The Exchanges

Q Tiago, thanks for sharing that, and it's very powerful. Would love to dive deep into what's your why? Why did you write this book? Why did you create this system for yourself?

A Yeah, you know, for me, it goes back to, as I talk about in the book, a chronic health condition that I had starting when I was 22. I was working at the Apple Store in San Diego, going to college. And out of the blue, I just started having this terrible pain and tension in my throat, like in my neck. And that really set my life off on a very different path. You know, I had all these plans of studies I wanted to do, and work I wanted to do, and places I wanted to go, and people I wanted to meet. But for eventually, it turned into years, I just struggled with this debilitating condition. And this is when I started taking digital notes. You know, With a chronic condition, you have to manage tons of information. I had to manage just unbelievable amounts of, you know, doctor's notes and prescriptions and insurance paperwork, not to mention, you know, actually reading about, reading different papers and literature about, you know, what was happening to me, trying to understand it, trying to change things about my health, my nutrition, my exercise, all these things. And right at the moment that I had all this extra information to manage on top of my normal stuff, on top of all my studies, The side effects of the medication that I was taking actually severely hampered my short-term memory. I had trouble remembering what happened like yesterday, like even more trouble than usual, and so…

AI assessment note: “I had no choice but to depend on some external system”

Q And can you share more about what was your initial system of this note taking it? How did you want the tool set that you used earlier? And how this toolset has also evolved over the course of years.

A It's changed so much. You know, I started on paper. I would just take the paper that the doctor's office gave me and annotate it and try to make sense of it. Then it became digital and I would just use like Microsoft Word. That was the only software for manipulating information that I knew about. So I would just have a series of Word documents stored on my computer. But then I thought, okay, this isn't ideal. I moved to Google Docs. For a long time I had just different Google Docs and different folders, and then from Google Docs I moved to Evernote, and Evernote added more capabilities, was even easier to use, and eventually I think I'll, I'll move on from Evernote. There's a huge explosion, a new generation of knowledge management software that is on the scene now that is being developed. It's very, a very exciting time, but I think what I take away from all that is your second brain is not dependent on any one piece of software. It is a collection of different tools that you use, different pieces of software. Any individual app can be swapped out. Any single one can be changed, but the overarching system that is your second brain transcends any one particular tool, and that's what gives you the confidence to invest in it for the long term. Honestly, if I thought it all depended on one piece of software that could go away tomorrow, forget it. I'm not going to spend my time You…

AI assessment note: “I started on paper... use like Microsoft Word... moved to Google Docs... moved to Evernote”

Q And what common pattern has seen is, right? People try to build their notes. But there is no system for revision, right? At what point of time do I revisit a particular note? Let's say I have today read hundreds of books and for each book I created a note, but that is forgotten. And when I look at the pile of hundred, where do I begin to revise?

A Yeah. So this is where I sort of differ from other, a lot of other, you know, thought leaders, many thought leaders will tell you, okay, you know, put it on a schedule. Like, once a week, go in and read three notes. Once every, you know, once a month, go in and, ah, review, you know, remember, reflect on this many notes. I really don't see it that way. To me, you know, if you take notes on a book, let's say, and you save those in your second brain, unless there is a specific use case for those notes, you should probably never look at them again. Like, why? Why spend your precious time to go back and just Re-remember, re-memorize a bunch of notes that have no practical use case. You know, on the other hand, if you do have a use case, let's say you read a book on marketing a year or two later, you're launching a big campaign for your product. Absolutely. Go back, do a search for marketing or product or launch. At that moment, when you are starting a specific project, which is to launch the new marketing campaign, that is, and only that is the correct time to review those notes. So this is the cool thing with modern software and having everything stored in one place is you can retrieve things on demand. You can do a search and instantaneously search the entire history, everything you've ever read or thought about the subject, like in seconds. So since you have that capability, I d…

AI assessment note: “unless there is a specific use case for those notes, you should probably never look”

Q You know, coming on to the next step here, how do we make it more frictionless? So it just becomes like, Flipping a page of About Delhi, or just marking a tick mark.

A Yeah, I think this is so important. It has to be become easy. It has to become frictionless. That's the only way it's going to be sustainable. There's nothing in life that is really complex and challenging that stands the test of time. I think it comes down to all these little habit formation techniques that James Clear writes about that, you know, other people have written about make it present. So one thing with these note taking apps, That I would recommend is install them everywhere, right? Install the mobile app on your phone, put it right on the dock on the front homepage, install it on your tablet, install it on your computer, on your Apple Watch, put it in the little menu bar up at the top of your computer, install the, or activate the keyboard shortcut, so you can just do a quick keyboard shortcut. You don't even have to switch over to the app. Find what I call capture tools. There's all these little ways of capturing content. There might be dozens of them that you can find. I probably have a dozen of them that I use. So one thing is just put your note-taking tools everywhere. Like, make it so you're never more than two seconds away from a digital capture tool. Another way you can do this is automate it. So I gave the example of highlights in Kindle. You know, you're reading an e-book and you make the highlights, and it just takes a few steps to hit export and to share…

AI assessment note: “make it so you're never more than two seconds away from a digital capture tool”

Q And this journey, how of writing a book, seeing it in more than 10,000 hands today, how it has transformed you as a person today?

A Yeah, I feel like it's transformed me profoundly. It's hard to even say. I don't even know who I would be or what my life would be like at this point because I think mostly because I've just externalized. I have offloaded. Practically every detail in my entire life. My wife Lauren, she jokes that my, I depend so much on my second brain that my first brain has atrophied. I can't remember anything anymore using my first brain and I don't even try. I don't even want to, right? Like why would I occupy my very scarce first brain bandwidth with mundane details and random stuff to remember? I really just try to focus these days on being present. I think that's maybe the single biggest impact it's had. I am more present. I'm more focused. I am more mindful. I'm more thoughtful in all areas of my life because I do not have my bandwidth crammed with random stuff and details that I'm trying to remember.

AI assessment note: “I feel like it's transformed me profoundly... I am more present. I'm more focused.”

Q a common bottleneck that I asked you shared. So can, you know, through your course, you take them through many details, but for our listeners, can you guide them on a few extra steps, how they can overcome this internal belief that, you know, I'm not able to take notes daily, or I'm not able to do that one extra step daily. What could help them right here, right now?

A Yeah, there's a few things I can, I can say. So first of all, it's powerful to ask, how are you already taking notes? And where are you already taking notes? Right? You may have a certain conception of what taking notes looks like, like, you know, sitting at this beautiful oak table in a little cottage in the English countryside, and you have your beautiful notebook and your fountain pen, and you're just taking these long hand cursive notes. I think sometimes people have these very romantic notions of what note taking and writing is, but where are you already taking notes? You know, it's something as simple as saving bookmarks, right? When you come across websites, do you save bookmarks? To me, that, in a way, that is digital note taking. All you're doing is hitting the little star or the favorite button, but it's, you're saving a digital record that then becomes something you control and that you can edit. That's note taking. Are you taking notes in meetings? Right? Do you ever write anything down when you have a phone call or meeting or with a client or anything? Those are notes. When you read books or articles, do you ever save a quote or a passage or a statistic or a metaphor or anything? Those are notes. I find it very hard to believe that anyone who is even a little bit active in this digital world is not saving some kind of digital artifact. Right? And then just start th…

AI assessment note: “it's powerful to ask, how are you already taking notes?”