Building a Second Brain

Posted by Dellu
Nov 2, 2022 at 08:01 AM

Thank you for mentioning the book here. I will going to check it out.

I don’t want to be a bummer here. But, I really have very negative view of the idea of “de-stressing the brain”. I have seen this kind of note on a lot of todo apps, note taking apps, and specially the GTD framework: where the author of the GTD system spend a lot of time how removing burden from the brain is important.

I think this idea is absolutely misguided: and opposite to the actual reality on how the brain/biology works. The established science about human biology is that the more use an organ the better it gets. That is where the “if you don’t use it, you will lose it” saying came from. That is why body building works. The more you stress your muscle, the stronger it gets. The same is true of the human brain. The more you stress it, the better it gets.

- and these tools which are claiming to aid our brain are actually doing the opposite. Indeed, the more we depend on those tools, our brain is going to weaker and weaker at remembering and analyzing. You can check this by reading stories of memorizations champions; and chess masters, and even the regular shop keeper. My sister is a shop keeper. The way she does maths in hear head amazes me. This is because not she is a genius; it is because she has used her brain again and again, and it has become better.

- Obviously I am not going to stop using these tools, methods. But, the promise that we will be better thinkers by using cool note taking system is just opposite to reality of our biology. It is better to stress the brain. Studies on Alzheimer also clearly showed that people who use their brain for tasks (for memorization, organization, thinking, learning language etc) are less susceptible to those diseases. So, de-stressing your brain is a bad idea. It is better to stress it.

Did I miss sth on this?
I honestly get very frustrated at the GTD book because of this opinion. I was outraged when he talked about removing the burden off the brain. I still get frustrated when a lot of people talk about destressing the brain.

am I in mistaken?