“Your brain is for having ideas, not holding them.“
This quote from David Allen has lived rent free in my head since the moment I read it.
As someone with ADHD, my brain’s inner dialogue doesn’t stop generating ideas. That’s not to say they’re all good ideas, but from the moment I wake up, its like my brain is already 10 steps ahead of me and in the middle of a project before my body even gets out of bed.
Since I started using a second brain, I’ve been able to turn that inner dialogue into an internal monologue, generating valuable intellectual assets for creative outputs.
We are overwhelmed by an increasing amount of content, while our collective attention spans are decreasing and leaving us starving for knowledge.
“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” -Herbert A. Simon
This is where a second brain becomes like a secret weapon especially for anyone who struggles with executive function in day to day life.
A second brain is a digital ecosystem for personal knowledge management that captures, organizes, and resurfaces information effectively. It serves as a supplementary cognitive resource by building a scaffolding to support your working memory, enhancing learning, increasing productivity and facilitating creating thinking.
Dr. Russell Barkley who’s been the leading researcher on ADHD for half a century, refers to working memory as your brain’s GPS because it plays an essential role in guiding your actions, which is a common struggle in people with ADHD.
When your brain stores information in your working memory effectively, it functions similar to a GPS.
New information is synthesized and guides self regulatory actions, and that helps you to overcome various obstacles you encounter throughout the day.
Because of the information overload we experience every day in the digital world, we tend to forget where to find information we encountered even within the same hour of encountering it. This is a problem everyone experiences to varying degrees not just people with ADHD
But people with ADHD are four times more likely to experience difficulties with their working memory. If you had a near-sightedness, you wouldn’t be able to function in day to day life without glasses.
Short term memory in the ADHD brain has an invisible near-sightedness. So a second brain acts as a pair of cognitive glasses that externalizes your working memory.
Dr. Russell Barkley recommends note-taking to externalize working memory as well.
A second brain isn’t just for storing notes you put into it, its also for organizing and recalling knowledge for creative outputs.
Just the other day, I was on a call with one of my clients and I had this quote I captured a while back that I wanted to reference.
I knew that this quote was relevant, but I couldn’t remember what it was or who said it (I’m really bad at memorizing quotes).
So I said “hang on a sec” and I did a quick search in Obsidian for the key words I remembered were in the quote, and within a few seconds I was able to reference it and share a valuable insight with my client.
Every week, I write this newsletter with content that I already have distilled in my second brain, allowing me to always work from abundance and eliminating the anxiety of a blinking cursor on a blank page.
The thing is, using Obsidian as a second brain does have a bit of a learning cure. It requires some work, you’ll need to learn just like with any toolkit.
But I am here to provide a shortcut for you. I spent an entire year optimizing my workflow while using Obsidian to work with my ADHD brain, not against it. After feedback from clients who have benefited from my system, I have created a second brain starter kit in Obsidian so you don’t have to do all the initial building yourself, only learn how to use it. You can download it here.
Document your pain points along the way in a journal inside your second brain and make notes and task lists of areas you’d like to improve. Putting the time and effort into learning how to leverage these tools can be incredibly rewarding. By learning how to use a second brain system as cognitive scaffolding that brings order to my inner chaos, I have accelerated my learning, supercharged my creative output and accomplished the most meaningful work in my life.
I hope this has helped you understand the incredible benefits of using a second brain for ADHD.
By the way, here is a video I made to help get you started.