> Get the right kind of music going, it's time to focus 😎 ## Logs - 2024-09-05 - - 2024-09-04 - Recording - 2024-08-29 - Overcoming information overwhelm seems to be two parts: - Learning new things through associative memory and critical thinking - Having a space for thought - Make system 1 thinking feel like chaos - 2024-08-24 - continue working on intro - tiago forte - set up value proposition - Finalize each problem and each solution - 2024-08-23 - continued working on structure, i think in terms of logic it's good, i'm just overcomplicating by worrying about youtube algorithm - but i think my plan of empathy in intro, then sprinkle it throughout as payoffs can work out quite well - also like how i'm starting to change my language to be more general, and meet the reader where they are at - no need to do any complex implementation - ! just need to add my personal feelings as a result of suggestions - can easily visit my log from yesterdays ## Brainstorming ### Topic %%What is the big idea you're thinking about? Why are you writing this? %% ### References %%Are there any existing notes, resources, or experiences that come to mind related to the topic? For each thing, why is it related and how can it be helpful? %% - [[PKM and ADHD]] - [[Obsidian and ADHD]] - Key topics - [[Extended mind]] - [[Second Brain]] - [[ADHD]] - Video idea brainstorming in [[Second Brains and ADHD]] ### Brain Dump %% Write out any other thoughts that come to mind, then create a cognitive scaffolding that combines your references and brain dump. Break it down into branches and sub-ideas for further elaboration %% - In reality, we have an overabundance of attention, but we just tend to place it on what is interesting. - After taking a break from mundane work by playing something highly engaging like video games, why would you want to bring your attention back? - distractions due to impulsivity? - lessen distractions - hyperfixation? - I found myself easily distracted, following my impulses - I found myself forgetting ideas and what I learn - Easily driven to [[Distraction]] - Forgetfulness - Short attention span - Can't focus on mundane tasks - Trouble finishing projects - Procrastination - Disorganized - but what if we had a second? that extended our mind? - this is what a second brain provides - can be as simple, or as complex as we want to best support our needs. - sound familiar? those are all potential symptoms of adhd - If you have adhd, then your brain is holding you back - Instead of focusing on what's right in front of you, it's much easier for your mind to wander and impulsively fall prey to the never-ending distractions around us - Instead of remembering things, sudden flashes of creative ideas and insight can be forgotten just as quickly as they came - It's easy to feel overwhelmed by all the information we have to keep track of in everyday life, making it easy to miss important tasks and feel paralyzed by the chaos - i know because in february this year, i was diagnosed with adhd. looking back, some of my biggest problems in life finally made sense because i started to understand how my brain was wired. the only problem was, how do you overcome such biological limitations? - fortunately, there was a question that gave me hope. - **if our first brain is failing us, what if we created a second one that could make up for the limitations of our first?** - what if we could create a second brain highly personalized for our unique needs, that could turn adhd from an obstacle into an advantage? - To start exploring for an answer, i've been reading books about adhd and how the brain works to understand the science behind how this can be possible. - !vid show adhd 2.0, the extended mind, thinking fast and slow, building a second brain - It was here where a consistent message came up. - I realized that in reality, our brain is only part of the overall factors that influence our cognition. As Annie Murphy, author of the extended mind says: - ![[The Extended Mind#^j7vmlo]] - (start at "As long as") - fortunately, with the advancements in apps and technologies, we have the tools available to do so. - a new question that came to mind is, what could this look like? - i mean one thing's for sure, not pink and flesh-like. - Instead, Tiago Forte, the pioneer of the second brain movement explains it as an external, centralized, digital space that uses the modern tools of technology to expand our memory and intellect - It can be as simple as using the notes app on your phone, or creating a highly set of systems and routines across various apps, depending on what best compliments your first brain. - These ideas are what gave me hope. These ideas are what gave me a growth mindset to believe that my intelligence and ability to focus was not permanently impaired. - And with these guiding principles, i've been finding immense benefit from my second brain to feel in control of my life - So in this video, i'll be going over the major problems we can face, and how i've found a second brain to be helpful in overcoming them - but to fully understand how a second brain can help, we first need to understand the brain we already have. - Because the thing is, you've probably heard countless advice before to help deal with the symptoms, but it can be hard to stop procrastinating and put it into practice, falling back to the same self-sabotaging routines. Why is this the case? - ? we need to better understand the