Capture what resonates: the first step of Building a Second Brain

Save the things that move you, and skip the rest. That's the heart of the Capture step in Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain, and it's harder than it sounds. This post covers how to choose, and every way to get something into Noodle in a few seconds.

Noodle has no connection to Tiago Forte or Forte Labs. The book goes much deeper on this step than we can here, and we recommend it.

Keep what resonates

The book doesn't ask you to judge whether something is important. It asks whether it resonates, and gives four quick tests. Save it if it's:

• inspiring, so it makes you want to make or try something
• useful for a task, a decision, a gift or a trip you can picture
• personal, like a voice message from your grandmother or a photo of your kid's first drawing
• surprising, because it changed your mind or showed you something new

If it passes none of them, let it go. The article will still be on the internet next year.

Your twelve favorite problems

The book credits this idea to the physicist Richard Feynman. The story comes from the mathematician Gian-Carlo Rota, who remembered Feynman's advice: keep a dozen favorite problems in mind and test every new trick you hear about against them. Now and then one fits, and people decide you're a genius.

Your list can be ordinary:

• How do we get the baby to sleep past 5am?
• What would make the garden feel bigger?
• How do I explain my job to my parents?
• Where do we go for our tenth anniversary?

With a list like that, capture gets easy. A video about light-blocking curtains touches the first question, so you keep it. A viral clip about a celebrity's kitchen touches none, so you scroll on.

Every way to get something into Noodle

Ideas show up on walks, in waiting rooms and halfway through a video. Your capture tools have to be there too, and on Android that mostly means your phone.

From another app, tap Share and pick Noodle. That works in YouTube, Instagram, Chrome, Photos, Files and WhatsApp, and you can share several photos or files at once. See sharing from other apps.

The + tab builds one item from as many parts as you want. Say you're planning a bathroom: type "Bathroom ideas", paste two links, add four photos from the showroom and a PDF quote, then tap Done. More in the save page guide.

For voice notes, tap the mic and talk while your words appear on screen, or hold it for a quick one. It's the easiest way to keep an idea you have while walking the dog.

The home-screen widget has buttons for a recording, a photo, a note and a link. Three Quick Settings tiles in the pull-down shade cover a recording, a photo and a note.

Photos count too: the whiteboard after Thursday's meeting, a parking receipt, the page of a library book you can't keep. Noodle reads the words in your photos, so "parking receipt March" finds the right one.

WhatsApp voice messages can be shared to Noodle as well. It works out what was said, so the two-minute message where your friend explained how to fix the dishwasher becomes searchable.

Noodle reads what you save

This is where a phone app beats a folder of screenshots. You save the source, and Noodle reads it. It knows what a YouTube video says, the caption and the words in an Instagram post's images, an article's text, PDF pages and your own voice notes. Other languages are translated to English.

You don't need to copy out the good bit. Type "the tip about salting pasta water" months later and you land on the cooking video, at the point where it's said. That's how saving and finding works.

Capture less, but better

Saving is so quick in Noodle that it's easy to keep everything. A few habits stop your second brain turning into a junk drawer.

Add one line about why you kept something: "for the garden", "try this Saturday", "Mom would like this". Type it on the + tab, or later with the pencil (Edit item) on the item's screen. Six months on, that line is worth more than the save.

If a link is already in Noodle, you'll see "Already saved as" with its title, and you can open the old one instead of keeping two.

After Done, Noodle suggests a category. Take it, pick another, or tap Later. Anything not filed waits in To organize, so a quick pass on the weekend keeps it short.

Once things are coming in, the next question is where they go: the PARA method in Noodle.