Building a Second Brain

In my new role, I often feel overwhelmed and bewildered. There is no one helping me as my French colleague would say, perceptively concerned about my mental health. There is a challenge in my current cognitive ability and discovering new tools such as BASB is a God send. A tool in the burgeoning field of knowledge management. I am using all the new tricks that I can find on Youtube to keep above the water.

I hit the motherlode of new self-help books: Atomic Habits, The Organized Mind, Building a Second Brain, and The Extended Mind plus the several Youtube creators out there is fuel enough to educate the uninitiated like me. In fact, I have been building a second brain without my conscious knowledge by using tools like EverNote, Dropbox, and MS OneNote. However, I lacked the Aritoteliean rigor of categorization, which would have helped in simple things like organizing my file system. Or even my garage.

Instead, I get stuck in the software tools. I downloaded Obsidian, then Notion but never got to use them, preferring the suite of tools I already use; for work Microsoft suite of Outlook, To Do, Teams, and OneNote. For personal use, I look to the Google suite of Gmail, Keep Notes, Gmail, Tasks, and Drive. Despite having used these tools for a while now, I am unable to smoothly incorporate them into my workflow.

Last week, I tried interstitial journaling, creating a new notebook in OneNote where I make daily entries. The idea is to be mindful of my working day and to control my emotion. Procrastination is really about managing one's emotions and journaling is a way to be aware of what I feel during the day. This technique shows some promise in calming my emotions and controlling my thoughts. I do not have the time to write long journal entries like these on a daily basis as I used to do in the past.

Listening to Tiago Forte, in the process of BASB, one must become a producer or creator instead of being a consumer. I am a glutton for consuming media which reflects my overall attitude with one look at my cluttered garage. I am in the midst of clearing this mess up which takes a lot of mental energy because of the awareness of my sickness of consumption; whether media or physical things. In fact, it is a mental disease that has corrupted me with mindless material accumulation.

Externalizing the mind, liberates one from rumination and too much thinking, by creating an external brain that one must bring order and clarity, to be organized and productive. This is the goal that one must achieve instead of diddling with the various software tools out there. Again the mind gets stuck with all the thoughts that swirly around with the possibilities of what one can do with these various software tools.

 

Daufuskie Island

Last week I was on vacation where I spent Monday on Edisto Island, Tuesday on Daufuskie Island, and Wednesday in Beaufort. We drove home on Wednesday afternoon. The rest of the week I spent playing golf in my usual Thursday game, and the rest of the week swimming, watching movies, and biking the swamp rabbit trial. I did not respond to any email or Teams post but spent some time on Friday replying to some with needed a response due to production issues. It is the first time wherein I did not work during a vacation as most of the time was a workcation in the past.

During my off days, I read Tiago Forte's 'Building a Second Brain' and watched his videos. Learning his process to offload work from my brain and make notes in a structured way will be the key to my success in my new role and make me succeed in my other projects like writing a book, learning a new language, and traveling abroad. I also spent last week clearing out my garage. Like my father, I am a pack rat who likes to buy things in the hope these purchases would help me grow as a person. In fact, I realize it is a disease of affluence, to spend money on useless stuff like buying dreams or a new life.

Shifting through the clutter, there is no mistake in realizing that something has gone wrong with my thinking process to allow myself to buy all this stuff. Clearing the garage and organizing my work will de-clutter both my physical and mental space. It is a wonder that I could function in such disorganized circumstances; which I attribute to my youthful intelligence and habit of journaling (which is a brain dump)  but which one can no longer sustain as one age. Creating a second brain will allow me to succeed in my later years plus allow me to work on several projects at the same time.

We enjoyed our vacation at the beach in Edisto and the bike ride exploring Daufuskie Island. I watched a movie based on Pat Conroy's 'The Water is Wide' which was set on the island when he was a young teacher. The vacation allowed me to step away from the pressure at work and think of ways to be better and more organized. I feel the wind behind me as I catch a new wave bringing me forward. I have been practicing meditation; by counting my breaths, listening to guided meditation, and, recently, chanting meditation where I recite affriming quotes. 

In my last session, my therapist said that I am managing better in my life; the difference is like night and day compared to several months back. Interestingly, my golf mates also made the same remark about my golf game. I have been taking golf lessons but I think it is my mindful meditation that allows me to focus and avoid distracting thoughts. I now have a 14 handicap as compared to 21 a few years back. Last year, my handicap was about 19. In fact, I am starting to enjoy my golf game now that I have more control. I hope to have the same feeling at work now that I am beyond the youthful drive and intuitive gut feeling that has driven me to success.