Book Review: Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte + Notes

A book about note taking that you would want to take note of.

Summary of the book:

‘Building a Second Brain’ is a book about note taking and its importance. The book is very well written and provides actionable takeaways to readers to help externalise their thoughts. The author emphasizes the power of externalising your thoughts as well as organising them to get the most out of every resource we come across. In our daily lives, we come across boundless information: articles, videos, books etc. However, to truly benefit from these, it is imperative that we take notes on them. The CODE (Capture, Organise, Distill, Express) method provides an easy way for anybody and everybody to integrate note taking into their lives. Moreover, the PARA method (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives) is truly a game changer when it comes to organising files and life in general. Overall, the book is a delightful read about supercharging your brain by using it as tool to think critically rather than store information.

My Thoughts:

My favorite thing about this book is how the author urges you to start taking notes right away. Infact, I found it truly important to take notes on the contents of this book too. In my opinion, this is a book that everyone must read for we live a world where an everlasting influx of information is inevitable. This book shows readers how to make sense of information and how to ensure that we are able to actually use the valuable parts of this information rather than just losing it to the maze of the mind. The tone of the book is relaxed and shows readers how incredibly easy it is implement organisation and note taking methods in every aspect of our lives, from the books we read to random conversations we have. This book was indeed so influential that after a week reading this book, I found myself easing into the habit of taking notes on everything without any effort or a conscious decision to do so. It just became something that was assumed, if there was valuable information that I accessed through any media, then I would take notes on it. Truly, this is a habit that I have been effortlessly following in the weeks since I read this book and for that I am very grateful. This book will help you transition from a passive listener or reader to someone who engages with the material by distilling it into its most important components.

Notes:

As I mentioned earlier, I definitely wanted to take notes on this book and figured that they may help you as well.