James Marwood is a management consultant from London who is building his own consulting business.

Brain Tour

James uses a mix of GTD for actions, PARA for his work notes, and Zettelkasten for reference materials.

Omnifocus is his first choice for maintaining his actions and does his brainstorming in MindNode. 

He uses Obisidian to take notes. 

For storage, he distinguishes between two services. One is iCloud for his large files and OneDrive when he needs to share files with his clients.

He takes notes during meetings with a ReMarkable device.

How would you use your 2nd Brain to plan a trip to Japan?

First, I brainstorm and create a mind map in MindNode. 

The next step would be to break the project down into actionable tasks and add them to OmniFocus. 

All my research notes would be collected in Obisidan.

Then I would refine the plan and reloop it.

Q&A

What is your number one tip for building a 2nd Brain from the ground up?

Spend more time doing the work than tinkering with the system. Any of the systems will do if you do.

Why are you building your 2nd Brain?

To be more productive and free up time for more creative work. As I have gotten older and had some pretty severe bouts of depression and anxiety, I find that I need more help with tasks and memory than I used to.

How did you customize your 2nd Brain?

Just minor tweaks. I use GTD contexts to include energy levels. I keep a commonplace book (in Obsidian) of things that have nothing to do with my work, but are just interesting.

What features in one of your 2nd Brain apps have you found most beneficial?

Ability to access on multiple platforms. I work on a Mac, but for some client work I need to use their Windows systems. Because I work in secure environments, these are often locked down. The ability to email between systems is incredibly useful.

What was your biggest challenge while creating your 2nd Brain?

Avoiding the urge to tinker. It's so much more fun than working productively.

How do you manage to keep your 2nd Brain up-to-date?

I have deliberately chosen systems that are easy to get back on after falling off. It's easy to fail and give up. GTD and Para allow me to spend an hour or so getting back on track, which means I don't stumble and give up.