How to Remember Everything You Read (Stop Trying) — 如何记住你读过的所有内容（别试了）

本文译自英文原文 How to Remember Everything You Read (Stop Trying)，作者署名为 Dan。 结构为 正文（英文原文）+ 翻译（中文译文），方便中英对照阅读。 译文忠实保留作者的所有观点、语气与结构，未做任何解读、删改或扩写；专有名词（Eden / Kortex / Obsidian / Claude / Substack / MyMind / Naval 等）保留英文原样。

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第一部分：正文（Original Article）

How to Remember Everything You Read (Stop Trying)

If you need to remember it, it’s not important. If it’s important, you will remember it. For some reason, it’s become an obsession to remember everything you read. There are hundreds of videos about it with millions of views. People feel like if they don’t retain the knowledge from what they read, they’re a failure, or they wasted your time, when that’s not the point of reading at all. Why would you want to memorize every word of a book in the first place? I know why. You want to sound smart. It’s an unconscious status symbol for you. You want to impress others with your articulation and intelligence, but you don’t realize that sounding smart comes from understanding, not memorization, and understanding requires a much different approach to learning. It also doesn’t help that schools tested you on your ability to memorize. You studied for hours just so you could pencil in the right answer. That’s not how life works. I get it. You want to acquire knowledge so that you can make better decisions and work yourself into a more advantageous life situation with more money and power so you don’t have to worry about your day-to-day survival. Everyone wants that, but memorizing facts is the least effective way to get there. That’s what we’ll talk about first - how to acquire knowledge in a way that actually sticks, so you can create a better future for yourself. Then, we’ll talk about why your note-taking system, bookmarks, and even your precious “second brain” (the sex doll for mental masturbators) are largely useless.

Skip to the rest of the article if you’re allergic to self-promotion: Speaking of second brain, we just added Library, Reader, and Highlights to Eden. Now, not only can you research creators’ top content and find your next viral topic (and schedule posts to be published), but you can build an interconnected library of posts, links, and ideas that Eden organizes for you - and allows you to search based on meaning rather than just keywords. And, you can save any Substack article, X article, or YouTube video, read the transcript, and highlight so you never lose an idea. We haven’t fully started blasting Eden in public yet, but our users have been vocal about how much of a game-changer it is for creatives and creators. Get 4 months and the Creator Bootcamp free (normally $499) here.

How to actually learn anything fast

Most people have no idea how to learn. Because most people have no idea what the learning process is. The reason most learning fails is that there is no negative feedback loop. Think of it like this. If you don’t have the goal of getting in shape (and I’m talking a deep intrinsically generated goal not a superficial goal you’re pursuing to fit in, like a new years resolution) then a night of heavy drinking and partying won’t register as a problem (negative feedback), because it doesn’t impact your non-existent goal of performing on your morning run or gym session the next day. You can go to work just fine with a hangover because you don’t give a shit about how well you do at your job. Learning is a cybernetic process. Cybernetics sounds like something relating to cyborgs, but it stems from the Greek word kybernētēs, meaning steersman or helmsman. The person who steers the ship. The word “cybernetics” was chosen because the helmsman is the perfect image of a feedback system. The helmsman doesn’t just point the ship in a direction once, he constantly reads the current state (wind, waves, heading), compares it against the intended course, and adjusts. In other words, the process of trial and error, and so few people have the direction that allows them to notice errors in their life. Cybernetics illustrates the properties of intelligent systems.

1. Reference signal (the goal) – The system holds a target state.
2. Sensor (perception) – The system reads its current state.
3. Comparator (the gap) – The system computes the difference between target and current state. The difference is the error signal.
4. Actuator (behavior) – The system acts to reduce the error.

Like how a thermostat turns on the heat when it gets too cold, or how your pancreas releases insulin when blood sugar rises. That exposes the issue nicely. When most people try to learn something new, they focus on content. They hoard material and try to absorb it with spaced repetition, flashcards, courses, and learning the fundamentals. They assume learning is an input process. In reality, learning is an output process, because output demands input. A goal creates the error signal. The error signal creates the filter. The filter creates relevance (most people fill their mind with noise and things they will never use). The relevance creates retention. A person who has been conditioned their entire life to have the nearly unconscious goal of going to school and getting a job will naturally learn and behave in that direction. The destiny they were assigned will inevitably come true. The person who is deeply conditioned to go down the default path will not even notice money-making opportunities outside of a job, because their brain is filtering it out. The big life goals they were assigned at birth dictate their behavior and learning. They are a puppet of someone else’s ideals. They are not in control of their life. But if you consciously create your own frame, by knowing exactly what you don’t want out of life and comparing it to an evolving vision of what you do want out of life, you are only then able to sense when you are off track, notice the error, correct the direction you are heading, and learn as a byproduct. Makes sense, but what do you actually do?

Step 1) Become obsessed with a meaningful goal.

The way you become obsessed is to look at your current actions and realize where your life will end up if you don’t change. For most people, that outcome is not pretty. Sit with that image, let it fill you with potent emotion, and redirect that emotional energy toward a better direction for your life. Only then can you actually align the goals you pursue with the aim of your future. Only then does a useful learning process start, the opposite of schooling, where your learning is determined by the direction and goals society sets for you. Being extreme changes your brain and enhances neuroplasticity. In my eyes, you’re better off making an extreme change than making a lot of small changes. Burn the boats. Change your life.