major problems we have because of our difference in brain - % but before we understand how, we need to understand what our brain is missing - ! Lack of motivation or willpower - Instead of doing what we should be doing, it's much easier to lose interest because of boredom or difficulty. - We naturally prioritize stimulation over importance, even when the deadline for completing something is right around the corner. - This is because of a key difference in how our brain works. Compared to a neurotypical brain, ours lack two crucial chemicals for motivation and focus: dopamine and norepinephrine. - Since we have less, we tend to first seek stimulation to fill this deficiency, and only THEN can we start working on something. - %% [[ADHD brains lack neurotransmitters]] %% - Fortunately, this is where a second brain can help us. - we can create an environment that is fun and engaging enough for us to return to and use consistently. - once we create a space we naturally interested in, we can be more open to implementing and following the learning or productivity strategies we want to do - Instead of eating your vegetables before your dessert, we do the opposite. - So, what could this look like in practice? in the app I use Obsidian, there are endless ways to do so: - you can can make it visually pleasing by changing the appearance and colors with the countless themes available - you can create a layout that's easy to use and makes sense for you by customizing the different sidebars and windows you see - for a deeper sense of meaning, you can even add a story - when i see my second brain as a digital galaxy full of knowledge and ideas protecting me from the influences of the outside world, i feel more intentional and safer - But as fun as doing all of this is, this freedom can be a slippery slope. If we go too far with this customization we can self-sabotage and manifest a different major problem we face with ADHD - ! Mind wandering - > The default mode network is automatically switched off in the avarage person when needed. However, people with ADHD have a decreased deactivation of the network, leading to less capability of focus. - > Neurotypicals then could be likened to a headlight with variable beam width. They can illuminate all that is before them and narrow their focus on specific tasks. Us? We have a freakin lazer beam doing a light show in front of us and anything it hits gets burned to a crisp. - ! [[ADHD Inattentive]] - overcoming distractions due to impulsive nature - Because of this deficiency in neurotransmitters, it can be easy to hyperfixate on what gives us pleasure. - % Example - Let's say went onto your computer to write an essay. You switch to chrome to open google docs, but from your last session you had youtube open. - you think to yourself, hmm maybe it would be nice to play some music to inspire a creative mood - go back to docs, - So, you start looking for a song to get into the creative mood. - Let's say you were ready to use your second brain for writing an essay due tomorrow, but to make it engaging, you wanted to change the theme to something that could match your creative mood. Instead of quickly changing the appearance to one you're satisfied with and going straight back to writing, it accidentally becomes a compulsion where we start trying out different themes. You finally find one and get back to typing away, until you realize the text font doesn't match the aesthetic anymore. So now you end up playing around with different ones, and end up with one that fits. But now that you've spent so much time customizing your vault, you might as well continue seeing if there's any other cool styling you can do. Woah. You can create a banner at the top to add an image of someone writing an essay? You can also add emojis to the folder with all your essays? At this point, the hour you wanted to spend working on the essay is over, and you're still left with an almost blank page. - Our second brain became a distraction from the real work. - when we return to the task at hand, our mind continued to wander for something else stimulating to do. - %% what we're supposed to use our second brain for %% - But by nature, that's how our brains are designed. So, how can we better control our impulses? How can we instead get into a flow state where we're fully focused on the task at hand, where we're more immune to distractions? - When we start writing our essay, a part of the brain called the - Task Positive Network is activated. This helps you intentionally focus on something, not thinking about anything else. It protects us from distractions since we have a goal in mind to complete. - But when you lose focus or interest that goal, your mind can begin to wander as we continue to seek stimulation. - This then activates the Default Mode Network. You spread your attention and begin thinking about other things, which opens you up to distractions like mentioned earlier. - Unfortunately, there's a limitation with how people with ADHD control these two modes. - When neurotypical people have to write an essay, they have a switch they can use to turn the TPN on and the DMN off. If a major distraction like a phone call makes them lose their focus and forcefully switches them into the DMN, once it's dealt with they can simply flip the switch again and get back to work. - But for people with ADHD, there is no switch. - This is bad for two reasons. - When you turn on TPN, the DMN