00:00- I learned a productivity system
00:01that's helping to organize
my life, improve my workflow,
00:04remember more of what I learn
00:06and add two inches to my biceps.
00:08Okay, one of those isn't true, but still,
00:10technology continues to
move at lightning speed.
00:13Thousands of apps are launched each year.
00:15AI chatbots are changing how
we think about the future
00:18and we're learning more every day
00:19about how humans can create
at their highest level.
00:22Instead of getting completely left behind,
00:24I decided to lean in to
learn as much as I could.
00:27How could we make sense of all
the information we consume?
00:30What are the best tools to
keep track of all of our ideas?
00:32What do the most productive people
00:34in the world have in common?
00:35The lessons I learned taught me
00:37how to best organize my own life,
00:39and they might help you as well.
00:40Also, you'll add at least
two inches to your biceps.
00:43This all started with just one question.
00:45"How can I improve my memory?"
00:48Ever since I was young,
00:49I've been surprised by just
how terrible my memory is.
00:52And to this day, I still
struggle to memorize facts.
00:55I always forget people's names,
00:56and I lose my shoes at
least three times a week.
00:59Among the many experts talking
01:00about how to improve our memory online,
01:03there was one approach
that seemed very different
01:05- My solution is kind
of, maybe unexpected.
01:08It's kind of counterintuitive,
01:10which is to go to the opposite extreme
01:12and to not try to remember anything.
01:13It's to actually outsource that job,
01:17delegate the job of remembering,
01:19and give it over to intelligent machines
01:21that have perfect memory
and never forget anything.
01:24And that these days are
always just a click, a tap,
01:28- [Matt] Tiago has spent the
past decade perfecting a system
01:31to help people organize
their lives digitally.
01:34He calls it Building a Second Brain.
01:36That's also the name of his book.
01:37It's an insanely complicated structure
01:40of applications, tools, and techniques
01:42that are synthesized into a database
01:44for future recollection.
01:46Or, put another way,
01:47- It's note-taking. Take
notes on quotes you hear,
01:50things you learn, lessons
you take away from books,
01:53articles, courses, conferences.
01:56It's gotta be a little bit
more than note-taking, right?
01:58- Except there's a difference.
01:59Most people take notes for the short-term.
02:01It's like they take notes just
for a class they're taking
02:03or a meeting they're in, or a phone call.
02:05But to me, when I put in that effort,
02:08when I actually put in the
effort to save that note,
02:10to me, I was creating this
lifelong treasury of knowledge.
02:15I thought, every little note
that I put into this system,
02:19could be useful far into the future.
02:21And so I just started
using a digital notes app
02:23which is widely available,
02:24in a way that was kind of more long-term,
02:27more systematic, more
strategic, more intentional.
02:30- When a Notes app is working well,
02:32you can connect the dots
between different projects,
02:34store resources and keep
track of your best ideas.
02:37When a Notes app isn't working,
02:38you struggle to find
things, your ideas get lost,
02:41and you have trouble
getting started on projects.
02:43Taking a look at my own Notes app,
02:45I could tell that there was a
lot of room for improvement.
02:48So with the help of Tiago,
02:49I went about building a
second brain of my own.
02:52Now taking a look here,
02:54you can see that I do
have some organization.
02:56The notes folder is the default
folder for all of my notes.
03:00Then I've got a personal folder,
03:02a videos folder for all of
my ideas for this channel
03:07Now the system is broken.
03:09I almost always create a note
03:11and just leave it in the
default notes folder.
03:14That's why there are over 1,000 notes
03:16in this folder right now.
03:18so it's time to take some
of Tiago's advice here
03:20and clean this up the best that I can.
03:23As I started to go through my notes,
03:24I realized just how
messy things had become.
03:27Quotes, keyboard shortcuts,
measurements for a shelf
03:30and some brilliant ideas like this one,
03:32called Armed and Dangerous.
03:34It reads, "Pixar movie
about a guy with one arm
03:37that finds his second arm but
its got a life of its own."
03:40I mean, these notes need to
be protected at all costs.
03:44there were a lot of really
important notes in here.
03:46I just need to define them.
03:47My previous strategy of
organizing these notes
03:50into generic folders
like documents, photos,
03:53personal, and business,
just wasn't working.
