up: [[PKM MOC]] ## Stage 1: Video Game Addiction As a kid I was addicted to video games and YouTube. Every day after school, I ran up to my room to boot up the computer playing games like Civilization Six, Terraria, and Total War Warhammer 2 for hours even on a school night. And in the hour before going to bed, I would binge-watch YouTube videos ranging from food reviews to obscure documentaries on the history of 2b2t, Minecraft's oldest anarchy server. My addiction only became worse during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic with all the extra time from hybrid learning. What drew me so much to these virtual environments? The reason was simple. The real world didn't provide the carefully designed pleasures, the thrilling challenges, and powerful social bonding I could get in games. Until I hit a tipping point. I encountered what game scientist Jane McGonigal calls "gamer regret." I was playing games so much that I regretted what I was missing out on in the real world. Gaming had become a form of escape. I took a step back and asked myself a profound question: if I lost all my progress in the games I was playing **would any of it translate to real-world value?** The answer was no. All my real-life dreams like becoming a Professor, Playing tennis division 1, and becoming a content creator, seemed so distant and far off compared to the comfort and ease of logging in and playing another game of Bed Wars in Minecraft (but I got pretty damn good at Bed Wars). Then one day, while walking around my basement in a slight melancholy, I watched a video about an app called Notion. ## Stage 2: My First Second Brain Notion is an app that lets you build a system from the ground up. You can use it to manage your homework and tasks, your corporate meetings, and as a workout log. Anything. The person in the video described Notion as a second brain, a digital, centralized, external repository for ideas and the resources they come from. It was the first time I had heard the word, but it instantly resonated with me. Notion became my first second brain. I took inspiration from others and designed a task management system, calendar, Kanban boards with books, journal entries, goals lists, and more. I found an app called Readwise, which allowed me to automatically sync highlights from my mediums of consumption like kindle books, articles, and podcasts. Building and adding things to my Notion database felt like playing a game. Like in Minecraft, I could build anything I wanted. I could collect things for my database over time. I was like a pokemon trainer that had just come of age. I had to "catch them all." I felt like a god. I had found a game I enjoyed playing, but unlike with my video game addiction, using Notion led to tangible real-world output. ### And It Comes Crashing Down This blissful period of notetaking lasted for a couple of months until the façade came crashing under me. I noticed that only a few days later, I could barely remember the books, articles, and podcasts I had highlighted and sent to Readwise. My Notion pages started to clog up with information. Logging into my Notion database at the beginning of the day started to feel like a chore. Instead of worldbuilding in a vast digital landscape it felt like I was jumping into a system full of **other peoples ideas.** I had lost the [[How can we add back joy to notetaking and learning|joy of notetaking]]. I was frustrated, confused, and lost. But most of all, I was terrified of returning to my video game-addicted self. The Second Brain Community saved me. ## Stage 3: Joining The Community It started in June of 2021 when I watched Ali Abdaal's video on what he learned after taking Building a Second Brain (BASB) by Tiago Forte. Building a Second Brain is a course for helping students learn the basics of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM). ### What is PKM? In Tiago's words, "Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) is the practice of capturing ideas and insights we encounter in our daily lives, whether from personal experience, from books and articles, or our work, and cultivating them overtime to produce more creative, higher quality work." The knowledge repository students build using their personal knowledge management techniques becomes known as their second brain. I was intrigued. Was there something other second-brainers could teach me about what I was doing wrong? Could they help me find joy in notetaking once again? Determined, I paid $750 to join cohort 14 with a scholarship. From day 1, I was amazed. There were over 450 other people in the zoom room. Every single one of them was coming to BASB with a different background. Research, content creation, board game management, schoolwork, house management, book notetaking, etc. And a surprising number of them were going through the same problems I was. At some point in their notetaking journeys, something had taken the joy away, and they were looking for a way to bring it back. I learned the singular most important concept in my life from the Second Brain Community. **[[Information is like food|Information, whether digital or physical, is like food for the brain.]]