is still on, making you still susceptible to distractions. It also tries to actively hijack the TPN network and turn it off, lowering your capacity for focus. - Second of all, you can't control this. As mentioned earlier, our control mechanism is based on stimulation, and distractions are inherently stimulating because of their novelty. This is especially a problem if the thing we're focusing on is something we don't really find interesting like doing homework. - So, since our brain is always prone to distractions, we need to rely on our second brain to eliminate them completely. - We need to curate an environment that eliminates the triggers for distraction by creating a headspace fully dedicated to the task at hand. - The act of being in your second brain is already a way of narrowing down distractions as you're blocking out screens from other apps. - But as we saw in the example, we can get still distracted by the unrelated things we can do in it. - Think of focusing as balancing on a tightrope in the sky, with the end of the tightrope being our end goal. - If you lose your balance and fall off, you're going to freefall into distractions. - To avoid falling off, we can create guardrails that constrain our actions and block our vision from noticing potential distractions. - In Obsidian, these can be done through preset workspaces you can easily jump into. - A default workspace like this can make it hard to focus on only writing an essay, so let's make one for it. - I can create a workspace where I can only have the essay on my left, and my references or notes on the right. - I can make it harder to change the theme or other settings by hiding the left sidebar. - I can remove other unrelated windows like the calendar view, only keeping the outline pane. - Now, if I save this workspace, every time I need to work on this essay or any other writing piece, I can open up this workspace. - Of course, you can also do the same for other activities. - Reading a book? Have it on the left, with your notes on the right - Working on a project? Have a task on the left, and have a task on the note - % But we need to have something to stimulate us and keep our attention - Stimulation can come from a theme or color change, and we can put our attention onto something related to what we're trying to achieve - One for working on a project, that shows the tasks we need to do - One for journalling where we have prompts that ask us - Need to think deeply? Create a note for when you brainstorm - When writing this script, I have one just for the notes I needed - Can instantly jump into that headspace to skip distractions and prepare me - -> Not only do these workspaces help with minimizing distractions, but also with another biological limitation the adhd brain has - ! Poor working memory - % With ADHD, it's comically common to forget thingsn - i can have flashes of insight and creativity for the projects i've been working on, but when it's time to start working on it i've lost the initial spark - if i take a break on the task i'm working on and get back to it later on in the day, i have to spend extra time going through everything to remember the context and figure out where i left off - and finally when i journal and reflect at night on how the day went, it can be hard to recall what even happened - % whenever i hop on call with my friend aidan and he asks me what i've been up to, my response is "good question, what the fuck did i do this week?" - % when i start my second work session for a project i'm working on, it can be hard to remember - At the same time, it's also easy to feel overwhelmed by all the information we have to keep track of in our daily lives - unexpected tasks we have to complete - people to respond to - reminders for events - The reason for these two is due to our poor working memory. - GPS analogy - Imagine your brain is like a GPS system, and your working memory is the logic behind calculating the optimal route and directions you can follow for achieving an ideal day. - Let's say you're driving to a destination you've been excited about—a project or task you want to dive into. You get a sudden flash of clarity, like a sharp turn the GPS tells you to take that cuts down. But just as you're about to take it, the map disappears. You know you had the direction just a moment ago, but now you're lost. So, instead of moving forward, you're stuck, retracing steps, trying to figure out where you were supposed to go. - Then, maybe you pull over to take a break, hoping that when you restart, the GPS will catch up. But when you get back in the car, you realize it forgot your destination entirely. You have to re-enter all the details, recalibrate, and often waste time reorienting yourself just to get back on track. - At the end of the day, when you’re reflecting—kind of like checking your GPS history—it’s as if the day’s drives weren’t fully logged. You vaguely remember starting the trip, but where you went, what roads you took, and how long you spent driving… it all feels hazy. The GPS didn't save the details. - On top of that, life is like being in traffic. There's always new data coming in—unexpected detours, routes from friends, pop-up events you need to navigate. But with a poor working memory, the GPS keeps struggling to hold onto all those twists and turns. It’s overloaded with all the directions you’re trying to store simultaneously. - In short, ADHD makes it feel like