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The number of books you read doesn’t matter

What matters is what you’re taking away and implementing from those books

This is the single most powerful habit for applying what you read in books 👇 Distill book knowledge into actionable steps

One of the most life-changing ways I’ve ever applied this trusted method is for sleep-training our newborn son after my wife Lauren and I could no longer handle the sleepless nights

If you want to stop mindlessly over-consuming content, read this:

🧵 Add all your content to a read-later app (I'm using Reader) for focused, distraction-free reading, watching, and listening

Your brain loves to ambush you with the best ideas at the worst times…

In the shower, when rocking your toddler to sleep, or when you're driving

It's how great ideas get forgotten

So this is how I NEVER let game-changing ideas slip through my fingers 👇 I call it:

Building a “capture habit”

Instead of playing “catch and release” with your ideas, make it a habit to capture your ideas right then and there so they don't slip away and you can revisit them later

Here's how to do it...

3 ways I use AI to help me remember everything I read: 1/ I use ChatGPT to create book summaries

You can’t just ask ChatGPT to create book summaries for you (they will suck), but I’ve found the perfect middle ground that blends ChatGPT’s ability with my own interpretations and notes

Here’s how I do it: buff.ly/3x6wi5F

Give me 2 minutes and I'll show you how to organize your bookmarks with the PARA Method for lightning fast web browsing What’s PARA?

It’s my simple system for organizing virtually any information in your life

Projects: Short-term efforts in work/life with a deadline

Areas: Long-term responsibilities

Resources: Topics/interests

Archive: Inactive items

Key principle = organize by actionability

Our workdays are filled with inevitable gaps…

Between meetings, waiting to pick up the kids, computer doing a software update…

It’s so tempting to spend that time scrolling aimlessly

Here are 2 things I do instead to use those gaps more "productively" 👇 Because these gaps often aren't long enough to make meaningful progress on anything, it's so easy to grab your phone and watch TikTok videos to stay occupied

I don't know about you, but this doesn't leave me refreshed and motivated to tackle whatever is next

Instead try 👇

Building a Second Brain can be transformative

But a lot of it hinges on choosing the right notetaking app

There are 6 specific criteria that I believe will help you pick the perfect app 👇 1/6 Utter reliability, like a utility

Reliability comes down to factors like:

• Near 100% uptime
• Speed and responsiveness
• Minimal software bugs and crashes

I’ve been using Evernote as my Second Brain for 10 years

6 months ago, I decided to evaluate a newer generation of apps:

• Obsidian
• Tana
• Mem

Here’s my evaluation as to whether they could qualify as my Second Brain platform 👇 1/6 Obsidian

The app of choice for a lot of PKM enthusiasts and a clear leader when it comes to link-based apps

But not the best start for me:

Faced a major hurdle setting up sync between desktop and mobile, which hinted at the complexity ahead

My first keynote was at World Domination Summit, followed shortly by a Google Talk

I immediately loved public speaking, but I soon realised winging keynotes wasn't going to cut it for the long haul

So I hired a speaking coach

Here are 5 game-changing insights I discovered 👇 1/5 Mastering public speaking is not just about delivering polished keynotes

It's an art of spontaneous self-expression and connecting authentically with any audience, big or small

Every time I start a new project, I follow a very specific 5-step checklist

• It leverages the existing information in my Second Brain
• Takes me 20-30 minutes to complete
• Helps me to execute efficiently

Here’s why 👇 I've noticed that the way most people launch projects is very haphazard, leaving it up to chance whether they will complete or not

But projects are some of our biggest investments of attention

Isn't it worth adding a little bit of structure to how we start them?

Here’s how 👇

I bet you're guilty of productively procrastinating (we all are)

Where you organize everything to avoid the thing you should be doing

Turns out learning, researching, and organizing are the most tempting forms of procrastination You can tell yourself that you're "making progress" only to avoid the point where you need to make a decision on what to do next

Even having to get feedback on every action you take is ultimately a form of procrastination

So here’s my condensed guide to dealing with this 👇

I’m always fascinated by the different ways people build their Second Brain

From their vision, to the dots they connect, to the choices of what matters to them

Here’s a peek into 5 people’s Second Brains to inspire your own Second Brain setup: Neuroscience PhD student Charlotte @CFraza shares her approach to the CODE method, her strategic use of Readwise for capturing book highlights, and the profound impact of building a Second Brain on her academic and personal growth: buff.ly/3u7Mh2a

I used to pride myself on reading 50 books a year

Until one day I realized none of the information was sticking

It felt like I was pouring water into a sieve

Here’s what I started doing differently (and how ChatGPT took it to the next level) 👇 I decided to read fewer books and summarize them in my own words

These summaries became building blocks in my work

But they were also extremely time-consuming

Reality check: How will you achieve your 2024 goals?

The new year is already 3 weeks old so I bet you've started to form some ideas around what you want to accomplish in the next 12 months

But just setting a goal won’t make any difference

Here’s what you need to do instead 👇 This is the hard truth about goals: If there are no projects associated with these goals, then it's unlikely that you'll achieve them

You see, every goal needs a project attached to it to make it a reality

Otherwise, your goals remain mere dreams

I've loaded up every highlighted passage from every book I've read over the past decade into Google's new AI platform, NotebookLM

It includes 24,216 excerpts, totaling 594,379 words, from 719 sources

What should I ask it? What's the most frequently recurring idea found in my notes?

Answer:

Imagine the perfect organizational system

One that told you exactly here to put every piece of information in your digital life

Every document, file, note, agenda, outline, and bit of research

And exactly where to find it when you needed it That system would be:

• Incredibly easy to set up and even easier to maintain

• Both flexible and comprehensive (so that you could use it, for example, in the Documents folder on your computer, a cloud storage platform, or a digital notetaking app)

End of year = Annual Review time

I can summarize the essence of my Annual Reviews as:

Discovering what you truly want for your life, again and again, in more subtle shades and deeper layers each time

Doing an Annual Review is simple - here’s a few questions to get you going: 1/6 Preparation

• Set aside time and a quiet space for your review
• Take notes of ideas/ projects/ goals that come up to get them off your mind
• What areas of your life do you want to gain clarity or inspiration?
• How do you want to feel?
• Set a deadline for your review

The single most powerful thing I've done in my life is to write things down

I stopped trying to remember what's important and I started writing those things down instead One of the most important places I do that is inside Notion

I use it to organize the craziness of day-to-day life so that I can focus on the priorities when it comes to my business, my life and my creativity

Every day, we get stuck on problems, are unsure how to move forward, or question ourselves

For these situations, I have a favorite set of questions I can ask myself to give me more agency and options: 1/10 How is this thing that seems bad actually good? In fact, how is it exactly what I need at this moment?

If I’ve managed to complete a project during the week, I follow my Project Completion Checklist

Reaching the end of a project isn’t just about crossing the finish line, it’s about integrating it into the bigger picture of your knowledge management system

Here’s my checklist: 1/5 Mark the project as complete in your task management app

This signals a clear transition from 'active' to 'archived,' both from an organizational perspective, and a psychological one (it boosts your sense of accomplishment)

Should Logseq be your Second Brain?

I asked content creator and Logseq Community Manager @rroudt to rate how Logseq stacks up as a Second Brain notetaking app

We rated it on 10 factors (+ a bonus 11th) that a software program needs to function reliably as a Second Brain @rroudt 1/10 Searchability

Ramses’ verdict: You can search the pages where your query appears and the individual blocks

And you can make search even more powerful with simple queries (Boolean search) and advanced data script

Searchability score : 7/10 (9 for advanced users)