** It's no accident we call new ideas "food for thought." Your brain needs good quality information to function optimally like your body craves a healthy mix of protein, fat, carbohydrates, and all of the different micronutrients and macronutrients. ### Why This Idea Resonated With Me This idea resonated with me for two reasons: 1. Firstly, it explained why I felt so bored and unmotivated by real life while addicted to video games. While ruling a vast empire in Total War Warhammer 2 or building awesome things in Minecraft, I felt much more alive than in real life. But this came at the cost of making real life seem mundane in comparison. 2. Secondly, it explained why my first brain in Notion failed. I ingrained the mindset of a loss averse pokemon trainer, trying to capture everything in my life; I wrote down EVERY interesting book highlight, fleeting thought, or commitment. I did what fellow PKMer [[Nick Milo]] refers to as prioritizing [[Notetaking]] over [[Notemaking]]. As a result, my second brain filled with other people's ideas rather than my own, and I lost the joy of thinking. But armed with this lifechanging concept that **information is like food,** I began to change my information diet. I added more friction to notetaking by creating a [[Capture toolkit]], a set of three main information mediums I stick to, books, articles, and podcasts. I avoid almost everything else. In addition, I have created a list of my [twelve favorite questions](https://www.aidanhelfant.com/your-twelve-favorite-questions/), which act as filters for the knowledge I capture and reduce information bloat in my [second brain.](https://www.aidanhelfant.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-starting-your-very-own-second-brain/). I have added more thinking to my process by trying to write things down in my own words. I started following a notetaking philosophy called [[Active ideation]] which works of highlighting, commenting, and relating while consuming information and than creating, connecting, and creating while processing it. Taking these steps brought joy back into my notetaking. Logging into my current notetaking app of choice, Obsidian, I feel a sense of wonder at what I will create next, what fascinating things I can add to the personal world I'm creating in my second brain. As my joy for notetaking increased, I felt a craving to share what I had learned with the outside world. So I began my content creation journey. ## Stage 4: Content Creation I found out Ali Abdaal, the same YouTuber I had discovered BASB from, had a cohort course called the Part-Time YouTuber Academy (PTYA). I paid the $1500 for the course without a moment's hesitation. Once again, I met an array of people who were creating different content on YouTube. All of them were leveraging their information diets to create things on that resonated with them. Using the learnings from the course, I started creating content on three primary content buckets: Building a Second Brain, reading tips, and book summaries. I began a [blogging website](https://www.aidanhelfant.com/) and newsletter where I broadened to discuss other topics I was interested in. Later I started hosting a podcast called [Building a Second Brain](https://www.buzzsprout.com/2031091) with Aidan Helfant, a bi-weekly podcast interviewing people in the Second Brain Community on how they use their second brain for work, creativity, and life. ### How Creating Content Changed My Life Creating content is changing life in four main ways: **1. I engaged more with information** Creating content from the information I captured forced me to interact with it much deeper. As a result, I began to remember way more of what I consumed. I can now remember vast amounts of books I read a year ago. **2. I created intermediate packets** My past work forms the building blocks of future projects. This leads to a beautiful compounding effect. My past writings make new projects easier, creating more writing and adding to my total number of intermediate packets for future projects. As a result, I start some projects at 80% completion without even realizing it. **3. I build a serendipity vehicle** A serendipity vehicle is a magnet of ideas, people, and opportunities you didn't even know existed that begins when you start distilling and repackaging ideas into digestible and insightful forms on the internet. **4. I started helping others** But best of all, my content started to influence other people's lives. I started getting comments from my friends and strangers, through the internet or in person, on how my content had changed their lives. People said it made them start reading again, made them quit most social media, and more. It felt like a dream come true. The video game-addicted self I was just two years ago seemed like a distant memory. Finally, I found a game that was as enjoyable as the ones I was so addicted to as a kid. But the difference is this game translates to real life reward by helping myself and others. Be sure to check out my playlist series on Building a Second Brain on YouTube. It's my master series discussing what Building a Second Brain is as well as how I specifically build mine with Obsidian. Related: [[🌲 How Obsidian Replaced Video Games & Helped Me Publish]]