you’re constantly navigating with an unreliable GPS—it’s not that you don’t know where you want to go, it’s that the system keeps dropping key information right when you need it the most. - Imagine your brain as a computer and your working memory as its RAM, the place where active processes are stored and tasks you’re currently working on are handled. With ADHD, your RAM has less space to hold information and is prone to more glitches. - When our RAM is constantly being pushed to its limits, we can feel overwhelmed by juggling too many processes at once — tasks, reminders, and distractions, all competing for the limited space we have. This harms your long-term memory as well. - When you have a burst of creativity, that new idea gets loaded into your RAM. But by the time you sit down to start working on it, there's a chance it's no longer in active memory — other information or processes may have overridden it. - When you step away from a task, you may put your computer into sleep and expect it to quickly open and load when you get back to it. But with ADHD, it's like you had instead fully shut it down. You have to wait for it to load, reopen everything manually, recalibrating your workspace and figuring out where you left off, which takes up extra time and mental energy. - % At the end of the day, when you try to reflect and journal, you would expect there to be some form of history you can retrieve information from, but with ADHD the logs are incomplete. - If we had a way to confidently store all the information we come across, and only resurface what is important when needed, then we can accommodate for our brain's unreliability. - Fortunately, to accommodate for our brains limited space, we can use our second brain to create consistent external backups of information. - As a result, our primary brain can focus on higher-level cognitive functions like critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. - For me, my main regular backup are my daily notes, providing a space to offload and retrieve information throughout the day - With mine I can capture sudden ideas or insights from my phone which are then synced into Obsidian for me to process when I have time at the end of the day (link video) - Whenever I finish something, I make it a habit to micro journal so by the end of the day I actually know what I did - During each part of my day, I can refer to my daily note to follow the routine checklists to remember to do my habits - Being able to quickly access this and jot it down is crucial. A few seconds could be all it takes before you forget. In my case, I can press a button to open up my Obsidian and create an entry for my daily log. - Beyond the day to day, you can also create backups for other ongoing things - You can have dedicated notes to store information for different activities like a project you're working on and all it's related tasks - -> Unfortunately, working memory doesn't only hinder our short-term memory, but also our long-term. - ! Remembering things - Just like how short-term ideas can be quickly forgotten because of our limited working memory, the same can happen with the information we try to store in long-term memory. When learning something new, it can be hard to sustain focus long enough to process the information thoroughly, leading to poor encoding. As a result, when we try to retrieve that information later, we often find gaps or inconsistencies in what we remember. - Now, how exactly can a second brain support our cognitive processes? To better understand, we first need to explore the two modes of thinking that our brain can engage in. - In his book _Thinking, Fast and Slow_, Daniel Kahneman explains two modes of thinking: System 1 and System 2. These systems describe how we process information and make decisions. - **System 1** has lots of similarities with the mind wandering we experience when in the default mode network. It's fast, intuitive, and automatic. It relies on associative networks in our brain, where ideas are linked based on similarities and relationships. This mode of thinking is not linear. We create a chain reaction of activation as we search for related connections to other ideas, ending up with a web of networked thought. - **System 2**, on the other hand, is slower, more deliberate, and analytical. While System 1 can guide us through easy tasks, System 2 is essential for things that take more time and effort like processing new information for memorization and evaluation. - With ADHD, we rely more heavily on System 1 thinking. Our challenges with attention and working memory make it harder to engage System 2 when needed. Unfortunately this can lead to feeling overwhelmed, as it quickly brings up related ideas and feelings without the regulation that System 2 provides. - By organizing our thoughts and ideas externally, we can better manage the flow of information and reduce the cognitive load on our primary brain. - For instance, when learning new things, we can use our second brain to create notes that are organized conceptually rather than sequentially. Instead of simply recording information in a linear format, we can create separate notes for each concept we come across, and then link these notes to related ideas or broader topics. - These links mimic the associative networks of System 1, allowing us to create a structured web of knowledge that reflects how our brain naturally connects ideas. When it comes