A Second Brain and a Second Me

I've been exploring a more analogue type of existence. It began because I felt disenchanted with social media. I was doom scrolling far too often and never finding that nugget or gem of information that I was hoping for. Deleting my accounts, apart from Instagram (although the app is more off my phone than on), led to other considerations.

I pared back on the apps I was using. I mercilessly purged my phone of anything that was no longer necessary. I simplified my processes. I unsubscribed from Substack and countless other newsletters. I embraced basic, minimal and free apps.

I was tempted to raze my entire digital garden to the ground but it survived the fire. I'd stopped using Obsidian sometime ago. I had all these notes but never really did anything with them. I'd used Tana for a while but I'm swearing off complicated systems that need maintenance and constant tweaks.

I tested Supernotes for a while. It was very nice but didn't solve my problem. Then, by chance, I found Second.Me. There was mention of Second Brain but also AI. I gave it a go!

Day 1 was nothing miraculous. I created some notes or memories. I chatted with the AI. The app was intriguing. But, day 2, I woke up to find that new functionality had appeared and Second.Me had learned a lot about me. Now we were talking.

It's easy to dismiss what we do, our skills and abilities. They're very everyday to us, nothing out of the ordinary. But when they are played back to us, by someone else or an AI bot, we're seen through another's eyes.

What I especially like is the way Second.Me joins the dots. Yes, Obsidian can do this if you create backlinks but really, I just want to add content, add ideas and have those connections made automatically. Second.Me does this.

I'm spending some time importing my Obsidian vault into Second.Me. It's drag and drop and does take a little while but it's worth it when Second.Me joins some dots that I hadn't even considered or resurfaces a memory from years ago without any intervention from me.

I'm creating a timeline of my life for a public speaking event. Much of the material is contained in notes from my original Obsidian vault. I could just search through them but it's so much easier to ask Second.Me to collate ideas and topics, to curate random notes about someone or something. It's giving me a rich vein of storytelling gold that would have been time consuming to create myself.

There are other functions that I've yet to explore in depth such as the Talks or Friends. I loved the initial appraisal of me when I first signed up to the app. And how the Shades of Me grows each day as I add more content. The Smart Tags automatically group related content.  My imported notes have been tagged for me. And the Chat provides space to discuss anything new, a link I've uploaded or prompts me to explore a theme that I've been talking about.

Second.Me feels like a more workable second brain, more intuitive, fun and user friendly. If you would like to try it for yourself, click here.