Building a Second Brain - Thiago Forte
Summary
- Thiago Fortes version of a zettelkasten. He has some excellent ideas, many based on Luhmans Zettelkasten Method system, and some of his own research. It also includes a file structure idea
How I discovered it
- Since i have been interested in Zettelkasten Method I have searched for all the books that mentioned it. This one seems to come up quite a lot.
How the book changed me
- To be honest, I had already implemented zettelkasten method, so there were not really many changest. Perhaps refinements to my system.
Details
- Human capital - knowledge that cannot be replicated by a machine, is important in todays knowledge economy.
- some main points:
- Capture only important ideas
- Organize ideas so we can find them
- Turn ideas captured into our own message
- Express it in your own words
- Distill notes and keep distilling till we get the main, main point.
- The basic building block of everything we do is information
- Average knowlege worker spends considerable time looking for stuff
- Keep notes in a commonplace book
- Our mental map of our bodies includes tools
- Shift as much time as possible from consuming to creating
- Consider ideas that are opposed to each other
- Writing notes in your own words has power
- 1x - References/11 Notes/11.03 Ideas/Writing is thinking
- The cathedral effect - our surroundings affect how we think
- The inspiring story of Octavia Estelle Butler
- Polanyi Paradox - We know more than we can explain
- Self-expression is a vital human need
Quotes
- Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them - David Allen
- Wealth of information creates poverty of attention - Herbert Simon
- Keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind - Richard Feynmann
- To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day - Lao Tzu
- An idea wants to be shared. And, in the sharing, it becomes more complex, more interesting, and more likely to work for more people - Adrienne Maree