If there’s one thing every writer needs, it’s a second brain.

No, I don’t mean a brain in a jar — although I’m sure there are some writers out there who have just such a thing decorating their office. Hey, no judgement from me.

I mean an external system for collecting and organizing all the information in your life — in other words, the things your real brain isn’t that great at remembering. Like editor’s notes and deadlines. In the past maybe that was post-it notes decorating every inch of the walls of your writing space like some mad person arguing with imaginary people — aka a writer. Or perhaps it was something more sane, like a commonplace book. These days, for better or worse, it tends to be an app.

Why do you need a second brain when the whole point of writing is to create something out of your imagination? Because it’s nearly impossible to keep track of every idea and element that goes into creating a written work without it. How many scribbled notes to yourself have you forgotten in a pocket or lost on transit, to be found by some other aspiring writer who will then turn it into a bestseller? How many inspiring articles have you emailed to yourself only to lose them somewhere in the depths of your inbox, where a Lovecraftian AI is slowly using them to achieve sentience? How many times have you forgotten what happens next in the outline of your story when those imaginary people refuse to do what you tell them? Our real brains are great at processing information — oh no, here comes a horde of zombies! — but not so good at retaining it. Cue the second brain.

Thankfully, there are a number of apps out there that are of immense value to writers and other people with more productive lives. I use Notion to create mini-wikis for my writing projects where I collect ideas, outlines, character profiles, settings, general notes, divine/infernal visions and so on. I also use it to organize my reading lists and keep track of my publications — published, pending, in progress, weird monstrosities, etc. Notion has a very simple and clean interface but is infinitely customizable once you get the hang of it, which I am sure to do one day. Other writers use Ulysses or Scrivener, while more generalist apps such as Evernote, Asana and Obsidian can also serve well as second brains (although they lack the literary names of the others I mentioned).

It doesn’t matter what system you use as long as you develop a second brain to help keep yourself organized. Your real brain will thank you once it realizes it no longer has to futilely attempt to keep track of things and can now focus on creating. And procrastinating.

And yes, I originally created this post in my second brain.