My digital second brain story

October 12, 2025

Here is the boring story of the evolution of my digital second brain that brings us to where I am today.

A predictable childhood

I am generally not a fan of drawing conclusions, or takeaways, since they tend to look foolish over time. So, I will limit myself hereto just telling the process, that certainly was full of takeaways and decisions at each step, but that are not timeless and were probably wrong…
Growing up, I was not particularly orderly, did not care much about organization, and certainly even less about productivity or anything close to it. However, I had a lot of luck: I did not have a lot of distractions (my parents were not very keen on gaming technologies) and I had very set routines that were hard to escape (school, homework, soccer, dinner, sleep, repeat). I had a lot of fun as one does during childhood! I think routines are super fun for a few reasons: they give you a sense of secuirity, a sense of efficiency, and they take away the burden of choice. If you have a routine, you are not choosing to do an activity but you are just doing it, which is extremely libarating. Then, came middle school. That’s when I started to have more freedom, and hence more distractions. I discovered the PS4 and Clash Royale, and the rest is history. But I again was very lucky: I had my routines and those kept me on the good track. It was then the turn of high school. I started to have even more freedom, and with it came even more distractions. And this time routines were not enough. I had to add a lot of self-will, which did not prove that hard since the requirements were not that high. And so I kept getting through with reasonable results and not that much effort. The true challenge came the last two years: for the first time, I was making important decisions on what to do, where to do it, and with what goals. I took this and my next decisions somewhat lightly. It’s hard to see at 18 years old the consequences of your decisions, but this is what first made me think about my second brain for the first time.

The start of unpredictability

From the end of high school to the start of college is when I first started to think more about life. All those things that once in a while people think about: its meaning, its purpose, and how do I fit in. No answers, of course, but a lot of new questions. And soon, it got overwhelming. I would start to write things out (paper for now) to try to draw some lines. I would make graphs, and charts about stuff, like the job I wanted, what I enjoyed, and what I wanted to achieve. And of course, these things would get lost, and soon I was starting from scratch again. All this until I bought a Samsung tablet at the end of my first year of college. A true life-changer for the 19 year old me. I could finally write stuff that would not get lost (or so I thought). And indeed, that was awesome. I spent a good amount of time trying to write down my thoughts, and make sense of things about life. And for some time it was great! Until it wasn’t. Even the digital notes would become a lot, and even if they would not get physically lost, it was impossible to find them, or the rigidity of a note meant I was stuck with its original format. No customizability, minimal searchability, and no way to link things together. There was a sense of progress, but long-term results were not much better than pen and paper.

The quest for a true second brain

I went a full year like this, without worrying too much. And then, I got into Notion. Of course I had heard about it before, but I had never been in the adoption curve. It never stuck, and I never really cared. But it was only when I had so much confusion in my head that I finally fully adopted. Just like the tablet had felt like a leap, Notion felt like an even bigger one. Now I could connect, link and organize, all digitally, and always at my fingertips. Soon, I was hooked, and my excitement was real. I felt like I could finally conquer the chaos of life just like I had done with the tablet. And this was also all true, until it wasn’t. But this time, it was a little bit different. It felt like I would consistently encounter roadblocks, but every time I could solve them through Notion capabilities. First, I discovered back-links which were a game changer to link ideas and notes. Then, databases changed the way I could think about information. And even later database views, integrations, the API, Notion AI, and many other Notion features always made me feel like it was just a matter of my limitations in the use of the Notion tool that was the barrier to my perfect second brain. This time, from my second year of college to graduation, was a series of multiple iterations. But of course I never quite got the true perfect second brain. And it is maybe naive to think about it now, but there were times where I truly though I could. The whole process was very fun, I learned a lot and definitely grew a lot. But I also developed a lot of scepticism, overwhelm, and stress. I would often think about my set-up and try to improve it, and it’s hard to stop, because, honestly it is very fun to think about. It’s like feeling like you have the keys to life. But of course, they are not really keys, they are more like a map, with a lot of missing pieces, and with no certainty that there of what is the destination.

Then what is left for this second brain?

During this iterative process of building my second brain set-up, that of course in the meantime went through other apps (Obsidian, OneNote, among others), many creators and too many iterations, I slowly came to the conclusion that the ultimate Notion set-up could not be achieved (despite what many creators - even some that I like - tend to say). I have accepted that the limit to the perfect second brain is not the tool, but life itself. Life is messy, imperfect, and unpredictable, and so will be the second brain.

But it is still worth trying to improve it. So I developed some conjectures (4 is not a good number for a list, but it’s what I have):

my second brain is a constant evolving conversation, with myself with diminishing returns
my second brain is just a tool, but can be a pretty cool one
my second brain can be a representation of my life, but a rather imperfect one
my second brain is a way to connect with others

These are just conjectures, and as such likely to be wrong, but they are what I have for now. And they led me to to some consequences:

In early stages you need to figure out the best productivity system, but after that it’s all about getting stuff done. It’s like dating, where at the start it makes sense to try many different things to see what works, but once you have, you should settle down and stop looking for better alternatives. Start moving down the pipeline.</a> Start moving down the pipeline.
As a tool, it should be practical, functional, but more importanly fun to use
Given its limits, I will not <a href=obsess over it, but will do make some effort to keep it updated
As a way to connect with others, I have created this this place.

My dream

It is not as cool as Martin Luther King’s one, but who cares. I dream of a day where the second brain is just an autonomous centralized extension of myself. As such it will be just as messy, imperfect, and evolving as is life, but nonetheless, it will be automated, digital, and always with me. As it stands now, it is something that I use, update, maintain, and make effort to keep afloat. But that’s not how the current Internet and World Wide Web works. The current Internet is a private set of information silos, that are not connected. Everything lives where you save it, and you have to go there to get it. I wish one day the web will be semantic, and everything will be connected. I know people have dreamed this before, and miserably failed, but I guess that’s why it’s a dream. The best part about this long journey through my second brain is that I lost a lot of naivety, gained a lot of scepticism but did not lose any hope. I am excited to see where technology will take us. Thank you for engaging in this rant. I hope you learned something, or at least had fund reading it.