03:55I have one folder that's just personal.
03:58So it's literally everything
from my personal life
04:02just gets thrown in there.
04:03So Tiago recommended that
I use a folder structure
04:08Which stands for Projects,
Areas, Resources and Archives.
04:11- [Matt] In Projects,
04:12you store things you're
actively working on.
04:14Like your office reno or
upcoming trip to Europe.
04:17you place things that are
areas of responsibility
04:20in your life, like vehicles or taxes.
04:23you store things like book
notes and inspiration.
04:26And finally, in Archives,
04:27you move the things that
are no longer needed,
04:29but might be useful in the future.
04:32and I'm officially done
organizing all of my notes.
04:35Let's take a look at
what it looks like now.
04:38Right here in Projects,
04:40you'll find all my active projects.
04:41So things like YouTube
videos I'm working on,
04:44an editing course, pregnancy,
parenting and even golf.
04:49That's right, I'm trying to pick up golf.
04:51In Areas, you'll find things
like taxes, immigration,
04:55cooking and healthcare.
04:57And below this, we've got Resources.
05:00This is really a work in progress,
05:02but it's gonna be the future
home of all of the ideas
05:04that I learned through books,
podcasts and articles online.
05:09And finally, we have Archive.
05:10This is where I'm gonna be
archiving all of my old projects.
05:14I organized 1,000 notes into folders,
05:17deleted another 1,000 completely,
05:19and threw 500 into a
general archive folder
05:22in case I need them later.
05:23And if you were wondering, yes,
05:25I held onto that amazing Pixar idea.
05:27I also organized my Google Drive files
05:29into that same PARA format.
05:31In the process, I almost
deleted 15 years of tax data
05:33and nearly gave myself a heart attack.
05:35But luckily, I was able
to undelete the files.
05:38Personally, apart from
that brief moment of panic,
05:40I found the process of organizing
to be oddly satisfying.
05:44And I was starting to
realize how my second brain
05:46could be helpful if I
stick with it over time.
05:48- When there's a place for something,
05:49you find more of it, right?
05:50When there's a special place
05:52for a certain kind of information,
05:53you're gonna start to
notice all these little bits
05:56and pieces of information
that relate to those projects.
06:00which can be by typing
a note into a phone,
06:02it can be taking a photo
with your smartphone camera,
06:04it can be downloading
something from a website.
06:06It now doesn't go into this black pit,
06:09this black bottomless hole of stuff.
06:12It goes right into that Project folder.
06:15- As I got on with my life,
06:16I continued to take notes as usual.
06:19all of my new notes saved
to my generic Notes folder.
06:23This acts as a kind of inbox for my notes.
06:26I'm taking a note right now for a company
06:28that I just learned about
06:30that helps to offset
your carbon footprint.
06:32So that's pretty cool.
06:33And then every week,
06:34I go through my notes
like I go through my email
06:37and organize them into
the appropriate folders.
06:39This was already working so much better
06:41than my previous spray-and-pray approach.
06:44If you're more of a visual learner,
06:45you might be interested
in checking out a free app
06:49They're actually my sponsor
for this week's video.
06:51The best way that I can describe this app
06:53is that it's a notes app for creatives.
06:56And it's pretty amazing.
06:58Whether you're decorating
your home office,
07:00or working on an infographic,
07:01Milanote is a great way to
pull together your ideas
07:04and mind map projects.
07:06Let me show you a project
that I recently used them for.
07:09I wanted to give my YouTube
videos a design refresh.
07:11So I created a new board
called YouTube Design.
07:15And I plugged in their Moodboard template.
07:17From there, I added inspiration
from creators that I admire.
07:20I included photos, thumbnails and graphics
07:24And I made another section with
all the things that I think
07:27that we're currently doing
right, like these GIFs.
07:29And then I shared it with my designer.
07:35This specific board
wasn't super structured
07:37and that was the point.
07:38I wanted it to be a playground
07:39where we could throw
around ideas, add comments,
07:42and narrow in on a vision.
07:44And here is the final
look that we landed on.
07:47If you wanna get started with Milanote,
07:48I've got some good news.
07:50It is absolutely free.