time to retrieve information, we don’t need to remember exactly where a note is stored. Instead, we can navigate through related concepts or broader topics, following the links until we find what we need. - In apps like Obsidian, these connections are easy to access. - Links from other notes to the current active note are known as backlinks, and are easily accessible in the backlinks pane. - There's also an option to see this network of connections visually by opening a local graph for a note and adjusting the depth of links until you find the idea you’re looking for. - Now with this permanent structure, we don't have to worry about our limited working memory. Instead of holding everything in our mind at the same time, we take the time to externalize these connections and ideas. Each note becomes a thinking space for System 2 where it can engage in the deep and analytical thinking required for better understanding new and complex topics. - In the field of personal knowledge management, this is what Nick Milo from Linking Your Thinking calls "Maps of Content". After spending time adding and developing the ideas in our maps, they become a personalized digital navigation tool to represent our understanding of a topic. It is through these spaces where we can see our gaps in our understanding and refine our knowledge. - By now, you've learned how the differences in our brains can be helped. once we have a good grasp of the basics, we unlock our potential - our fixation on stimulation can help us obsess and commit to the things we're truly passionate about - having an active default mode network and having a big working memory helps us think creatively - You can learn more about how my specific app helps with ADHD - if you want to start building your own but don't know where to start, you can check out my video on how I would create my second brain using obsidian if i could start over again - ! Overcoming information overwhelm - We're good at brainstorming how things are related, but have trouble organizing it in a way that makes sense. - Another problem we might face is the overwhelm from having too many ideas linked to one note. This is where we can confidently practice System 2 thinking. Instead of having to hold everything in our mind at the same time, with our notes we can create small conceptual containers of thought. In this space is where we can freely play with and evaluate these ideas. - [[Global workspace theory]] - As technology improves, we can now use rough guesses with semantic search to retrieve this information - delivers us what is most relevant - The key is to know what kind of file system you want based on how your needs - ? It can be helpful to have some methodology for organizing our notes, which depend on how you think - Default mode network facilitates [[System 1]] thinking - Associative - What are some ways we can associate information? - On one hand, you might prefer a bit of practical order and hierarchical structure. - This is where PARA method can help, as you can organize your notes based on actionability - Other hand, you prefer something more loose, which is where you can use linked-based and conceptual notes - With this, bottom-up approach where you throw ideas into notes - Structure naturally forms - Allows for creativity as we nurture our system 1 thinking #### Drafts from Docs ** Let's say you were ready to use your second brain for writing an essay due tomorrow, but to make it engaging, you wanted to change the theme to something that could match your creative mood. Instead of quickly changing the appearance to one you're satisfied with and going straight back to writing, it accidentally becomes a compulsion where we start trying out different themes. You finally find one and get back to typing away until you realize something. The text font no longer matches the aesthetic. So now you end up playing around with different ones and end up with one that fits. But now that you've spent so much time customizing your vault, you might as well continue to see if you can make any other cool styling changes. Woah. You can create a banner at the top to add an image of someone writing an essay. You can also add emojis to the folder with all your essays? At this point, the hour you wanted to spend working on the essay is over, and you're still left with an almost blank page. Our second brain became a distraction from the actual work. ** **This is where we can turn to notes. But by notes, I don’t simply mean ones you’re used to taking in school. These notes are more than just containers for offloading and retrieving information. They’re** ## Organized Ideas If you have ADHD, then your brain is holding you back. I know because, in February this year, I found myself diagnosed as the combined type of inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive. Looking back, some of my biggest problems in life finally made sense because I started to understand how my brain works. I could only pretend to pay attention during school classes by fidgeting or playing games on whatever device was available. Instead of focusing on what's right in front of us, it's much easier for our minds to wander and impulsively fall prey to the never-ending distractions around us.   