The Synapses of My Second Brain

How I use Notion to both support and augment my cognitive capacity

Photo by Bhautik Patel on Unsplash

I’m an avid user of Notion, an amazingly versatile app which, as I wrote in my last post:

…has become the “cranium” that houses my “second brain”: a concept and term popularized by the 2022 book Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte.

A well-functioning second brain can really come in handy, especially when one’s first brain is on the fritz. My own brain goes haywire from time to time due to extra stuff it’s carrying, including cancerous metastases, necrosis (dead cancer and brain cells killed by radiation treatment I’ve received), and psychotropic chemicals from medications I’m taking. Whenever my neurons are misfiring, having an external backup system to fall back on can be an absolute lifeline.

In another recent post, I discussed how I’ve been using app automations, checklists, and habit formation to develop a system of support prosthetics for my glitchy grey matter. In this post, I will lay out a more detailed blueprint of that external annex of my “extended mind.”

The Waking Labyrinth

A brain is especially prone to needing some guidance when waking from sleep. Because of my condition, I sometimes wake up to incoherent thoughts. So I built myself a tool I can use to cut through that confusion. My iPhone Home Screen has a “Rise & Shine” icon (created with the Apple Shortcuts app) that opens a Notion checklist that walks me step-by-step through a series of simple morning motions.

In Greek myth, the hero Theseus escapes the bewildering maze of the Minotaur by retracing his steps using a simple thread provided by the princess Ariadne. A good checklist can be of similar service. My morning checklist gives me the direction I need to find my way out of the labrynth of my perplexed waking thoughts and get myself together. Grabbing my phone from my nightstand, tapping that shortcut, and launching that list is like getting ahold of Ariadne’s thread. Once I’ve done that, I’m good to go.

To accomodate my still emerging cognitive capacity, I keep my initial actions simple, easy, and mechanical. Thus, my Rise & Shine checklist consists of straightforward instructions like “Turn on the lights” and “Turn off Sleep Focus on your iPhone.” Of course, I don’t want to spend my whole morning following mindless marching orders. As soon as my executive function is firing on all cyclinders, I want to push myself to graduate into a fully intelligent, intentional, and independent human being.

So my Rise & Shine checklist ultimately directs me onto a second morning checklist that helps me fully activate my mind. That entails switching from the iPhone Notion app to using the much more powerful desktop version on my MacBook.

Command Center for Cognition

My second checklist is called “Logbook Update.” My “Logbook” is a Notion database populated by daily entries, and my Logbook Update checklist consists of instructions and automations that walk me through setting up my new Logbook entry for the day. My daily Logbook entry is my digital hub for thinking, deciding, and recording. It is where I manage and track my tasks, experiences, and thoughts.

At the top of my Logbook is an “Actions” section populated by filtered views of an “Actions” database. This is where the rubber meets the road for my workflow management. Notion users can create custom properties for their databases. One property “type” in Notion is “Status.” I have set “Doing,” “To-Do, and “Done” as the basic status options for my Actions database entries.

At the very top of my Logbook, I have a “Action at Hand” table that only displays actions with the “Doing” status. To facilitate focus, I try to limit this to one action and to always actually be “Doing” whatever action I’ve assigned that status. Second is my “Actions Docket”: a table that only includes actions with the “To-Do” status, manually sorted according to the rough order in which I intend to do them. And under that, is my “Actions Ledger,” a table of actions with the status of “Done,” sorted chronologically by time of completion. I’ve also set things up to make it easy to update statuses and transfer actions from one table to another.

Also included are an “Experiences Diary” for logging notable events (including unplanned actions) and a “Thoughts Journal” for capturing ideas and reflections.

My Notion Logbook gives me a central space for externalizing my reflection, planning, and decision-making. It thus helps me exercise all three parts of the cardinal virtue of prudence, identified by St. Thomas Aquinas as counsel, judgment, and command.

As I’ve expressed, I love to “think in ink.” But some thinking is more powerfully done in pixels, especially with an app like Notion that makes those pixels so marvelously manipulable.

In Iron Man 2, Tony Stark characterized his high-tech suit as “a highly advanced prosthesis.” In a similar sense, my Notion-based second brain is like an Iron Man suit for my first brain. When I’m struggling, it keeps me from falling. When I’m thriving, it helps me to soar.

Thank you for reading. If you would like to help my family with our mounting medical expenses, we are still accepting donations through GiveSendGo.