07:52So click the link in
the description below.
07:54There's a link down there.
07:56And you can get started on
your next creative project.
08:01Check it out. Let me know what you think.
08:02Throw a comment down below if
you love it as much as I do.
08:06So the most important
part of your second brain
08:11that really is just the
center of your second brain.
08:14There's a little bit more to it than that.
08:16When you zoom out, there are
other tools that connect to it.
08:19Some things you probably already have,
08:21like a to-do list and a calendar,
08:23and another category that I
personally never even considered
08:27until speaking with Tiago,
called capture tools.
08:30It turns out that these
play an important role
08:32in your second brain.
08:33- Capture tools are a
specific category of apps
08:36that are designed to do exactly that.
08:38To get information, capture information,
08:42from either the digital
world or the physical world
08:45and get it into your notes.
08:47- [Matt] My current process
is to either jot down a note
08:49into Apple Notes and then
forget about it forever,
08:51or highlight a physical book
08:53and then forget about it forever.
08:54Having literally never spent a second
08:56thinking about capture tools,
08:58I asked Tiago if he
had any recommendations
09:02- Are you familiar with a
service called Readwise?
09:04- No. No, I haven't heard of it.
09:05- Oh my gosh, you're gonna eat this up.
09:07Readwise is pretty much besides,
like a Notes app itself,
09:12my absolute number one recommendation.
09:14But it basically connects different apps.
09:17So what happens basically is
every time I make a highlight
09:20in a Kindle book, Readwise is sort of,
09:22it's like this process
running in the background,
09:24this little helper, it detects
when I've made a highlight
09:28and with no further action,
09:30there's no exporting, no
syncing, no whatever it is,
09:34it automatically imports
not just that highlight,
09:37but every single highlight
from the entire book.
09:40Silently, quietly in the
background, over to my Notes.
09:43It just appears in my Notes.
09:45- Clearly excited to get
started, I downloaded Readwise,
09:48connected it to my Kindle and got going.
09:50Digging into a new book now,
09:52called "The Psychology of Money."
09:54Gonna be taking lots of highlights
and notes along the way.
09:58As I started reading new books,
10:00I felt more confident I
was gonna be able to track
10:02and sort all the most important
information I was consuming.
10:05Instead of just crossing my fingers
10:07and hoping I'd remember everything,
10:08I got really intentional
about the information
10:12Sometimes it was for a specific
project I was working on.
10:15Or in the case of this
personal finance book,
10:17it was lessons that would
help me for years to come.
10:19I can't be the only one
that always highlights
10:21the popular highlights.
10:2311,439 people can't be wrong.
10:26So I just finished reading
"The Psychology of Money,"
10:28and all my highlights
10:29are automatically
populated here to Readwise.
10:33There are 68 of them in total.
10:36As I went to sync all these
highlights to Apple Notes,
10:38I ran into a problem.
10:40Apparently Apple doesn't
let you sync with Readwise.
10:42The only solution would
be to switch my Notes app.
10:45I'm not doing it! I am not
gonna switch my Notes app.
10:48I just organized Apple Notes.
10:50It took me seven and a
half hours to code through
10:53and organize the whole thing.
10:56Even though I can't use this feature,
10:57it's still nice to have all
my highlights in one place.
11:00And if I really need to,
11:01I could always copy and
paste over the quotes
11:03that I really want to save.
11:04One final tool that I learned about
11:06is called a ReadLater app.
11:08And as the name would suggest,
11:10it allows you to save
things to read later.
11:13There are lots of
different options online.
11:15I went with one called Reader.
11:16This way I can go throughout my day,
11:18saving the things that I find interesting
11:20from articles to videos, tweets and blogs,
11:22and consume them at a later
time when I'm not distracted.
11:25- And it's just incredible,
just time shifting that, right?
11:28It's like in the moment you
see that Buzzfeed article
11:31of like 35 funny cats.
11:33Right in that moment, it
feels so important, like,
11:36"Oh no, this is the thing
I really need right now!"
11:39But if you just time shifted even an hour,
11:41or a few hours to that evening,
11:43suddenly you see that
in your reading list,
11:45you're like, "Oh my gosh,
this is completely pointless."
