Building a Second Brain, page 18
We don’t want to limit ourselves to merely celebrating the end of a project. We want to learn from the experience and document any thinking that could add value in the future. This is where the Project Completion Checklist is essential. It’s a series of steps you can take to decide if there are any reusable knowledge assets worth keeping, before archiving the rest. The only way that the Kickoff Checklist we just looked at will be feasible is if you’ve previously taken the time to save and preserve material from past projects.
Here’s my checklist:
Mark project as complete in task manager or project management app.
Cross out the associated project goal and move to “Completed” section.
Review Intermediate Packets and move them to other folders.
Move project to archives across all platforms.
If project is becoming inactive: add a current status note to the project folder before archiving.
1. Mark project as complete in task manager or project management app. This is the first step is making sure the project is in fact finished. Often there are a few lingering tasks needed to completely wrap it up—such as getting final approvals, filing paperwork, or disseminating the project deliverables—which is why I start by looking at my task manager. A task manager is a dedicated app for keeping track of pending actions, like a digital to-do list.II
If all the tasks I find there are done, I can mark it as complete and move on to the following steps.
2. Cross out the associated project goal and move to “Completed” section. Each project I work on usually has a corresponding goal. I keep all my goals in a single digital note, sorted from short-term goals for the next year to long-term goals for years to come.
I like to take a moment and reflect on whether the goal I initially set for this project panned out. If I successfully achieved it, what factors led to that success? How can I repeat or double down on those strengths? If I fell short, what happened? What can I learn or change to avoid making the same mistakes next time? The amount of time you spend thinking about these questions depends on the size of the project. A massive team endeavor might justify hours of in-depth analysis, while a small personal side project might deserve only a few minutes of reflection.
I also like to cross out the goal and move it to a different section called “Completed.” Any time I need some motivation, I can look through this list and be reminded of all the meaningful goals I’ve achieved in the past. It doesn’t matter if the goal is big or small—keeping an inventory of your victories and successes is a wonderful use for your Second Brain.
3. Review Intermediate Packets and move them to other folders. Third, I’ll look through the folder for the completed project to identify any Intermediate Packets I created that could be repurposed in the future. This could include a web-page design to be used as a template for future sites, an agenda for a one-on-one performance review, or a series of interview questions that might come in handy for future hires.
It takes a certain lens to see each of these documents and files not as disposable, but as tangible by-products of quality thinking. Much of our work gets repeated over time with slight variations. If you can start your thinking where you left off last time, you’ll be far ahead compared to starting from zero every time.
Any IPs I decide could be relevant to another project, I move to that project’s folder. The same goes for notes relevant to areas or resources. This is a forgiving decision, and it’s okay if you don’t catch every single one. The full contents of everything you archive away will always show up in future searches, so you don’t have to worry that anything will be lost.
4. Move project to archives across all platforms. Fourth, it’s time to move the project folder to the archives in my notes app, as well as any other platforms I used during the project. For me, this usually includes my computer’s documents folder and my cloud storage drive.
This move ensures that your list of active projects doesn’t get cluttered with old, obsolete stuff from the past while also preserving every bit of material just in case it unexpectedly becomes relevant in the future.
5. If project is becoming inactive: add a current status note to the project folder before archiving. The fifth step applies only if the project is getting canceled, postponed, or put on hold instead of completed. I still want to archive it so it’s out of sight, but in this special case, there’s one final action I take.
I add a new note to the project folder titled “Current status,” and jot down a few comments so I can pick it back up in the future. For example, in a few bullet points I might describe the last actions I took, details on why it was postponed or canceled, who was working on it and what role they played, and any lessons or best practices learned. This Hemingway Bridge gives me the confidence to put the project on ice knowing I can bring it back to life anytime.
I’ve been amazed that by being honest with myself about when a project has stalled and taking these few minutes to download my current thinking on it, I can often pick it back up months or even years later with minimal effort. It’s very empowering to realize you can put a project in “cold storage” and let go of the mental toll of having to keep it in mind. It’s tremendously comforting to know that I don’t need to make constant progress on everything all the time.
Here are some other items you can include on your Project Completion Checklist. I encourage you to personalize it for your own needs:
Answer postmortem questions: What did you learn? What did you do well? What could you have done better? What can you improve for next time?
Communicate with stakeholders: Notify your manager, colleagues, clients, customers, shareholders, contractors, etc., that the project is complete and what the outcomes were.
Evaluate success criteria: Were the objectives of the project achieved? Why or why not? What was the return on investment?
Officially close out the project and celebrate: Send any last emails, invoices, receipts, feedback forms, or documents, and celebrate your accomplishments with your team or collaborators so you receive the feeling of fulfillment for all the effort you put in.
