A few months ago, I deleted my “second brain.”
Not just archived. Not tucked away in a backup folder.
I wiped it clean. On purpose.
The Notion dashboards? Gone.
The PARA folders? Nuked.
The thousands of neatly clipped highlights from articles and books? See ya.
Why? Because my second brain had become a trap.
It started with a simple idea: "Capture everything."
If you’re like me, you’ve probably come across the idea of a “second brain” — a place to store your thoughts, knowledge, notes, ideas. The theory is beautiful: free up your mind, reduce stress, increase creativity.
So I built one. It was immaculate.
Every project had its place.
Notes were tagged, linked, summarized.
I even had a system to review my ideas weekly.
And at first, it worked. I felt productive, organized, even clever.
But then something changed.
I wasn’t creating — I was hoarding.
I wasn’t writing more. I wasn’t thinking more clearly.
I was just moving digital stuff around — endlessly.
It hit me one night at 1 a.m., while I was “refactoring” my notes about creativity... instead of actually being creative.
All this energy — all this time — just to make my notes look good?
Who was I doing this for?
I realized I was building a museum of thoughts I never visited.
The Productivity Trap
Here’s the honest truth no one told me:
You can feel incredibly productive while avoiding all the hard stuff.
Planning isn’t doing.
Highlighting isn’t learning.
Organizing isn’t creating.
My second brain gave me the illusion of control — but it robbed me of spontaneity, focus, and even self-trust.
I didn’t need more storage.
I needed space.
So I let it go.
At first, I panicked. What if I needed that quote again? What if I forgot that “brilliant” idea from three years ago?
But something strange happened:
I started remembering more.
I started writing without fear.
I stopped overthinking.
Without a system to dump every idea into, I had to live with ideas.
Chew on them. Forget them. Rediscover them.
And suddenly, my first brain came back online.
Real creativity is messy.
We think systems will make us more creative, but often, they just make us busy.
I thought I needed a perfect structure. What I really needed was friction — the kind that makes you sit with a half-baked idea long enough to do something real with it.
Now I use a notebook, voice memos, and sometimes just trust myself to remember.
Is it chaotic? Sure.
But it’s alive.
What I Gained by Letting Go
Less noise.
Fewer distractions.
More presence.
Actual progress.
I don’t miss my second brain. Not even a little.
Because I’m finally using my first one again — the way it was meant to be used.
If you’re drowning in systems, maybe it’s time to stop optimizing and start living.
Your brain isn’t broken. You might just need to trust it again.
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