Build a second brain

A second brain is a personal workspace for everything you want to remember: notes, ideas, reading, projects, a journal. The hard part has always been the upkeep. With an agent doing the filing, linking and summarising, you only have to do the easy part: capture.

1. Start with a simple structure

Inbox/       everything lands here first
Notes/       durable notes, one idea per file
Projects/    things with an end date
Areas/       ongoing responsibilities: health, money, the house
Resources/   reference material and reading notes
Journal/     one file a day, opens as a calendar

This is the personal template an agent offers when it sets up a workspace. Give each folder a README that says what goes in it, and make Journal/ a calendar with view: calendar in its README.

2. Capture anywhere, sort never

Put everything in Inbox/ and don't think about where it belongs:

• On your computer, save files straight into the Inbox folder of your synced folder.
• On your phone, open the web app (you can add it to your home screen) and create a note with New file in the Inbox.
• In a conversation with an agent, finish with "save the useful bits of this to my Inbox".

3. Let an agent keep it tidy

Write your filing rules in Inbox/README.md (see run an inbox your agent files), then have an agent process the Inbox daily or weekly. Ask it to do a little more than file:

## When filing

- One idea per note in Notes/. Split notes that cover several.
- Add a "Related" list of links to existing notes on the same topic.
- Anything with a deadline goes to the relevant project's README under "Next".
- Reading notes go in Resources/ with the source link in the front matter.

Over time the links matter more than the folders. An agent that adds them as it files turns a pile of notes into something you can follow from one idea to the next.

4. Keep a journal

A daily note is the easiest habit to keep. Create Journal/2026-09-29.md with date: 2026-09-29 in its front matter, or ask an agent to start one each morning with your open projects and anything due. The calendar view shows the month's entries at a glance.

5. Ask your notes

The payoff is being able to ask. With the workspace connected, your agent can search and read all of it:

What have I written about pricing experiments? Summarise it and link the notes.

Read this week's journal entries and draft a weekly review in Journal/,
dated Sunday: what I got done, what I kept putting off, and what to focus on.

Keep it yours

A personal workspace on the Seedling plan is just for you and your agents; nobody else can join it. If you later share a workspace with a team, keep your second brain as its own workspace, or keep personal folders private.