Your Thoughts Do Not Belong in My Second Brain

I love you, but you ain’t driving this bus, brother, and I’ve got the template to prove it!

Mar 10, 2023

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Line drawing of the head and shoulders of a person with text in and around their head and a yellow halo surrounding them. The text outside of them reads “Big ideas from important people who aren’t me”. There is a tiny figure inside their head holding up a sign that reads “STOP”. There’s a thought bubble coming from the tiny person that says “You shall not pass (heh heh)”. Other words inside the head include “Filter, ideas that stand out, good stuff, ahah moments, my conclusions.” — Ilustration by Author

There’s been quite a change in the focus behind my work over the last couple of years. Two weeks ago I told you about the planting of the seed that saw me turn my notes upside down, striking out into the wilderness of a brand new Obsidian vault.

Yes, I do largely use Obsidian on my Mac to interact with my notes, but the app isn’t the focus of what I’m talking about today. This is about the innards of your raw files, not the glasses you use to view them.

PTPL reader Honore Francois recently shared her own second brain epiphany after reading the story I mentioned above:

My heart skipped a beat and I dove into this post…just the conclusion I’ve recently come to as I half-heartedly toyed with the idea of “ a second brain” that wasn’t and isn’t my own handwritten conclusions, questions, experiences, etc… As tempting as all the new solutions are, I’m quite comfortable with mine — it’s served me well decades before and continues to do so… Thank you for sharing this pivotal revelation .

Restricting my notes to my own thoughts and feelings is enormously freeing! It means that I can trust that the insights my notes surface, originated with me. The formula goes like this:

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