Second Brains are a Lie

🧠 Is your "second brain" actually making you smarter? 🤔
Uncover the truth about Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) systems and why your carefully curated notes might be holding you back. In this video, we expose the fatal flaws of the Guru promoted likes of Zettelkasten, Obsidian, and Notion templates.
Learn:

Why knowledge ≠ wisdom (and why it matters)
The hidden dangers of digital hoarding
How to transform your note-taking for real impact
The truth behind Niklas Luhmann's productivity

Whether you're a student, knowledge worker, or lifelong learner, this video will challenge everything you thought you knew about note-taking and personal knowledge management.
Don't miss out on this crucial information that could revolutionize your learning and productivity. Watch now and join the discussion in the comments!

Affiliate Links below, for which I will earn a commission.

#obsidian #notion #productivity #personalimprovement #selfimprovement #zettelkasten

[GigaCrafty]

I just added this video to my second brain.

[deepfreeze]

I, too, spent some time in the Second Brain rabbithole. Of the dozens of hours of videos on this topic available on YouTube on how to build one, I quickly noticed that precisely none of them had any salient examples of using one to produce something they would otherwise be unable to or in any way justifies the tens or hundreds of hours they spent making it. It's just the new flavor of Productivity Porn that gives you the illusion of accomplishment while allowing you to avoid working on the actual task you know you should be doing.

[_elifilen]

Notion and Obsidian are great tools without that "Second Brain". They are simply beautiful notebooks

[RogerHeyes]

I have a sort-of argument for writing everything down: it gives you permission to forget it. As long as you know the idea is somewhere and you could come back to it someday, you can stop worrying about it and get on with other things with a clear mind. I do this a lot by bookmarking tabs that I know I'll not come back. It gives me permission to shut them.

I still absolutely agree that obsessing about the knowledge system in the hope that a great idea will come out of it is chasing a mirage.

[etiennesportfolio]

The funny thing is my management systems are exactly like my brain: loose papers everywhere, half used notebooks, 30 notes and journal apps, and more 😂

[proteusblack]

Thank you so much for this. I feel it also applies to the recent trend of bullet journaling, where people end up thinking "if I just make this notebook prettier, more colorful and organized, I'll surely have my life changed by it!"

[rushinigiri]

You don't write notes to revisit them, nor to produce anything by using them directly. Writing notes is a way of embedding information as personal knowledge via analyzing and rearticulating it. I rarely read my notes, because while I had written them I have already begun thinking about new ideas, that will become new notes.

[MrRubinsh]

Collecting knowledge just for the sake of it is useless, but that does not mean that using obsidian as a thinking box and note taking app for your experiences and passionate learning is a "lie"...
Now, I feel that you did say that in the video, but I don't think you were explicit enough.
Smart note taking by itself won't make you super productive, but utilizing it for your experiences, insights, and work - will sure enhance your productivity and ability to deepen your insights and understanding and help you avoid re-learning stuff over and over just because you did not write it down in a good connected manner. At least that's my experience.
Anyway - good video, but IMHO the message needs to be clearer...

[Dihydrousoxide]

Alternative Less Click-baity Title: Second Brains Are a By-product of a Project

[WarfareJournal]

This video was fed to me by the algorithm and I'm glad I clicked! It's a good point and well made. Second brains can often be like the cart driving the horse. A useful tool in search of a way to be fruitful.

[thomasdee]

Totally agree with this video. I think the comparison with the person with loads of notes and a house cluttered with useless junk is a very apt one

[mkazmi]

Essentialy have a project or something you aspire to learn about/create. Along the way, taking notes will be produced

[dombo]

Why is a tall Peter Dinklage giving me a dramatic lecture about the shortcomings of a concept I've never heard of? And why cant i stop watching?

[AsockRatao]

This explains why I can never remember anything I write down, I simply never used that knowledge to fix it in my mind.

[cyborgninjamonkey]

I'm so neurospicy I didn't understand what a second brain meant until most of the way through. I consume volumes of information, of course. I just keep it in my head, and while it's there I familiarize myself with the paths between the concepts in focus and the *first principles* underlying them. I hope for those treks to let me find my way back to knowing things forgotten with just my mind, the simplest facts, and a pattern to follow; in any circumstance.

Sometimes it's even worked which is based af

[vid_dmn]

I am absolutely guilty of this, so thank you for the wake-up call. I have also been struggling trying to find a purpose or a project I want to work on. I feel like I saw this video at the right moment :)

[kath]

i got obsessed with notion as a second brain a bit ago, but was too intimidated to try and start it - obsessed with precisely how to format, etc.
recently i converted all my phone notes to obsidian because i was sick of losing important notes and having millions of useless and repeated ones. i've been slowly organising through and have included a section for article ideas i want to write. hilariously, your video warning against second brains made me realise that it may actually be very useful for me! thanks for the great video, and thank you for how perfectly concise it is :)

[Teckpirat]

If you're familiar with Tiago Forte's 'Second Brain' concept, this aligns closely with his philosophy. It's not just about collecting data, but focusing on what you're truly passionate about and taking actionable steps. Nothing groundbreaking here, but always a good reminder!

[detritic]

Glad to see more of these discussions now. These things are basically database games that waste time under the guise that it's your fault when they don't increase your productivity. They are designed to be yet another digitial hoarding vault that rewards interaction with the tool, not productivity. The point should be to have a reference for things you need to keep perfect because we're not perfect beings, not to force a system on top of a system on top of the actual process that works for you.

[shuilee]

We need to use pkm in a right way. If we can't reach a flow state while using our pkm, then our pkm is fragile. It does not mean the pkm is useless.