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A review by bookishlibrarian
Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential by Tiago Forte
3.0
I picked this up because I am an information hoarder; SO. MANY. NOTEBOOKS., screenshots, articles saved to Pocket, quotes from books, articles, and podcasts, journals, random slips of paper with something written on it with no context that I discover days, weeks, months later and have no idea what they are for (I recently found a random Post-it that said jesusoftheweek.com. That's it. It was in a stack of papers that had to have been years old. I don't know what it was when I actually wrote it down--it's all in Chinese now.)
Forte's book offers approaches to how to capture, organize, and use information. As someone with many random interests, I agree that part of the power in saving information are the random connections you can make between disparate things that can lead to a whole new approach or way of thinking about something. But his system design around projects is really more applicable to content creators. I also would have liked to see more practical examples of how other people organize information. The most useful takeaway--one I already knew but find very difficult to put into practice--is to be more selective in what you save to begin with, so that you are better able to find, use, and make connections from the information you do save.
Forte's book offers approaches to how to capture, organize, and use information. As someone with many random interests, I agree that part of the power in saving information are the random connections you can make between disparate things that can lead to a whole new approach or way of thinking about something. But his system design around projects is really more applicable to content creators. I also would have liked to see more practical examples of how other people organize information. The most useful takeaway--one I already knew but find very difficult to put into practice--is to be more selective in what you save to begin with, so that you are better able to find, use, and make connections from the information you do save.