Creating A second Brain On the Internet

Hi guys, welcome back to our youtube channel. In today's video, we will be learning how to take smart notes. Or how to create a second brain such that we develop new ideas and store them digitally. We will learn how to do this using a system called the zettelkasten method or slip box method. So if you are a content creator, a student, or a knowledge worker eg. a teacher. Watch this video till the end, because at end  of this video you will be able to ;

1.   Store all your thoughts digitally in one place and access them in the future for future reference.

2.   Store all your learning materials in one place for ease of revision.

3.   Help you  Generate infinite videos ideas if you are a content creator.

4.   Produce thoughtful content and stand out from the crowd.  

5.   Convert your thoughts into JSON data and present them in an elegant manner the same way big data is presented.

6.   package your thoughts, your notes and sell them.

7.   store every inspiration idea in a simple system with ease of access.

 In our daily lives, we heavily interact with the internet. In today's era, everybody on the internet is a creator and is generating a huge amount of data. The amount of information generated daily is so massive for our brain to comprehend. We are bombarded with a lot of information daily from TikTok, Facebook to  Youtube videos among many others. Such that we forgot about what we learned in the past. This is a normal thing for humans which is well explained in the theory of the forgetting curve. If we have some knowledge in our brain 🧠 and we're not using it we continue to forget slowly until we forget it completely. Unless we keep refreshing our brain with this old information to counteract the forgetting curve. This is why we should use the slip box method to easily jog our memory and escape the forgetting curve. The true capacity of the brain is not known. But the brain can store a huge amount of data but only if they share a relationship with each other. It can store up to 39GB of data if they share a relationship. Our brain is not built for storing ideas rather for coming up with new ideas. That is why we need a computer or phone to store them.

 When everyone on the internet is a  producer there's a lot of junk information that is produced. But this is nobody's mistake. The world is changing rapidly and turning everybody into amateurs. The half-life of skills now has been reduced to 5 years. Your skills can become outdated right before your eyes. Unless you choose to upgrade them before they become irrelevant. When we learn new skills we are seen as a fool because we know nothing in that field. 

According to a book by Austin Kleon show your work he says we should strive to learn new things and document all our progress. But learning new things turns everyone into an amateur. So by the virtual of browsing the internet, you may find such many people. They don't have a lot of content to express their thoughts well. Because they are learning and they don't have a vast wealth of knowledge in that field. But we should also listen to them and not criticize them. And see them progress from complete amateur to extreme professionals. But good thing if you are learning on the internet you are taught one thing by a million people. The Internet is a remix culture this is what Sarah Dietschy stated. Whatever you upload on the internet, someone else will copy it and remix it no matter what. But this is not a bad thing because when you are learning a new thing you'll find a lot of material for free to learn from. 

Humans love to see progress especially when it's done in public and it's well documented. Also when you learn from an amateur it is the best thing you can get because he or she has found simple ways of explaining complex stuff. But this puts us in a terrible position where we are supposed to learn from amateurs and professionals without bias. But how can we pick relevant information and discard irrelevant one?   With all this abundance of information, how can we learn effectively and store all relevant information in the system we can easily access and refer to in the future? In the age of the internet, everyone is a creator. But how we can produce well-thought-out content? And stand out from the crowd and avoid chasing clout. How can we produce well-thought-out content that doesn't age with time? Here comes the zettelkasten method or slip box method. But first what is zettelkasten? zettelkasten method or  Slip box method is a process of note-taking and personal knowledge management system. It was designed by Nikolas Luhmann a German sociology who published over 40 books and 1000 scholarly papers. His work was published even on his death. He did all his work with no computer but with pen, paper, and a lot of dedication. With his system, he was able to learn complex stuff for a period of over 40 years. His method was slow but it changed the way we read books and synthesize information. He would read twice then write a note on what he has understood. He would write what he has understood with his own words, So as to keep original stuff as truthfully as the writer wrote. So this method inspired the writer of the book ” How to take smart notes”.And by virtue of browsing the internet, I came across this book and further researched it that is why we have this video. I was researching a system on how can I keep all my creative work in one place. I tried using Notion, but it seemed I am still not yet ready to use it. That's why I tried using another app called Obsidian. It is a simple app and easy to use since you are writing notes using markdown language. Since  I was using GitHub which also uses markdown language it was easy for me to pick up. Also since Obsidian doesn't have cloud sync I used GitHub as my cloud storage. So this is my thought process which is inspired by zettelkasten. Niklas Luhmann stated that you can't think without writing. Thinking is writing when you write you organize your thoughts. Niklas collected his thoughts in the following manner. First, he had a place for storing fleeting notes and permanent notes. Ok, let me explain what are fleeting notes? These are notes that we came across in the course of the day. Like an inspiring tweet, a YouTube video, a book, and much more. We tend to collect them and store them for future use. Then in the future, we can try to find how do they relate to our other notes. If we find a relationship we move this note to permanent notes. What are permanent notes? These are notes which are stored for future reference when you have finished searching for ideas and store them as reference. When we do we will tend to develop a specific knowledge not taught in school. And we find a combination of things that are not supposed to be combined. Because there's power in combining strange things. imagine going to the circus 🤹‍♂️ and you see a bear but what would be more interesting is seeing a bear riding a unicycle. There's a strange power in combining things that aren't supposed to be combined. For a good example of this power check how James Jani combined his acting skills, scripting skill, and video editing skills. He used his skill to package a book by MJ Demarco into a highly successful video. But the strange thing is the writer has a youtube channel but he has not been able to reach such a massive audience. That video also heavily influenced me on how can  I create Wealth. I can do this by producing value for you our subscribers. I choose to do this video because I thought note-taking was an essential skill to share with you. And good thing when I share with you I understand something better. Whenever you write a note write it with your future self in mind. Also, I wish I knew this when I was studying for my college diploma because I now know how my notes were valuable. Because I saw somewhere they package those notes and sell them. That is the end of our video but please give this video 10 likes if you do so. We are going to release a new video on how to create a digital organization like Google. Or How to create a truly digital business that can impact a billion people. if you have reached this part of the video thank you so much please watch this video. Youtube algorithm thinks you will like it.