The first pass on your Project Completion Checklist should be completed in even less time than the Project Kickoff Checklist—no more than ten or fifteen minutes to grab any stand-alone materials and insights. Since you don’t know for sure that any of this material will ever be useful again, you should minimize how much extra time and attention you invest in it. Put in just enough effort that your future self will be able to decide if the material is relevant to their needs. If it is, then they can decide in that moment whether to invest the effort to further organize and distill it.
The purpose of using project checklists isn’t to make the way you work rigid and formulaic. It is to help you start and finish projects cleanly and decisively, so you don’t have “orphaned” commitments that linger on with no end in sight. Think of these checklists as scaffolding—a supporting structure that ensures what you’re building can stand on its own. Just as scaffolding eventually gets taken down, these habits will get absorbed into the way you think and become completely second nature. You won’t even consider starting something new without querying your Second Brain to see if there is any material you can reuse.
The Review Habit: Why You Should Batch Process Your Notes (and How Often)
Next let’s talk about Weekly and Monthly Reviews.
The practice of conducting a “Weekly Review” was pioneered by executive coach and author David Allen in his influential book Getting Things Done.III He described a Weekly Review as a regular check-in, performed once a week, in which you intentionally reset and review your work and life. Allen recommends using a Weekly Review to write down any new to-dos, review your active projects, and decide on priorities for the upcoming week.
I suggest adding one more step: review the notes you’ve created over the past week, give them succinct titles that tell you what’s inside, and sort them into the appropriate PARA folders. Most notes apps have an “inbox” of some kind where new notes collect until they’re ready to be reviewed. This “batch processing” takes only seconds per note, and you can complete it within a few minutes.
Let’s dive into the details and see how Weekly and Monthly Reviews can help you maintain your Second Brain in a state of readiness for whatever arrives at your doorstep.
A Weekly Review Template: Reset to Avoid Overwhelm
Here is my own Weekly Review Checklist, which I usually complete every three to seven days depending on how busy a given week is. The point isn’t to follow a rigid schedule, but to make it a habit to empty my inboxes and clear my digital workspaces on a regular basis to keep them from getting overwhelmed. I keep this checklist on a digital sticky note on my computer, so I can easily refer to it.
Clear my email inbox.
Check my calendar.
Clear my computer desktop.
Clear my notes inbox.
Choose my tasks for the week.
1. Clear my email inbox. I start by clearing my email inbox of any emails lingering from the past week. I don’t usually have time to do this during the week in the rush of my other priorities, but I’ve found that if I let messages accumulate from one week to the next, it makes it hard to figure out what’s new and requires action and what’s left over from the past.
Any action items I find get saved in my task manager, and any notes I capture get saved in my notes app.
2. Check my calendar. Next, I check my calendar. This is the landscape of my week, showing me the meetings and appointments I need to make room for. I typically look at the last couple of weeks in case there’s anything I need to follow up on, and the upcoming couple of weeks in case there’s anything I need to prepare for.
Once again, anything I need to act on gets saved in my task manager, and any notes get captured in my notes app.
3. Clear my computer desktop. Next, I clear the files that have accumulated on my computer desktop. I’ve found that if I let them accumulate week after week, eventually my digital environment gets so cluttered that I can’t think straight.
Any files potentially relevant to my projects, areas, or resources get moved to the appropriate PARA folders in my computer’s file system.
4. Clear my notes inbox. By the time I get to the fourth step, the inbox in my notes app is chock-full of interesting tidbits from the previous three steps—from my email, calendar, and computer desktop. Plus all the other notes I’ve collected over the course of the preceding week, which usually totals between five and fifteen new notes in an average week.
At this point I’ll batch process them all at once, making quick, intuitive decisions about which of the PARA folders each note might be relevant to, and creating new folders as needed. There is no “correct” location for a given note, and search is incredibly effective, so I put it in the first place that occurs to me.
You’ll notice that this is the only step in my Weekly Review that is directly related to my digital notes. It is a simple and practical process of going through my notes inbox, giving each note an informative title, and moving them into the appropriate PARA folders. I don’t highlight or summarize them. I don’t try to understand or absorb their contents. I don’t worry about all the topics they could potentially relate to.
I want to save all that thinking for the future—for a time and place when I know what I’m trying to accomplish and am seeking a knowledge building block to help me get there faster. This weekly sorting process serves as a light reminder of the knowledge I’ve accumulated over the past week, and ensures I have a healthy flow of new ideas and insights flowing into my Second Brain.