Sparks of motivation and insight from late-night pondering faded when I woke up the next day. Instead of remembering things, these sudden flashes of creative ideas and thoughts can disappear as quickly as they came. Things like binders and folders to keep information organized felt more like a burden than a tool. In everyday life, the endless information we have to learn and keep track of can make us feel overwhelmed, making it easy to miss essential tasks and feel paralyzed by the chaos.  The only problem is, how do you overcome these biological limitations? Fortunately, there was a question that gave me hope. If our first brain is failing us, what if we created a second one that could make up for the unique limitations of our first, one that could maybe even transform ADHD from an obstacle into an advantage? I began searching for an answer. I started reading books about ADHD and how the brain works to understand the science behind how this can be possible, which led me to a powerful realization. In reality, our brain is only part of the overall factors that influence our cognition. As Annie Murphy, author of The Extended Mind, says: - > As long as we settle for thinking inside the brain, we'll remain bound by the limits of that organ. But when we reach outside it with intention and skill, our thinking can be transformed. It can become as dynamic as our bodies, as airy as our spaces, as rich as our relationships—as capacious as the whole wide world. Fortunately, with the advancements in apps and technologies, we now have the tools available to do so. My guiding question evolved into a new one as I wondered, what could this look like? One thing's for sure: it's not pink and flesh-like. Tiago Forte, the pioneer of the second brain movement, explains it as an external, centralized, digital space that uses modern technology to expand our memory and intellect. Depending on what best complements your first brain, it can be as simple as using the notes app on your phone or as complex as creating a set of systems and routines across various apps. These ideas gave me hope. They inspired a growth mindset. I believed my intelligence and ability to focus were not permanently impaired. So, in this video, I'll be highlighting four of the main biological problems we face with ADHD and how I’ve overcome them through the power of a second brain. But to fully understand how one can help, we first need to understand the brain we already have. Here’s the thing: You've probably heard countless pieces of advice before to help deal with these symptoms, but despite this, it can be hard to stop procrastinating and put it into practice, falling back to the same self-sabotaging routines. Now, why is this the case? #### Lack of motivation or willpower Instead of doing what we should be doing, it's much easier to lose interest because of boredom or difficulty. We naturally prioritize stimulation over importance. This is because of a critical difference in how our brains work. Compared to a neurotypical brain, ours lacks two crucial chemicals for motivation and focus: dopamine and norepinephrine. Since we have less, we tend to seek stimulation to fill this deficiency, and only THEN can we start working on something. Fortunately, this is where a second brain can help us. We can create a fun and engaging environment for us to return to and use consistently. Once we create a space we are naturally interested in entering, we’re more open to sticking with the productivity advice and strategies we want to follow. What could this look like in practice? In the app I use, Obsidian, there are endless ways to do so: - You can make it visually pleasing by changing the appearance and colors with the countless themes available. - You can create a layout that's easy to use and makes sense for you by customizing the different sidebars and windows you see - For a more profound sense of meaning, you can even craft a story behind it: I feel more intentional and protected when I see my second brain as a digital galaxy full of knowledge and ideas, keeping me safe from the outside world's influences. But as fun as doing all this is, this freedom can be a slippery slope. If we go too far with this customization, we can self-sabotage and manifest a different major problem we face with ADHD. #### ADHD Inattentive - overcoming distractions due to an impulsive nature Because of this neurotransmitter deficiency, it can be easy to hyper-fixate on what gives us pleasure when we're not supposed to. I started using Obsidian in high school to write essays, which weren’t always fun. So, to make it more exciting for me to do, I would look for new themes to try. But instead of quickly changing the appearance and returning to writing, it accidentally became a compulsion. When I finally found a theme that works and went back to my essay, other things caught my attention. Now, the text font felt out of place. I spent some time changing that, too, but now that I’ve spent so much time customizing my vault, I might as well continue to see if I can make any other cool styling changes. Woah. I can create a banner at the top to add an image of someone writing an essay. I can also add emojis for my different folders. Eventually, the time I wanted to spend working on the essay ended, yet I made little progress. I did end up with a nice-looking vault though! Unfortunately, this is how our brains are designed by nature. So, how can we better control our impulses? Instead of feeling like everything around us can become a distraction, how can we get into a flow state where we're entirely focused on the task at hand? I finally came across