How to help your kids double their brain power

I took Tiago Forte’s course on Building a Second Brain about a year ago (because who doesn’t need a second brain these days?).

I only wish I had done it sooner.

I’ve been using this system to capture, organize, and distill all the information, inspiration, and ideas I come across daily.

Think about everything you encounter in your day:

• Highlights from the books you read 📚️ 

• Ingenious shower thoughts 🚿 

• Audiobooks you listen to 🎧️ 

• Inspiring conversations you have 💬 

How much goes to waste because you don’t remember it when you need it?

That’s where the second brain system comes in — here’s how to teach it to your kids. 👇

Information overload: more data than ever before

Since 2010, the amount of data that the world created, captured, copied, and consumed has grown. Exponentially.

By 2025, the total volume of existing data is projected to be 181 zettabytes.

A zettabyte, by the way, is a huge measure of data — to store a video game file that is one zettabyte, you’d need a billion game consoles. 🎮

Our kids are coming of age in a world where there’s simultaneously more information than ever and better access to this information than ever.

Information is available 24/7, via the computer that lives in their pocket.

Tiago Forte, author of Building a Second Brain, writes that the average American consumes around 34GB of information per day:

“Our brains just aren’t capable of remembering all these details since they can only store a few thoughts at any one time.”

With all of this information, how do we teach our kids to:

• Make sense of it

• Organize it

• Use it to create something new

Well, first, they need to be able to remember it. 🧠

How to remember everything you read

Kids are consuming more content than ever before.

About 20% of teens visit or use YouTube “almost constantly”.

And if your kids are on TikTok, they’re likely spending around 85 minutes a day on the app. 😵‍💫

Optimal video length is 21-34 seconds, according to TikTok. This means that kids are watching anywhere from 100-200 videos per day.

📚 And this doesn’t even include the important information kids are supposed to remember when they spend all day learning in school.

It’s information overload.

And as Tiago says, “Fundamentally, our brains are for having ideas, not storing them.”

So rather than try to remember it all, record it:

• Found a cool tutorial on YouTube? Save the link.

• Hear an interesting fact about cheetahs on TikTok? Write it down.

• Get an idea for a great short story while riding the bus to school? Create a voice note.

Most of us aren’t in the habit of writing things down — which is why most of us forget all of our best ideas.

🏫 At school: Imagine your kid is assigned a school project on cheetahs. They probably won’t be able to find that TikTok with the cool fact.

🌎 And beyond: Say your kid wants to enter a creative writing contest. Wouldn’t it be great if they had a list of all their best story ideas ready to go?

So, each time your kid hears, reads, or sees something interesting, encourage them to record it.

A paper notebook works, but the best option is to use a digital note-taking tool, like Apple Notes, Notion, or Evernote.

They can also try out tools like:

• Otter.ai to turn their voice notes into text

• Snipd to highlight, take notes, and summarize podcasts

• Readwise to track highlights from ebooks and articles

We suggest using these digital tools because they give your kids the power to do something that makes their notes 10x more useful: search them. 🔍

👉 Assigned to do a book report on Great Expectations? Search for “Charles Dickens” in your notes.

👉 You’ll find all your notes and highlights from the book, but you might also stumble upon less obvious connections, like notes from a documentary you watched on Dickens in a previous English class.

👉 Now you can add a section to your paper on how Dickens’ novels were released a few chapters at a time — and how that affected the story’s structure (Sounds like an A+ to me!)

Odds are, your kids are already taking notes for school. But…

• Are those notes searchable?

• Are they easily accessible when your kid needs them?

• Worst of all, do they get thrown away after a class is over?

Digital notes make sure kids are able to access knowledge from previous classes when (not if) they need to use it again.

Sharing your notes with the world

These digital notes comprise what Tiago calls your “second brain”.

But Tiago emphasizes that the goal is not just to hoard your notes for yourself, but to use what you’ve gathered to create something new and share it with the world. 🌎

“Information only becomes knowledge – something personal, embodied, grounded – when we put it to use,” he says. “That’s why we should shift as much of our effort as possible from consuming information, to creating new things.”

We teach kids how to build a second brain to support their content creation efforts:

👉 Kate uses her notes to get ideas for her weekly newsletter that teaches parents how to educate their kids. Her writing streak speaks for itself — 80+ weeks and counting.

👉 Clara uses her second brain to help grow her Twitter account: "I wrote a thread this morning about epigenetics using my second brain,” she says. “What would’ve taken me an hour or more of research took me about 20 minutes to write.”

👉 Wade says, "My second brain helps me consolidate a wide range of information on fashion design into one place, get content ideas for my TikTok, and build a portfolio for fashion school.”

So, if your kid wants to:

• Start a business

• Grow a Twitter account

• Build a creative portfolio

… they can get an abundance of ideas, straight from their own notes.

Until next time,

Ivy

CEO Prequel, BETA Camp, Apollo, AI Masterclass

Follow my journey on LinkedIn