I Built a 'Second Brain' in Notion and Obsidian: It Was a Productivity Trap

If you’ve been noting the expertise landscape lately, you have to’ve experienced loads of posts suggesting apps pick Notion, Obsidian, and also NotebookLM. Most posts posture these apps as some magic pill to aggravation your expertise, accumulating a sensation that you’re missing out on out on some faster means to productivity. Nicely, I loathe to go against it to you — they’re not, and also it’s potential a expertise catch for you.

The ‘Geeky Procrastination’ Medical diagnosis

As a chronically lazy guy, I try to read upward a heap on pointers and also keys to systematize my expertise. So, ordinarily, once the expertise professionals suggest paraphernalia, I acquire the urge to try them out. I had been hearing around these Second Brain, Capabilities Base gizmos for a while currently, and also it was imparting me a serious shuck of FOMO.

Lately, I finally got the time to gander into these apps, and also I swear, I dared so hard to incorporate them into my workflow yet failed to see how they’d literally help my job. Here’s the thing — these are uncanny hunks of software agenda that tote out what they assurance, yet there are specific filch advantage of vessels for each of them. If your job doesn’t loss under those filch advantage of vessels, these apps come to be a form of suave laziness.

The thing is, it supplies you a geeky sensation once you’re configuring those control panels, ceding mini dopamine hits along the means. Singularly, at the run out of it unanimously, you might recognize you refuge’t actually born out any type of real job and also possibly invented a ‘Second Brain’ that you’ll never ever actually filch advantage of.

Before I enlighten you precisely why these gizmos are not optimal for me (and also possibly you), I should enlighten you situations wherein they’d literally be fruitful since, to be field, the apps themselves are not misleading in what they insurance claim to tote out.

Notion

Initially, I glimpsed into Notion, attempting to know how it jobs and also what it can tote out for me. What I found out was that it’s extra of an AI-powered project security app. It’s nice for handling assignments encompassing a junior of textiles that you pine to retain on the specific same page with project security, tab-thieving, and also expertise guidance attributes.

It’s equally a pretty fruitful tool for trainees to load upward their chits in one place, accumulating a expertise guidance over time that they can gander with by hand or gleaning serviceability of the upraised-in AI attributes. In this age of electronic education and also learning, a tool pick Notion lugs out render the majority of sense, since you put on’t constantly acquire physical solicits and also chits anymore. For these filch advantage of vessels, Notion owns a shebang of expertise-bolstering keys upward its sleeve.

Obsidian

Obsidian lugs out the majority of points that Notion lugs out, yet it concentrates less on the project security side and also doubles down on accumulating a handy expertise guidance. You can create graphs and also canvases and also internet affiliation your chits to each dissimilar other to readjust your journaling obstacles into accessible documents. It’s evidently one of the ideal tab-thieving apps out there.

In my point of perceive, the target target bazaar of Obsidian is trainees, tale authors, and also any type of deep thinker in basic. It can handle amenity chits and also render them controllable by weaving them into a visually less frightening Second Brain of sorts.

NotebookLM

Contrasted to the dissimilar other 2, NotebookLM is a brand name-new son on the block by Google. In unanimously sincerity, it doesn’t have a whole heap of serviceability overlap with Notion and also Obsidian — it’s in a specific alcove of its very own.

NotebookLM is an superior tool for situating out brand name-new paraphernalia and also guzzling expertise in omnipotent modalities. The LM in the name stands for Language Model, which predominantly modalities that instead of gleaning serviceability of LLMs pick Gemini or ChatGPT to gander upward explanation from unanimously over the internet, you acquire to feed it with specific content, so it lone replies gleaning serviceability of those references.

Another superior NotebookLM serviceability, which is a insurance claim-of-the-art means to unveil, is podcast invention. So, instead of asking agitations around the content you feed it, you ask the tool to create a podcast of 2 humans saying the topics in your source documents, which you can listen to anytime. This means, you unveil brand name-new points without needing to ever read a word. Quite cool!

Why Gaining serviceability of a Down-to-earth Chit-thieving App Works for Me

All correct, so while these apps are fruitful in their omnipotent modalities, they put on’t actually add any type of foibles to any type of of my workflows. You see, the corporations I job for bargain me with a wiki of unanimously their pointers that I can read and also refer to anytime. It’s ordinarily created by my peers in a language that is pretty simplified to know since they recognize precisely what a rookie in our arena would distinctly should acquire started.

These corporations equally filch advantage of project security gizmos pick Trello, Asana, or ClickUp. So, the expertise guidance and also project security are not an inquiry for a freelancer pick me, predominantly exiling the necessitate for Notion and also Obsidian. But there are times once I tote out should snatch confidential chits and also create a unique job security serviceability.

Nicely, that’s wherein modest gizmos pick Google Grasp ago and also Google Job come in. I ordinary, these are extra linear transactions with than to create a reproduce of the expertise guidance and also project security, which the corporations I job for have already got spaned with rates apps.

The lone tool that’d literally help me would distinctly be NotebookLM in shuck I’m kneading on a project wherein I have to unveil brand name-new paraphernalia or go with hefty technical paperwork. In such vessels, I’d surely filch advantage of it, yet that’s around it. I ordinary, why resort to gleaning serviceability of a Second Brain once my Initially Brain would distinctly simply suffice…

Boosting Performance Doesn’t Always Ultimata Elaborate Arrangements

I recognize I have generalized the real chore of these gizmos to an level. Singularly, the juncture of sharing this whole sustain with you isn’t to berate these gizmos — as you’ve seen, they’re pretty handy transactions with to specific annoyances, simply not my annoyances and also perhaps not your own either. Adding extra transactions with to your workflow simply to adhere to some fad isn’t the serviceability to addressing your expertise. Unlike times, as in vitality as a whole, convenience beats niceties.

I let the expertise masters snatch over my subconscious, rendering me try to address something that wasn’t actually gone against. I expired upward putridity the majority of time glancing upward and also attempting to know these gizmos, which I didn’t actually necessitate at the run out. The thing is, humans should simply referral the filch advantage of vessels of these apps so that their internet site tourists recognize once they’d literally be fruitful. The corporations behind these gizmos put on’t actually introduce them as magic expertise pills — it’s the web content designers who try to sell them as snake oil, rendering believe awes and also accumulating FOMO amongst their internet site tourists.