5. Choose my tasks for the week. There’s one final step in my Weekly Review. It’s time to clear the inbox in my task manager app. By this point, there are likewise a number of tasks that I’ve captured from my email, calendar, desktop, and notes, and I take a few minutes to sort them into the appropriate projects and areas.
The final step of my Weekly Review is to select the tasks I’m committing to for the upcoming week. Because I’ve just completed a sweep of my entire digital world and taken into account every piece of potentially relevant information, I can make this decision decisively and begin my week with total confidence that I’m working on the right things.
A Monthly Review Template: Reflect for Clarity and Control
While the Weekly Review is grounded and practical, I recommend doing a Monthly Review that is a bit more reflective and holistic. It’s a chance to evaluate the big picture and consider more fundamental changes to your goals, priorities, and systems that you might not have the chance to think about in the busyness of the day-to-day.
Here’s mine:
Review and update my goals.
Review and update my project list.
Review my areas of responsibility.
Review someday/maybe tasks.
Reprioritize tasks.
1. Review and update my goals. I start by reviewing my goals for the quarter and the year. I ask myself questions like “What successes or accomplishments did I have?” and “What went unexpectedly and what can I learn from it?” I’ll take some time to cross off any completed goals, add any new ones that have emerged, or change the scope of goals that no longer make sense.
2. Review and update my project list. Next, I’ll review and update my project list. This includes archiving any completed or canceled projects, adding any new ones, or updating active projects to reflect how they’ve changed. I will also update the folders in my notes app to reflect these changes.
It’s important that the project list remains a current, timely, and accurate reflection of your real-life goals and priorities. Especially since projects are the central organizing principle of your Second Brain. When you have a project folder ready and waiting, your mind is primed to notice and capture the best ideas to move it forward.
3. Review my areas of responsibility. Now it’s time to do the same for my areas of responsibility. I’ll think about the major areas of my life, such as my health, finances, relationships, and home life, and decide if there’s anything I want to change or take action on. This reflection often generates new action items (which go into my task manager) and new notes (which get captured in my notes app).
Area notebooks often contain notes that become the seeds of future projects. For example, I used an area folder called “Home” to collect photos for the home studio remodel I mentioned previously. Even before it was an active project, that broader area gave me a place to collect ideas and inspiration so it was ready and waiting the moment we decided to get started.
4. Review someday/maybe tasks. “Someday/maybe” is a special category for things I’d like to get to someday, but not in the near future. Things like “Learn Mandarin” and “Plant an orchard.” These kinds of future dreams are important to keep track of, but you don’t want them cluttering your priorities today. I’ll take a few minutes to go through my “someday/maybe” tasks just in case any of them have become actionable. For example, when my wife and I settled down and became homeowners, our dream of getting a dog, which was impossible while moving from one apartment to another, suddenly came within reach. I had already saved a few notes on the kinds of dogs we should consider (athletic, hypoallergenic, good with kids, etc.), and this step in my Monthly Review reminded me to bring them to the surface.
5. Reprioritize tasks. Finally, once I’ve completed all the previous steps and have a holistic picture of my goals and projects in mind, it’s time to reprioritize my tasks. I’m often surprised just how much can change in a month. To-dos that seemed critical last month might become irrelevant this month, and vice versa.
The Noticing Habits: Using Your Second Brain to Engineer Luck
There’s a third category of habits that will come in handy as you start putting your Second Brain into action in the real world. It is in some ways the most important category, but also the least predictable.
I call them “noticing” habits—taking advantage of small opportunities you notice to capture something you might otherwise skip over or to make a note more actionable or discoverable. Here are some examples:
Noticing that an idea you have in mind could potentially be valuable and capturing it instead of thinking, “Oh, it’s nothing.”
Noticing when an idea you’re reading about resonates with you and taking those extra few seconds to highlight it.
Noticing that a note could use a better title—and changing it so it’s easier for your future self to find it.
Noticing you could move or link a note to another project or area where it will be more useful.
Noticing opportunities to combine two or more Intermediate Packets into a new, larger work so you don’t have to start it from scratch.
Noticing a chance to merge similar content from different notes into the same note so it’s not spread around too many places.
Noticing when an IP that you already have could help someone else solve a problem, and sharing it with them, even if it’s not perfect.
The nice thing about notes, unlike to-dos, is that they aren’t urgent. If one important to-do gets overlooked, the results could be catastrophic. Notes, on the other hand, can easily be put on hold any time you get busy, without any negative impact. If you have the time to organize your notes each week, that’s great. If you don’t, it’s no problem. I often will wait weeks or even a month or longer before I find the time to clear my notes inbox. They remain ready and waiting there for as long as I need.
