Consume less, apply more

This note talks about an innovative knowledge management system also known as ‘Second Brain’

What problem am I trying to solve?

How do I retain the information I consume, turn it into knowledge and apply in real life? Because there is no point consuming stuff if I’m not applying the learnings in my day-to-day life.

So I went out searching for solutions.

What is my approach?

Learning happens through repetition. So I must find a way that allows me to:

1. Capture the learnings from any form of content consumed and make it available when needed.

2. Put the most impactful learnings in front of me in my immediate environment, improving the odds of repetition and ultimately application.

Can I give an example?

For eg I re-purposed a photo frame into what i call “idea frames” which puts the most impactful ideas i’ve learnt from in front me in a slideshow format. The phrase ‘ Own your morning, elevate your life’ continues to inspire me and take action towards becoming a morning person and take control of my days.

How did I do the above?

I started a new note on ideas that inspired me and whenever I connected with an idea, I dumped it in the note. Over time, I had a list of 100+ ideas. I then picked 20 of these and visualised them in Figma. Next was exporting png files and importing into the photo frame. Boom!

The solution - Second brian

A personal database of most impactful learnings, resources and ideas which I could easily access in a few clicks and borrow from.

I used Tiago Forte’s PARA method to get started and set up the simple structure of Projects, Areas, Resources and Archive (PARA) in Apple notes with folders, subfolders and notes.

Will be sharing how this system looks like in my next post. Stay tuned or reach out if you’d like to discuss something.