Building a Second Brain

Don’t rely solely on your brain to keep track of information; create a digital system.

People face a deluge of information every day. This onslaught isn’t empowering but overwhelming. It leads to anxiety and “information exhaustion” – that constant niggling feeling that you’ve forgotten something. The average US employee wastes 76 hours annually searching for mislaid files, items and notes, according to research from Microsoft. Knowledge workers spend 26% of a typical workday searching for information across various systems, then consolidating it, and they end up tracking down only 56% of the information they seek, according to research from the International Data Corporation.

To stay abreast of the torrent of information, create a personal knowledge management (PKM) system. This “Second Brain” can help you keep track of the most important insights and ideas you encounter when consuming information. The system easily retrieves what you’ve stored away; organizes your accumulating knowledge so you can leverage it to achieve your goals; saves your best ideas; shares information easily...