11:49Which means you save all the time
11:51that you would've spent
consuming that junk content.
11:54- [Matt] I really like
how Reader formats content
11:57in a distraction-free way.
11:58There were two features in particular
12:00that I was really impressed by.
12:01First, when you save a
YouTube video to Reader,
12:04it automatically pulls the transcript.
12:06- All of this begins with
learning to make the distinction
12:09between background tasks and
immersive tasks in your life.
12:13- So you can highlight the
most important takeaways.
12:15And second, you can highlight
directly in your browser.
12:18So say I'm reading an
article on The Verge.
12:21I can now highlight
right on their website.
12:23And the coolest part,
12:24all of these highlights and
notes sync with Readwise
12:27right alongside my ebook highlights.
12:29This was all very new to me.
12:31I know that there are a lot of people
12:33that have been using these
apps for a very long time,
12:36but I'm somewhat of a late adopter.
12:38And so it really felt
like I was catching up
12:40on a decade's worth of
technology in a month.
12:43The more that I used my second brain,
12:45the more I started to see the benefits.
12:47It felt like I was finally
getting my shit together.
12:50When I went to the dentist,
12:51I could quickly pull up my notes
from previous appointments.
12:53I even had notes linking
directly to my past X-rays.
12:57I was able to pull together lots of notes
12:58that are helping me to prepare
13:00for the birth of our first child.
13:01Take this note from a
podcast that I listened to,
13:04called "How to Be a Great Birth Partner."
13:06I've included a summary of the key points
13:08at the top of the page.
13:09And as you scroll down,
13:10you can see I use a technique
that I learned from Tiago,
13:12called Progressive Summarization.
13:15That's basically just a
fancy word for highlighting.
13:17The important parts are bold
13:19and the really, really important
parts are also underlined.
13:22It helps as I go back and try to digest
13:24and remember this information.
13:26I was able to store
video editing techniques,
13:28office inspiration, personal finance tips,
13:31camera recommendations, and
recipes for brewing coffee.
13:34No longer a black hole.
Everything had its place.
13:38One of the big reasons of
creating this note-taking system
13:41is that it's organized and
we can come back to it,
13:44and we don't get lost and
we can search for things.
13:47- The structure of your notes
13:49should match the structure of your life.
13:50Because the purpose of notes is to support
13:54and enhance your life, right?
13:56So sometimes I'll see people
13:58with this beautiful
sophisticated note-taking system
14:00that looks like a research database,
14:03or looks like a gigantic
library Dewey Decimal System.
14:08And it's beautiful. It's
aesthetically pleasing.
14:10It's impressive, and then over here,
14:11their life is a complete mess.
14:14And I'm like, "No, those two
things should be related.
14:17They should complement each other."
14:19the productivity conversation online today
14:23Every day there's a new app or AI program
14:25that you apparently need to have.
14:27But I've found that
it's less about the tool
14:29and more about how you use it.
14:31That's why I stick with Apple Notes
14:32instead of switching to
another more trendy app.
14:35And that's why I didn't waste my time
14:36trying a dozen different ReadLater apps
14:38and just picked one
after a 10-minute search.
14:41There's something to be said
about sticking with the basics
14:43and just doing the work.
14:45And that's advice that you should take
14:46if you wanna build a
second brain for yourself.
14:48- Start with something too simple
14:50and then wait till it breaks.
14:51Wait till you try to do something with it
14:53and it's actually not good enough.
14:54It's not powerful enough.
It's not specific enough.
14:57That is the moment that it's time to move
14:59to something a little
more powerful, right?
15:01You may find yourself moving a file
15:03into that gigantic personal folder,
15:06and then a little voice in your
head, a little feeling says,
15:09"Uh oh, I don't trust that
I'm gonna see this again.
15:11I don't trust that this
is gonna be found."
15:14That's not only an allowable approach,
15:16that is the best approach.
15:17It's organic. It's bottom up.
15:19In response to how your life is changing.
15:21- [Matt] Find everything that
I talked about in this video,
15:23including links to all
the apps I mentioned
15:25and Tiago's work in the description below.
15:27And please subscribe for
more deep dive videos
15:29into self-development in the future.
15:31Thanks for watching.
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