What’s a Second Brain ? §

The Term Second Brain was coined by Tiago Forte and describes how Digital Tools can be leveraged to help you in your personal and professional life.

Here’s what I do §

• Write Plaintext files in the open Markdown format
  • I edit them using Vim and Obsidian
  • They are portable, syncable / searchable / diffable
• I Synchronize files across devices using My self hosted Nextcloud and Syncthing
• Additionally, I Version Control files in a private GitLab repository for Backup

---

Capturing Highlights §

• I capture Highlights of Web Articles with Raindrop that syncs to my Digital Notes
• I annotate E-Books on Amazon Kindle that sync to my Digital Notes
• I annotate PDF’s with Zotero and XournalPP

Capturing Thoughts §

• Nextcloud Notes on Android
• Signal Chat to Myself
• I capture thoughts through Interstitial Journaling in my Daily Notes
• See my My Journaling Workflow

Task Management §

• Tasks with Hard Deadlines go to Nextcloud Tasks
  • For actionable items, prioritising tasks and tasks with hard deadlines
  • Reminders to keep track of my Habits
  • Prepoluate Personal Schedule by adding Tasks to Calendar automatically
• Tasks with Soft Deadlines go to Obsidian
  • Tasks related to an Area (ongoing project/responsibillity) go to a Kanban Board in Obsidian.
• Tried out TaskWarrio, Todoist

Project Management §

• Using Project Notes according to PARA
• I use Kanban Boards for visualising projects/processes/workflows and limiting WIP
• Switched from using Nextcloud Deck to to the Obsidian Kanban Board Plugin

Digital Notes §

• The place for Archiving Long Term Knowledge in Ever Green Notes
• Stored in My Main Vault, and sometimes an Encrypted Vault
• See My Journaling Workflow

What do I keep in my Notes? §

• Keep track of My Habits, My Goals, Compliments, My Experiments, My Fears, …
• Keeping Track of Personal Finances, People & Relationships, Tasks, My Projects, and My Areas
• Things I don’t want to forget for Work or Universtiry (My Lecture Notes)
• My Memoir through Daily/Weekly/Yearly Notes
• Blog Posts on my Personal Website
• Summaries and Insights of Talks, Books, Videos, Podcasts, Courses, Literature Notes, …
• Technical Documentation for my Home Lab, Commands, Code Snippets, Tools, Services, Hardware Specifications, …
• As well as Questions I can’t answer, Stuff I bought, Quotes, Ideas, Stories and much more.

Calendar §

• Used to plan my Personal Schedule and enforce Time Blocking
• Keep track of deadlines, and any kind of events
• I use Thunderbird and Nextcloud Calendar