Don’t Go Fully Paperless if You Hope to Leave a Lasting Legacy

Will anyone bother looking at your second brain when the first one’s gone?

Photo of sunset by Jonathan Petersson from Pexels, photo of boxes by cottonbro. Images combined by Author.

It’s the year 2050. A hard drive connected to a screen and a hand-written piece of letter-size paper share adjacent display cases in the Museum of Eclectic Human Experience and Knowledge.

One night, after closing time, the drive turns to the paper and says,

“You know, I can’t figure it out. Why do the crowds always flock around you, yet barely give me a glance? I’m so crammed full of interesting data, stories, and notes, it’d take years to explore it all!”

“Exactly,” said the paper.

Second brains are quite the thing at the moment, aren’t they? Note making has replaced note-taking, and there’s a growing number of people (like me) telling you how to master the apps vying to be your right hand …brain.

I’ve got to thinking about this whole paperless thing and concluded that 100% digital is not the answer. My solution is to mirror the most important parts of your life in both the physical a…