What Most People Get Dangerously Wrong About Building a Second Brain

“Your professional success and quality of life directly depend on your ability to manage the information around you. […] Now, it’s time to acknowledge that we can’t ‘use our head’ to store everything we need to know and outsource the job of remembering to technology.”

Your short-term memory can only store about four to seven items for a very short time (15–30 seconds). It’s what helps you remember a phone number until you get distracted.

“Our long-term memory does not have the same limitations as working memory. It is capable of storing thousands of pieces of information. This allows us to cheat the limitations of working memory in lots of ways.”

Some of your neurons respond to what you see (in the inferior temporal region), some to what you hear (in the superior temporal region), and others to the layout (in the parahippocampal region).

​Daisy Christodoulou writes: “So when we want to solve a problem, we hold all the information relating to the problem in working memory. Unfortunately, working memory is highly limited.”

You build a mental structure that helps you develop new thoughts and knowledge through memorisation.

When you outsource the job of remembering to technology, you’re neglecting most of your brain’s potential.