The second brain is literally a second brain that you would like to have to compensate for the shortcomings of your actual brain. Our brains are for having ideas, not for storing them. A second brain is a centralized note-taking system where anything you learn or awesome idea that popup during the shower, goes into this system. You can use this repository to build new ideas based on the nuggets you have collected along your digital note-taking journey. Creativity is about remixing pieces of content that already exist out there and adding some enhancements of your own. Good artists copy, great artists steal.
Make use of Idea Recycling
Ideas are not for single-use. Keep track of all the stuff you are creating. Reuse and mix your ideas together. Combine them. A bodybuilding principle of progressive load can be used in enhancing once teaching skills where advanced concepts are built over basic concepts.
Projects over categories
Capture the ideas contextually in projects instead of categorizing them in silos. An idea without a context is useless. Time management ideas shall be added to everyday activities. Health tips may be added into the everyday cooking recipes. Artist skills can be used in studying and exams.
Slow burns vs. Heavy Lifts
Heavy lift is an idea where you aim to eat an entire elephant. A slow burn is you eat an entire elephant in small bites over a period of time. Your own brain is designed for heavy lifting, your Second Brain is ideal for slow burns.
Say you want to write a book. You can do it from scratch researching and writing a book. This is heavy lifting. In slow burn, say you already have a repository of ideas and researches you did it over several years. You may churn out several books by recycling various ideas from oblique subjects.
Start with abundance
If you construct a Second Brain, you will never start with a blank page. You will always have dots to connect, ideas to merge together, and thoughts to mix. You will always start from abundance. Make sure you collect bits and pieces along the way. Grow your garden.
Intermediate packets
Everything is made up of building blocks or intermediate packets. You just drag and drop them wherever needed. Imagine writing an essay. The essay is constructed using different blocks/packets. You always start with an intro, then you have the body 1, then body 2, then the conclusion. Even this article is a group of intermediate packets I can use it in essays or public speaking or in the gym.
You only know what you make
The content we internalize was run through our personal filters. Thinks like summarizing a piece of content, writing some notes from a book, listening to a podcast, etc. Engaging with the material will make it more familiar, easier to manipulate going further. Build this into your habits, note-taking is a powerful tool. Add your own insights to it.
Make it easier for your future self
Consume a content and flush it in your own way. This helps to make future me to understand present me.
Keep your ideas moving
Do not focus on perfectionism. Nothing is perfect. Improve things over time. Do lots of idea brain dumbs. Do not focus on organizing your note that much. Do something with the information instead. It is useless to store tidy/perfect information and not do anything with it.