the answer when reading the book ADHD 2.0. When we begin focusing on something, a part of the brain called the Task Positive Network is activated. This brain region helps you intentionally focus on something, not thinking about anything else. It protects us from distractions since we have a goal in mind to complete. But when you lose focus or interest in that goal, your mind can begin to wander as you seek sources of stimulation. This then activates the Default Mode Network. You spread your attention and begin thinking about other things, which opens you up to distractions. Unfortunately, there's a difference in how people with ADHD control these two modes. When neurotypical people have to focus, they have a switch they can use to turn the TPN on and the DMN off. Suppose a major distraction like a phone call makes them lose focus and forcefully switch them into the DMN. Once it's dealt with, they can simply flip the switch again and return to work. But for people with ADHD, there is no switch, which is quite tragic for two reasons. When you turn on the TPN, the DMN is still on, keeping you susceptible to distractions. It also tries to actively hijack the TPN network, trying to turn off the very thing keeping you focused. Second, you can't control this. Our control mechanism is based on stimulation, and distractions are naturally stimulating. This is especially a problem if we're focusing on something we don't find attractive like me writing my essay. So, since our brain is always prone to distractions, we need to rely on our second brain to eliminate them entirely. We need to curate an environment that eliminates the triggers for distraction by creating a headspace fully dedicated to the task at hand. The act of being in your second brain is already a way of narrowing down distractions as you block out the existence of other apps. But as we saw in the example, the tools we use to help us focus can still end up as distractions through the unrelated things we can do in them. Think of focusing as balancing on a tightrope in the sky, with the end of the tightrope being our end goal. If you lose your balance and fall off, you'll freefall into distractions. To avoid falling off, we can create guardrails that constrain our actions and block our vision from noticing potential distractions. In Obsidian, we can do this through preset workspaces. My default Obsidian workspace can make it hard to focus on purely writing, so let's make one for when I write my video scripts. - My main focus should be my script, so I’ll have it on my left, with my sources and notes on my right. - I want to make distractions like settings less noticeable, so I’ll hide the left sidebar that contains the settings icon. Instead, I'll move all the views I need to see on the right sidebar. - I definitely won’t need this calendar view. Instead, what I need is an outline to quickly navigate the different parts of the essay, as well as this view that uses AI to see what other notes in my vault are related to my script. Now, if I save this workspace, I can quickly open it whenever I need to work on this essay or any other writing piece. Of course, you can also do the same for other activities. Not only do these workspaces help minimize distractions, but they also help with another biological limitation of the ADHD brain. #### Poor working memory Imagine your brain as a computer and your working memory as the amount of RAM available when working on things. Compared to a neurotypical brain, your RAM tends to have less space to store information and is prone to more glitches during daily life. When our RAM is constantly being pushed to its limits, we can feel overwhelmed by juggling too many processes at once — tasks, reminders, and distractions all compete for the limited space available. When you have a burst of creativity, that new idea gets loaded into your RAM. But by the time you sit down to start working on it, there's a chance it's no longer in active memory — other information or processes may have overridden it. When you step away from a task, you may put your computer to sleep and expect it to quickly open and load when you return. But with ADHD, it's like you had instead entirely shut it down. You must reload everything back into your RAM, which takes extra time and mental energy. Fortunately, with the extended mind theory, we can use our second brain to enhance our limited memory. I do this using daily notes, which have become my extended working memory throughout the day. Instead of having to remember my routines and habits throughout the day, the first thing I do when I open my computer is open today’s note. I read through my reminders to prime my working memory, and follow the checklists I have for the different parts of my day. Now, it’s crucial that you can quickly access and capture information in your daily note. A few seconds could be all it takes before I forget an idea. In my case, I can press a hotkey to open up my Obsidian and create an entry for my daily log. If an unrelated thought occurs while I'm working on something, I can quickly use this hotkey to offload it and eventually revisit it later in the day. When I start feeling overwhelmed with information, I use my daily notes as a space for remembering and working with my thoughts without the fear of forgetting something. Beyond daily notes, you can also create notes for other situations where you want to organize the thoughts in