How to Build a “Second Brain” with Notion or Evernote

Most attempts at a second brain end up as a graveyard: hundreds of clipped articles, half-used Notion templates, and no idea where anything lives. Switching apps won’t change that. What’s missing is a rule for where each note goes and a routine for getting it there.

This guide uses Tiago Forte’s two frameworks. CODE (Capture, Organize, Distill, Express) is the workflow, and PARA (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives) is the structure. It covers the setup in Notion and in Evernote, the capture settings that send everything to one inbox, and a 15-minute weekly triage that keeps the system usable.

What an external system can and can’t do for you

The case for writing things down is better than the hype around it. Psychologists Evan Risko and Sam Gilbert, reviewing research on cognitive offloading, describe how storing information in external tools reduces the load on working memory and frees attention for the task in front of you. The same work notes a trade-off: people tend to remember less of what they have offloaded.

That trade-off shapes everything below. Offloading only pays off if the note comes back when it matters. A note dumped into an app with no home and no next use is effectively lost. A note filed against the project it will serve resurfaces when you open that project.

Notion or Evernote: choose by how you work

Both apps can run the same method. They differ in architecture, and that difference decides how much building you’ll do before you capture your first note.

If you already pay for one of them, use it. The method transfers; the habit of triage matters more than the software.

The PARA rule that settles every filing question

PARA sorts information by how soon you’ll act on it, not by subject. Forte’s four categories are defined by actionability:

• Projects: short efforts with a goal and an end date, such as “Launch spring newsletter by 30 April”.
• Areas: ongoing responsibilities with a standard to maintain, such as Health, Finances or Team Management.
• Resources: topics you’re interested in that have no current obligation attached.
• Archives: anything inactive from the other three.

The decision rule: file each note in the most actionable place where it will be useful. A boutique bakery owner who clips an article on price anchoring while redesigning the shop’s menu board files it under that project, not under a “Marketing” resource. When the new menu goes up, the note moves to Archives with everything else from the project.

Setting up PARA in Notion

Build one central Notes database and connect it to the PARA databases, rather than nesting pages inside pages. Nested pages are hard to search and impossible to filter.

1. Create a full-page database called Notes. Add properties: Type (select: Idea, Clip, Meeting, Reference), Created (created time) and Distilled (select: Raw, Bolded, Summarized).
2. Create three more databases: Projects (with Status: Active, On hold, Done, and a Deadline date), Areas and Resources.
3. Link them. In Notes, add a Relation property to each of Projects, Areas and Resources. Notion’s relation and rollup properties let you show related notes on each project page and add a rollup counting them.
4. Handle Archives with a filter. Instead of a fourth database, set finished projects to Done and create a view that shows only Done items.
5. Build the Inbox view. On a dashboard page, add a linked view of Notes filtered to show entries where Project, Area and Resource are all empty. Anything unfiled appears there automatically.
6. Add a Projects board. A linked view of Projects grouped by Status gives you a one-glance list of what’s active.

Resist adding more properties in week one. Every extra field is a decision at capture time, and capture should take seconds.

Setting up PARA in Evernote

1. Create a notebook called 0 Inbox. The number keeps it at the top of the sidebar.
2. Create four stacks: 1 Projects, 2 Areas, 3 Resources, 4 Archives. Evernote stacks hold notebooks but can’t be nested, which suits PARA’s flat design.
3. Add one notebook per active project inside 1 Projects, and one per responsibility inside 2 Areas. A typical person ends up with five to fifteen projects.
4. Make the Inbox your default notebook. Open the notebook’s options menu and choose to set it as the default, so new notes, mobile captures and forwarded emails land there.
5. Keep tags for cross-cutting labels only, such as a client name used across several projects. Tag sprawl recreates the mess PARA removes.

The same numbered structure can mirror your computer’s folders, which makes it easier to organize your digital files without inventing a second scheme.

Routing every capture into one inbox

Capture fails when items scatter across email, browser bookmarks, phone notes and screenshots. Pick one destination per app and point every tool at it.

In Notion, install the Web Clipper extension, sign in, and choose the Notes database as the destination before saving. On mobile, use the share sheet and pick Notion. Because the clip arrives with no relations set, it shows up in your Inbox view.

In Evernote, open the clipper’s options and turn off smart filing so clips go to a fixed notebook, then choose 0 Inbox. Set Simplified article as the default format; it strips ads and menus, leaving clean text to distill later.

Be selective about what you keep. Forte suggests saving what resonates or surprises you, not everything that seems vaguely useful. For thoughts rather than web pages, a quick brain dump into a single inbox note works fine.

Distilling notes in layers, only when you need them

Forte’s Progressive Summarization compresses a note in stages so that future you can grasp it in seconds:

1. Layer 1: the captured text itself.
2. Layer 2: bold the passages that matter.
3. Layer 3: highlight the best of the bolded passages.
4. Layer 4: write a few bullets in your own words at the top.

The key is doing this opportunistically. Distill a note only when you open it for a real reason, never in a batch session for its own sake.

A worked example: a market research moderator clips a 2,000-word article on probing techniques. Nothing happens until she drafts the discussion guide for a round of focus groups. Then she bolds roughly 250 words, highlights three sentences, and adds a summary: “Ask about the last time, not usually. Let silence follow answers. Never reveal the client’s brand.” Next quarter, those three lines are all she rereads. In Notion, mark it Summarized in the Distilled property so the work is visible.

Express: turning notes into finished work

A second brain is judged by output. When a project starts, open its notes before you open a blank document, and drag the distilled passages into a rough outline. An event-sponsorship manager writing a client proposal might start with twelve summarized notes on past attendance figures, sponsor feedback and package pricing, and have a first draft skeleton in twenty minutes.

Tasks that surface along the way belong in your task manager, not buried in notes; the Getting Things Done system covers that handoff in detail.

The 15-minute weekly inbox triage

Forte’s one-touch weekly review rests on a simple rule: open each inbox item once and decide its home immediately. A trimmed version fits in 15 minutes:

1. Minutes 0-3: sweep stray captures from email, phone notes and your downloads folder into the inbox.
2. Minutes 3-11: for each item, ask which active project it helps. File it there, or in an area or resource. Delete anything you can’t place.
3. Minutes 11-13: set finished projects to Done in Notion, or drag their notebooks into 4 Archives in Evernote.
4. Minutes 13-15: open the project due soonest and skim its notes so nothing useful is forgotten.

Where second brains usually break

If your aim is long-form research writing rather than project delivery, a Zettelkasten suits idea-linking better than PARA, and the two can share the same app.