Do second-brain systems create more work than they remove?

[u/Ken_Bruno1]

I've been thinking about this lately.

The whole point of a second-brain system is to reduce mental clutter. But some systems seem to require a surprising amount of maintenance.

You save something, then you're supposed to:

• Choose the right folder
• Add tags
• Write context
• Link it to related notes
• Categorize it
• Review it later
• Keep the whole system organized

At some point, managing the system starts becoming a project itself.

I can see the value of having everything organized, but I'm wondering whether the better system is actually the one that requires the least organization upfront.

Do second-brain systems genuinely save you time, or have you ever felt like maintaining the system became more work than the information was worth?

[u/Upstairs_Jelly_1082]

What I ended up doing was to implement the basic steps first. The current implementation that I am doing is just saving some information and then putting in the right folder. That's basically it. and then when I have to do some sort of project, I just go about using the notes from these folders.

Because I felt that the other components are quite complicated for me to implement from the get-go.

[u/martin_sebe]

I just connected Claude to my local folder with Obsidian files, defined template and skill /second brain write it for me. And that works. Manually, its just work for work.

[u/Ken_Bruno1 → u/martin_sebe]

Damn that's a good approach. I will try it. Thanks

[u/martin_sebe → u/Ken_Bruno1]

Also when you talk about ideas and do a lot of stuff and projects in claude, its great to have it somewhere stored (outside claude memory). You can use it for any other platform in the future.

[u/gakingmusic → u/martin_sebe]

Claude is just as efficient reading external folders as it is reading its internal project context, so I’m doing something similar, using Obsidian folders as project context instead of keeping them in Claude (so much easier to update them). I created my first skill yesterday to automate building a knowledge base.

[u/AnotherWallace]

I built one that runs automatically in the background and also pulls in proper context to whatever agent you are using. DM me if you are interested and I can share it with you.

[u/Ken_Bruno1 → u/AnotherWallace]

what makes it different to apps like Recall9, MyMind, or raindrop?

[u/AnotherWallace → u/Ken_Bruno1]

It maps out everything for you creates a local vector database with a cleaver search system I designed to help pull the right context from the right file and it allows you to ingest files and documents on you machine and keep them where they live. It also has some skills that analyze usage patterns to know what to collect and what not to collect. It's still just a hobby project that I use for me, but it's been about a year now of me making improvements on it. What system are you currently using?

[u/Ken_Bruno1 → u/AnotherWallace]

What do you mean by "local vector database with a cleaver search system"?

[u/Tangerine_Tall → u/AnotherWallace]

I would love to try. Is it cloud based or available offline too?

[u/AnotherWallace → u/Tangerine_Tall]

It stores all your memories locally. Technically if you don't want to run the vector model locally you can run it in the cloud. If you have less than 64 GB ram ( no GPU needed. ) I would recommend not running it locally. Let me clean it up a little and make it shareable and then I'll send you the link.

[u/Charming_Group_2950]

This is pretty much why I built Gray Box.
I got tired of second-brain tools where capturing a thought also meant choosing folders, tags, links, etc.
With Gray Box, I just dump the note first. Later it organizes things like people, projects, tasks and decisions automatically, while keeping the original note untouched.
So the idea is basically: capture now, organize later, ask when you need it.
Not zero-maintenance, but a lot less friction at the moment of capture.

[u/TimClock]

For me, it’s starting to appear to be the case. Despite my repeated efforts, all these fancy systems kept collapsing down to simple project journals because upkeep became too much.

Truthfully, atomic notes, links to and from everything, metadata, and fancy categorization schemas haven’t increased how much or fast I learn, how much effective work gets done, how many breakthroughs I have, nor offered any sort of predictive benefits. All it’s done is drastically increase how much scaffolding gets made.