I have had a long time preference for electronic over paper information to facilitate backup and search. So, I am no stranger to concepts that lead to well-organized digital information.
Long time in the Defense industry, running projects
“If it is not written down, it did not happen”
“Process is king”
A lot of similarity (at a high level) across project structure
So templates are really useful
There is value in team members knowing how and where information is structured as they move across projects
Tool suite available that everyone used
Outlook for email, calendar, tasks
Sharepoint and OneDrive for files
OneNote for notes
But, I had an issue with knowing where to put new pieces of information
What can start as a single meeting on a calendar can grow to multiple action items each with their own people to contact, notes to track, files to reference, etc.
TheBrain struck me as a tool that is good for discovery, for when I needed to capture information but did not yet know what structure is best for that information.
So, when I moved from Defense, where I understood the structure, to Consumer Electronics, which was completely new and different for me, in 2021, I started using TheBrain as my primary information capture tool.
Let me show you how I store an example project in TheBrain to give you a sense of its flexibility.
One place to store everything. I have yet to find anything that does not have a place in my brain structure. So, I put everything in one place, which means I know where everything is.
Small thoughts grow naturally to big ideas without having to move to different tools
A one line thought becomes an expanded note which gets attachments added which becomes the start of a large hierarchy as it grows
It is easy to make structural changes, so there is no concern about putting things in the wrong place because I can change it later
Replaces the file system with a structure that is not hierarchical
Automatic backward linking. As I enter thought titles into other notes, they are automatically detected and linked back. So, I discover connections I did not realize existed.
The data is stored in an understandable structure, so I can keep my data even if the tool stops working. Thoughts are folders in the filesystem, notes use markdown for formatting, thought attributes and links can be exported as JSON for use in other tools.
All of my information is available online and offline, and shared across devices at my choosing. What I need to keep private stays private; what I want to share can be shared.
Discover connections through links and/or find what I need through search
Facilitates focused working. The number of thoughts in a brain can be huge; the normal view focuses on the current topic; the plex can be hidden to focus on notes or the notes can be hidden to focus on the plex.
If you are follower of Tiago Forte’s PARA Method, My PARA structure is embedded as thought types
One thing I learned from using the PARA Method was the value of separating Resources and Areas of Responsibility
If you are a follower of David Allen’s Getting Things Done, I make use of his Context concept as thought tags
View this in the Outline view one level deep to get an overview of all of the contexts
Because everything is in TheBrain, contexts are not limited to tasks in my task list
TheBrain thought shows the value of having multiple parents
TheBrain Technologies is the business that provides the tool
It is on my Subscriptions list to keep track of the subscriptions I need to manage
I have an interest in Productivity & Note Taking, so this tool is a part of that resource library
There are a few software applications I find essential when setting up a new computer. I use the Using macOS thought to keep that list.
I find thoughts by search, by directly mapped links, by explicit backlinks in notes, and by unlinked mentions that TheBrain discovers for me. These 4 ways all me to move easily through the many thousands of thoughts in the brains that I use daily.
You can see the mapped links in the plex connecting related thoughts together
The blue text above are examples of the explicit backlinks I have added into this note
The blue underlined words above are examples of unlinked mentions that TheBrain has discovered for me
Reports are another useful way to move through TheBrain by finding thoughts that match to specific characteristics
Some people like to use the ToDo List feature, that shows all unchecked checkboxes no matter where they are in TheBrain
While I do this sometimes, I more often prefer to use a thought type to hold the actions on my todo list
TheBrain has a built-in connection to OpenAI’s ChatGPT large language model, allowing AI to discover new relevant thoughts. I use this for brainstorming new areas.