CG艺术实验室

This Week's Main Course#

Last week finally ended smoothly. In the first article, I mentioned the topic of "how to deal with information overload" which I will write about sooner or later. Now is the perfect time to strike while the iron is hot.

The method I use to deal with information overload is something I learned bit by bit from the internet, and by "bit by bit," I mean I took many detours. Currently, I have found the most useful tool to be creating my own second brain.

What is a Second Brain?#

To truly understand the meaning of a second brain, we must first understand the human brain. We must admit one fact: our human brains are not good at rote memorization. Do you remember the phrase "memorize the entire text" from your Chinese textbooks? Think about how much of the ancient poetry you memorized back then you can still recall. You'll realize that the texts you can remember and the meaning or images they depict are what you can recall. In other words, the reason you can still remember them after all these years is not because you memorized the order of the words (note, it's not because you understood their meaning at the time either), but because you engaged in thinking (whether intentional or unintentional). For example, if you remember the phrase "a panoramic view of the mountains," it's unlikely that you remember it because you were punished by your teacher for not writing "I will stand on the highest peak" correctly and had to write it 20 times. It's more likely that you wanted to recite it perfectly in front of the person you secretly liked during a recitation event. What your brain did was link this line of poetry with that person and the recitation event, making it highly likely that you will never forget it. And thinking, precisely, is the act of connecting seemingly unrelated things. Therefore, our human brains are actually better at thinking, and remembering this knowledge happens as a byproduct of thinking.

The essence of knowledge is useful information. Let's take a look at the process of memorization. When you learn a new text, the first thing you do is read it out loud. This is your brain collecting information. Then, the teacher starts explaining the meanings of new words, the structure of paragraphs, the techniques used by the author, the thoughts expressed, and so on. This is your brain organizing information, or in other words, turning information into knowledge. Finally, when it's time for the exam, in order to get a high score, you don't need to have intimate contact with a copper belt at home, but you need to be able to recall this knowledge at critical moments. This is your brain extracting knowledge.

My second brain is a biomimetic system that I use to collect information, organize information, and extract knowledge.

Why Create a Second Brain?#

Exams train us how to solve problems.

When we enter society, we need to solve social problems. The exams we took as students were just small-scale competitions under simple rules. If our brain is a basket filled with knowledge, then our own basket is basically enough for this game.

However, solving social problems requires knowledge with a systematic structure. This knowledge is not only vast but also complex. Any problem placed at the professional level in society cannot be easily solved by a single university major, let alone an online course. This is when you will realize:

• Our basket is too small, we need a bigger basket to hold knowledge.
• Our basket consumes too much power. It consumes 20% of our body's energy for every 3% of its weight, and it needs to be on standby for 8 hours every day.
• Our basket is too unreliable. We can even lose something as important as keys and ID cards, and we can't remember our ATM PIN even if it's just a name and birthday.

These problems can all be solved by using a second brain.

Now our brain can save a large amount of energy to think more efficiently, discover connections between knowledge, and focus on solving problems.

How Did I Construct My Second Brain?#

Here, I will share the tools and methods I am currently using for reference:

In terms of tools, I registered for Evernote out of curiosity in 2011 and used it for 5 years. It stored thousands of articles, images, and links that I found "useful." Of course, I haven't opened 90% of these articles since then. I restrained myself from using the premium membership, so I only had 60MB of free sync traffic per month. Even so, over the course of 5 years, these data took up about 2GB of space. After that, I tried OneNote, but the editing and reading experience on the mobile version of OneNote was unbearable for me. I also tried other note-taking apps like Youdao Cloud Note and Apple Notes, but that's beside the point.

Coming back to the present, in 2018, I registered for Notion. Currently, the only software tool I use is Notion. What attracted me the most was not its clean and beautiful UI, but its high degree of freedom and flexibility. I can build tools that truly meet my needs. For example, this website is 90% built using Notion, as well as my business project management, task tracking system, and more. Now it seems that Notion can meet all my needs for a second brain.

Of course, more important than the tools is how we use them. If the method is correct, the software used is not important. I even saw someone achieve this with just a text document (link at the end of the article). I have set a principle for myself: if it's not necessary, don't add physical entities.

• Step 1: Collect Information

  • My sources of information mainly come from RSS subscriptions, newsletters, Telegram channels, books, and videos. They each have their pros and cons, but the common point is that there are no algorithms constantly guessing my interests behind them. In any case, I completely reject any media platform that uses algorithmic recommendations for reading and prefer to use search engines. The end result of algorithmic recommendations is that you only see what they want you to see, and you know what I mean. Algorithms can be used, but they shouldn't enslave us.
  • Collecting is not just about saving various "useful information," but also recording your own thoughts, even if it's just a note in an article. This way, your future self will understand why you left that note when you see it.
  • Note that at this stage, information is still information and has not yet become knowledge.