your working memory. In my case, I also have dedicated notes for each project and goal I'm working on. In this space, I have a template to help plan things out, manage tasks, and manage information. Whenever I’m done with a work session, I can quickly note where I left off for my future self. Just like how I can jump into my writing workspace to start writing, when I revisit this note, I have the necessary context and resources required to continue working on it. As a result, our primary brain is free to focus on higher-level cognitive functions like critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. Unfortunately, working memory doesn't only hinder our short-term memory but also our long-term. #### Remembering things Just like how we can forget short-term ideas because of our limited working memory, the same can happen with the information we try to store in long-term memory. When learning something new, focusing long enough to process the information thoroughly can be challenging, leading to poor encoding. As a result, when we try to retrieve that information later, we often find gaps or inconsistencies in what we remember. Now, how exactly can a second brain support our cognitive processes? To better understand, we first must explore the two modes of thinking our brain can engage in. In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman explains two modes of thinking: System 1 and System 2. These systems describe how we process information and make decisions: - System 1 is similar to the mind wandering we experience in the default mode network. It's fast, intuitive, and automatic. It relies on associative networks in our brain, where ideas are linked based on similarities and relationships. This mode of thinking is not linear. We create a chain reaction of neural activation as we search for related connections to other ideas, ending up with a web of networked thought. - System 2, on the other hand, is slower, more deliberate, and analytical. While System 1 can guide us through easy tasks, System 2 is essential for things that take more time and effort, like consciously processing and memorizing new information related to a topic of study or evaluating your arguments when writing an essay. With ADHD, we rely more heavily on System 1 thinking. Our challenges with attention and working memory make it harder to engage System 2 when needed. But without System 2’s regulation, we can quickly become overwhelmed by all the ideas and thoughts flowing in from System 1 thinking. Fortunately, by organizing our thoughts and ideas externally, we can better manage the flow of information and reduce the cognitive load on our primary brain. For instance, when learning new things, we can use our second brain to organize notes conceptually rather than sequentially. Instead of simply recording information in a linear format, we can create separate notes for each concept we come across and then link these notes to related ideas or broader topics. These links mimic the associative networks of System 1, allowing us to create a structured web of knowledge that reflects how our brain naturally connects ideas. When retrieving information, we don't need to remember exactly where a note is stored. Instead, we can navigate through related concepts or broader topics, following the links until we find what we need. In apps like Obsidian, these connections are easy to access. Links from other notes to the currently active note are known as backlinks and are easily accessible in the backlinks pane. You can also visualize this network of connections by opening a local graph for a note and adjusting the depth of links until you find the idea you're looking for. Now, with this permanent structure, we don't have to worry about our limited working memory. Instead of holding everything in our minds at the same time, we take the time to externalize these connections and ideas. Each note becomes a thinking space for System 2, where it can engage in the deep and analytical thinking required to understand complex topics. In the field of personal knowledge management, Nick Milo from Linking Your Thinking calls these "Maps of Content." After spending time adding and developing the ideas in our maps, they become personalized digital navigation tools that represent our understanding of a topic. Through these spaces, we can see the gaps in our understanding and refine our knowledge. #### Conclusion By now, I hope you've also come to internalize the same level of empowerment I had when I first came across the idea of a second brain. Once we understand the basics of how our brains work, we can learn to turn these biological limitations into unique advantages: - Our fixation on stimulation can help us commit to the things we're truly passionate about. I was able to transfer my obsession with playing games for up to 16 hours a day to my programming and content creation journey - Also, having an active default mode network helps us find creative solutions to problems. This has especially been helpful for transforming the common advice on productivity and learning into personalized second brain systems that work for my needs. So, if you want to start building your own but need help figuring out where to start, you can check out my video on how I would create my second brain using Obsidian if I could start over again. ** ** ## Potential Outputs %% What can I use these ideas for? Content, new notes, etc. %%