My Knowledge Management System: Second Brain
A second brain is a system of organizing and storing information outside of your own brain. It may include tools such as note-taking apps, calendars, and to-do lists. The benefits of a second brain are numerous. By using a second brain, you can free up mental space, reduce stress and anxiety, and improve your productivity. With a second brain, you can capture and store ideas, thoughts, and important information and easily access them later. This can be particularly helpful for those who struggle with memory or have a lot of information to keep track of. A second brain is a valuable tool for anyone looking to optimize their cognitive function and better manage their life.
Academics and students can also benefit greatly from a second brain, particularly when it comes to managing and remembering large amounts of information. With a second brain, they can capture and store articles, research papers, and other important documents and easily retrieve them when needed. This can help to streamline their work and improve their productivity, allowing them to focus more on analysis and critical thinking rather than simply trying to keep track of all the information they need to remember. Additionally, a second brain can help academics and students to organize their thoughts and ideas, making it easier to develop and refine their research projects.
The Tools I Use
Xodo
Xodo is a PDF editor that offers a range of features to help users manage and annotate PDF documents. With Xodo, users can highlight text, add comments, and write on documents to help them better understand and interact with the content. These features can be particularly helpful for academics who need to read and analyze research papers, as they can help to highlight key information and make notes for future reference. I highlight every document using the same system: green highlights for very important information, yellow highlights for important information, blue highlights for definitions, and purple highlights for key references that I may want to read later. Highlighting everything with the same colour system allows me to quickly find the important information in an article I’ve previously read. Xodo is a valuable tool for anyone who works with PDF documents on a regular basis and wants to be able to annotate and manage them more effectively.
Text-to-speech readers
Speechify, Natural Reader and Listening.io are text-to-speech tools that can help users quickly and easily read PDF articles and some e-books. These test-to-speech tools let users upload their PDF documents and have them read aloud in a natural-sounding voice. This is particularly helpful for academics and students as it allows them to listen to the text while doing other tasks, like driving or exercising. Additionally, Natural Reader can help to reduce eye strain and fatigue that can result from reading large amounts of text on a screen.
I used to use Natural Reader, but recently started using Listening.io — Natural Reader is easier to use, but I found Listening.io sounds more natural. Listening.io has a feature that lets you highlight/save sections and take notes to review later. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a text-to-speech tool that lets you listen to a PDF and annotate at the same time. Once I’m finished listening, I often open the document in Xodo and add some quick notes for future reference.
Evernote
Evernote is a powerful note-taking app that allows users to store a wide variety of content, including articles, research papers, and other important documents. With Evernote’s optical character recognition (OCR) feature, users can easily capture and store text from images and PDFs, making it easy to search for and retrieve information later. This feature is particularly useful for academics who need to manage large amounts of information and quickly find the information they need. With OCR, users can simply take a picture of an article or document, and Evernote will automatically recognize the text and make it searchable. After reading and annotating a document using Xodo or Natural Reader, I always upload it to Evernote. This way, I know where all the material I’ve read is located. Years later, I can open Evernote, enter a keyword, and it will show me every article I’ve read on the topic. This can save a significant amount of time and effort and help users stay organized and productive.
Notion
Notion is a powerful note-taking and organization tool that can serve as a second brain. With Notion, users can create and organize notes, to-do lists, calendars, and store and manage various other types of content, such as images, videos, and files. Notion’s flexibility and versatility make it useful for academics who need to manage large amounts of information, as well as anyone else who wants to keep their life organized and streamlined. Its features, such as creating and linking databases, can help users easily track and manage information, while its collaboration tools make it easy to work with others on shared projects. Notion is a valuable tool for anyone looking to improve their productivity and better manage their life. However, if Notion had optical character recognition like Evernote, I would use it for everything. I find it much easier to organize my second brain in Notion.
Reference Manager
EndNote and Zotero are reference management tools that help academics and students manage and organize their research documents and citations. Users can easily import and organize references from databases and then use those references to automatically generate citations and bibliographies in a variety of styles — they both have plugins for Microsoft Word. This can save a lot of time and effort, particularly for academics who need to cite a large number of sources in their research papers. EndNote and Zotero allow users to attach PDFs to their references, making it easy to keep all of their research materials in one place. These tools are invaluable for academics and students who want to streamline their research and writing process and ensure that their citations are accurate and consistent.
