TJ Palanca

In 2023, I wanted to improve how I retained and utilised my personal knowledge. I’d always been one to keep my digital files well stored and organised, but seldom were able to use it to any real advantage. In this book, the author introduces the PARA method, a lightweight way to organise your knowledge that maximises actionability.

Why build a second brain?

Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them. David Allen, Getting Things Done

• Capture fleeting ideas before they evaporate
• Translate consumed knowledge into original thought
• Developing one’s own body of knowledge / individuality
• Remembering knowledge at opportune times
• Clearing the mind to have more ideas, ask deeper questions, pursue bigger challenges
• Be more persuasive
• Calmer mind because of the knowledge that it will be accessed

Changing your relationship to information

A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention Simon, Economist

• Instead of mindless consumption, favor rereading, reforumulating, and working through the implications of ideas
• Consume only information that adds value to life and let go of the rest; fight the FOMO.
• Digital information can be ceaselessly molded so it is a fundamentally different way of working from pre-internet era.

Building new knowledge through CODE Method

• Every creative, from philosophers with commonplace books to Taylor Swift follows a process to reliably turn new ideas into creative output.
• Capture - Keep what resonates
  • Don’t save too much!
  • What to capture
    • Inspiring
    • Useful
    • Personal
    • Surprising
• Organize - organize for actionability
  • “Slow burn” - let thoughts simmer in the space
  • Don’t use tags, it takes energy to apply tags to each note
  • Go to Organizing with the PARA Method
• Distill - Find the essence
  • Distill down the notes into something useful.
  • Each layer of highlighting should only be 10-20% of the original.
  • Knowledge Assets
    • Save time
    • Illuminate a concept
    • Learn from past experience
• Express - Show your work
  • Share incomplete work so you can get feedback!
  • Use Expressing with Intermediate Packets
• The idea that creativity is just mixing and matching existing parts is embedded in the CODE Method.

Action-oriented Personal Knowledge Management

• Stop trying to make your app perfect before writing down a single note, just take notes!
• Personal Knowledge Management should support taking action - anything else is a distraction. ¹
  • Avoid overly rigid and prescriptive organization methods because they make notes inflexible to life.
  • Complex systems aren’t need to produce complex work!
  • Completed creative projects are the blood flow, they keep the whole system nourished, fresh, and primed for action!
  • Notes are things to use not things to collect.
• A perfect system that you don’t use because it’s too finicky and fragile isn’t perfect. It will fall apart as soon as your attention is elsewhere.

Organizing with the PARA Method

• The author got this idea from working with people in an Apple store
• PARA stands for:
  • Projects - encounter the information right as it’s most relevant
  • Areas
  • Resources
  • Archives
• Very similar to organizing a kitchen for maximum production, instead of organizing by type you organize by actionability.

Expressing with Intermediate Packets

• Intermediate Products (that you can express)
  • Distilled notes
  • Outtakes
  • Works in Process
  • Final Deliverables
  • Other people’s output
• Benefits of using intermediate producsts
  • Interruption proof
  • Make progress in smaller chunks
  • Increase quality of work
  • Assemble IP to create whole pieces
• Three ways to express
  • Remember: summarized content
  • Connect: use notes to tell a bigger story
  • Create: complete projects stress-free
• By the time you sit down to write, you should already have all the pieces ready.
  • It becomes easier because you now have an archipelago of ideas that you just build bridges in between.
• How to make expressing easier
  • Dial down the scope - move everything else back to the future.
  • Project checklists, start and finish your projects in a consistent way.
  • Use Hemingway Bridges to put in the current status so you can kick start right away when you get back to it.