• Step 2: Organize and Review

  • Regularly empty your basket. If you have a pile of unread content in your basket because you're busy with work or other things, it's better to stop collecting and organize the unprocessed content first before continuing. Believe me, slow is fast.
  • Also, I believe organizing is not just about categorizing or adding a bunch of tags to each piece of content. Simply marking something as read doesn't mean you've accomplished something significant; that's deceiving yourself. The truly effective approach is to record your thoughts at the moment. For example, why did I mark this sentence? Are the mentioned knowledge points relevant to my work? How will they help me? Do I agree with the author's viewpoint? Do I have any similar cases around me? In other words, let your brain start doing what it's best at—thinking. At this point, information becomes knowledge.
  • Furthermore, the significance of organizing and reviewing is to build trust in yourself. After persisting for a while, you will gradually come to understand yourself and believe that everything you have organized and reviewed meets your own standards. You may not be able to do everything comprehensively, and it's impossible to achieve everything in one step. Take it slow and let time take care of this process.

• Step 3: Establish Connections

  • Now we have reached the stage of truly building a second brain. I personally do this simultaneously with organizing and reviewing, or more accurately, it can be done at any time. It is at this stage that we start to deeply think about the knowledge we already know. My specific approach is to organize articles of the same type into a topic, integrate the knowledge points scattered across several articles or videos into a single note, and then connect related content. Here are a few things to note:
    • If there is no clear topic, you can start from anywhere based on your interests.
    • You must express and summarize in your own words. Even if you don't need to look at the original text in the future, you will understand what it means.
    • Don't be afraid of not being comprehensive. It's not possible to achieve everything at once. Take it slow and trust time with this process.
    • It's best to have two-way connections so you can always come back.
  • At this point, knowledge starts to collide with your thoughts in various wonderful ways, and valuable ideas are hidden in these collisions. Establishing connections for knowledge is like building a series of portals in my knowledge base. Only then can a second brain truly come to life.

• Step 4: Output Value

  • We invest in something in order to gain returns. In other words, this step is about how to use the second brain.
  • Why go through all the effort to absorb knowledge and create a second brain? On the surface, it's to better solve the problems we encounter in life and work. But in reality, the true purpose of acquiring knowledge is to enable us to output more value in the future, and only with value can we expect returns. Whether you create a painting, write a diary, or complete a business project, the essence is using your knowledge, making a series of decisions, taking a series of actions, and ultimately outputting your value to the outside world.
  • The usual difficulty is that there may not be any visible returns at the moment because the growth of this value is an exponential curve. This is where another management system called GTD comes into play. It's also a book I've been reading recently, and I'm practicing it myself. I will talk about it in future articles.
  • So, without using GTD, how can we make it easier to persist in creating a second brain? My method is quite straightforward—I directly link my second brain to the business design projects I rely on for survival. For example, when a client requests a poster, I limit myself to searching for materials only in my own library when choosing composition, colors, and fonts. If the materials library doesn't have what I need, then I search online. This way, there is a tangible relationship between output and input, naturally connecting them.
  • At this point, with a second brain in place, the entire internal system forms a positive feedback loop.

Creative Fragments#

Yesterday, I finally completed all the storyboards. Overall, it went smoothly.

However, one possible difficulty is that storyboards are not followed step by step in the creative process; they are just a tool for communication within the team. This tool needs to continue iterating throughout the creative process.

I think this is a challenge that all content creators face. The nature of content creation is that outsiders only care about the results, but creators should focus on the process. You don't need everything to be perfect before having the confidence to share it with others. Sharing the creative process makes it easier to discover unknown flaws and mistakes.

Next, I will start drawing concept maps and character modeling. Let's go!

Weekly Highlight#

Translation | In the Past 12 Years, My Productivity Tool Has Been Just a .txt File - Appinn

Whether it's for fun or efficiency, tools are only part of it. What's more important is our own methodology.

• Since I learned how to reinstall the Windows system, I often spend a lot of time tweaking my computer to make it feel cleaner. I need to be vigilant about this. Tools are meant to be used for work. If they are convenient to use, that's enough. Don't confuse priorities.

Whenever I feel overwhelmed by my long-term commitments, I weaken that feeling by actively unmarking emails, deleting events from my calendar that no longer excite me, and reducing the workload I assign to myself in the future.

• This reminds me of a line from the movie "3 Idiots." The essence is to learn how to comfort yourself at critical moments.

See you next week.