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A comment on Ask HN: Do you also "hoard" notes/links but struggle to turn them into actions?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Do you also "hoard" notes/links but struggle to t... by tolerance on Saturday January 31, 2026 @02:29AM (#46834296)
> Building a second brain is not Doing The Thing.

I hate the concept of a “second brain” but this isn’t necessarily true. Those guides you make at work seemingly precede the action of someone else, right? And even if the notes you write for yourself aren’t needed afterwards, don’t they contribute to “doing the thing”?

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Re:Ask HN: Do you also "hoard" notes/links but struggle to t... by nicbou on Saturday January 31, 2026 @04:17AM (#46834890)
These notes are explicitly part of the process, but they're just markdown files in a folder.
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Re:Ask HN: Do you also "hoard" notes/links but struggle to t... by tolerance on Saturday January 31, 2026 @05:52AM (#46835448)
That’s quite like how I see my own system.
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Re:Ask HN: Do you also "hoard" notes/links but struggle to t... by item007 on Saturday January 31, 2026 @03:09AM (#46834518)
I think “second brain isn’t doing” is a good antidote to procrastination-by-organization, but it’s not universally true. Guides/runbooks are clearly “doing” because they enable action by others. Even personal notes can be “doing” if they change decisions, reduce re-entry cost, or prevent repeating mistakes. The failure mode is when system-building becomes a substitute for output, not a support for it.
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