was filled with unnecessary clutter made me feel less like using it. Even if I tucked it out of sight and out of mind in an “Archive” folder, I would still know it was there, especially when using my search feature and finding results for irrelevant files popping up.

…this did give me the useful opportunity to be much more deliberate, more intentional with my files.

Granted, as an Obsidian user finally getting another fresh look at the settings, this one is my fault. By the time I realized I could exclude files from Obsidian’s search, I had already made massive strides creating my new second brain. Nevertheless, I already put too much work into this new one where I’m drafting my words right now, and my other points on the matter still stand.

Why Have a Second Brain At All?

After everything I’ve discussed thus far, after bringing up how I track so much using both my bullet journal and memo books, it does beg the question as to why I should even bother having a second brain in the first place.

I did think about this point as well, and it boiled down to a few thoughts that have given me a much better insight to my priorities once again.

• I love to track the books I read in my second brain. I have a go-to list of books in a large note where I track books, authors, genres, personal ratings, and much more.
• Much longer-term notes that I know I’m going to revisit make more sense to track in my second brain than in a bullet journal I’ll eventually have to shelve.
• Speaking of which, my second brain makes the best possible place I can think of to track my completed bullet journals and memo books with the assistance of my notebook naming system.
• I like to sync occasional articles and highlights from Matter to Obsidian, although I’m still working on how to get myself to revisit these more frequently.
• I plan my posts for this site right in my own second brain. I even have a go-to list of topic ideas as I start to outline and plan out my thoughts.
• Projects that have the potential to sprawl into something much bigger or more involved make a bit more sense in my second brain. For example, my girlfriend and I are planning a major vacation next summer, and it seems simpler to track our itinerary, budget, and more with the second brain.
• If it’s not easy to save in my bullet journal or memo book, it should be easier to save it in my second brain. This mostly regards articles, images, links, and more that I might stumble upon and want to make use of.

A Little Bonus!

Additionally, there’s also the matter of existing notes that I did find useful. In this instance, I was able to take advantage of how Obsidian saves everything in markup files, which made migrating a few notes in particular easy and convenient, save for updating links to other pages that no longer existed in my newer second brain. Still, the option is appreciated, and this did give me the useful opportunity to be much more deliberate, more intentional with my files. With my new mindset of quality over quantity, I feel I may get more out of my new second brain, my second second brain, if you will.

Additionally, I’ve also taken the opportunity with my updated second brain to change a few settings here and there. I went back to using the Nord color scheme, but I was less determined to excessively hide parts of the UI this time around. I also took the opportunity to make everything feel new again with a new selection of fonts, which can make a tremendous difference in making things feel fresh.

What About the Old Second Brain?

This is another nice bonus, as I have Obsidian Sync and don’t have to worry about my old second brain possibly being too large. Despite already having curated a good selection of my useful notes to my new second brain, I can now safely think of my old second brain as a glorified “Archive” for many files that are no longer relevant to my needs. This way, if I really did forget something that I could have sworn I had in my first second brain, I can just open it up and gawk at how different everything looks before finding what I need.

Where to Go From Here?

Before I can jump headfirst back into really using my second brain, it would greatly behoove me to analyze my priorities and think about how carrying a memo book fits into the grand scheme of things. Now that I have a third tool to delegate tasks and ideas to, what gets taken from the second brain or bullet journal in my setup? It’s something I’ll have to really consider for the future.

Have you had to start over again from a different second brain? What was that like? Do you feel it is ever necessary to start another second brain when the first one is already established? Do you even use a second brain, or do other productivity methods do enough for your needs? I would love to hear what you have to say.