2) Don’t start learning.

The life you want lies at the end of a series of meaningful projects. Your mind is to be treated as a project. As is your body, relationships, and financial situation. A project is simply a structured set of goals and milestones. A project creates a frame for your learning (by filtering unimportant noise). Anything that does not directly move the project forward is not worth learning (right now), because you won’t retain it anyway. In other words, when you want to learn something new, don’t start learning, take the first step toward the goal instead.

3) Seek specific knowledge.

I ultimately think that everyone should be figuring out what it is that they uniquely do best—that aligns with who they are fundamentally, and that gives them authenticity, that brings them specific knowledge, that gives them competitive advantage, that makes them irreplaceable. And they should just lean into that. And sometimes you don’t know what that is until you do it.

– Naval

Schools teach general knowledge, or knowledge required to do a job. They do not teach how to navigate your own path. They narrow you into one area of study, which by nature does not prepare you to direct your own work through the path of entrepreneurship - or simply doing what you want to do. Self-education is the process of learning what’s necessary to achieve self-generated goals. Again, no hoarding general knowledge to feel like you’re learning. As an example, let’s say I want to learn After Effects - the animation software. It would be stupid to go and watch a bunch of general After Effects tutorials and learn every little thing about the software. Instead, you need a vision for the project you want to build. You start the project with the knowledge you have, and if you don’t have knowledge, then you find a specific tutorial that is as similar to the project you want to create as it can be. Now, since you have a filter (what you want to create), most of the tutorial will be useless, but you will find one little technique that allows you to at least start the project. You apply that and then repeat until you’ve stacked so many techniques that when you go to create your next project, then the next, it becomes easier and easier. Same with learning the guitar or an instrument. You don’t go and study music theory. You choose a song you want to play. Then you learn the first chord of the song. Then the second. Then the third. And eventually you learn to tune it a specific way, and you pick up little hacks that allow you to play better. After learning a few songs, you feel as if you could then create your own simple song. That is how you learn.

The Second Subconscious (Delete Your Note-Taking System)

I’ve tried all the systems before, and I loved them. I started with Roam Research, and it completely changed how I write. I built a knowledge base of potent ideas, and pulled from those every time I sat down to put words on a screen. A few years ago, I even built Kortex, which wasn’t meant to be second-brain software, but that’s what it ended up being before it inevitably failed. Well, it didn’t really fail, but it painfully evolved into Eden, which has become the best tool on the market to find what’s trending on social media (for creators), and capture ideas from anywhere (for creatives). So, I’m not here to say that second brains are useless. I simply think they’re misused. You bookmark and take notes just for them to never be seen again. You quite literally wasted your time thinking you were learning when you could have been actually learning, as we discussed. In the past, people didn’t have a popularized “second brain” that markets well. They had a commonplace book. Marcus Aurelius’ book, Meditations, is essentially a private commonplace book with notes to himself and digested philosophy. It was never meant to be published. Leonardo da Vinci filled thousands of notebook pages with sketches, observations, questions, and borrowed ideas. Mark Twain, H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, Montaigne, Rick Rubin, and many more each had some variation of this. But there is one major difference between the everyday second brain stan and them. Their collection of ideas were fuel for their creations. Their inventions, writing, and music would not be what they are today, and I would go as far as saying you wouldn’t even know who those famous people are if they didn’t have some variation of a commonplace book. When you create something, your subconscious spits out relevant ideas that contribute to the quality of the creation, but it’s still limited in processing power, and sometimes it decides to not help you at all, leaving you in a creative rut. A metaphor that Seneca used was to gather pollen from many flowers, then digest it into your own honey. In modern terms, steal like an artist. This is the antidote to writers block. You don’t have ideas for your writing, content, or videos because you don’t have a repository of ideas to pull from. Every single thing I’ve written in this letter is from articles, videos, social posts, random ideas, and highlights I’ve saved before. I think you get it, but how do we actually build this? How do we create a digital commonplace book, or second subconscious, that we can build throughout our lives that doesn’t turn into a cluttered note-taking app where your ideas go to die?

Step 1) Choose The Right Software, Or Create Your Own AI System

Don’t get breathless about how “smart” AI is. It’s dumber than a sack of wet hammers.

Leverage, instead, its ability to do rapid input and output for simple tasks on large datasets.

– Devon Eriksen

Most note-taking and “second brain” software still require manual upkeep. Some of them have an AI chat tacked on, which is absolutely useful, but they’re missing the most useful application of them all: making it so your ideas don’t disappear into the void - because your creative work depends on your ability to resurface them. You have 2 options here. Our goal is to have somewhere to drop ideas and easily be able to resurface the right ones for our project.

Option 1 - Use a combination like Claude Code + Obsidian to store your knowledge in one place and retrieve ideas with AI Option 2 - Use a software like MyMind or Eden, which auto-tags, categorizes, and embeds your knowledge in “meaning space” so it can connect seemingly unrelated ideas to birth novel insights

There are plenty of tutorials on the internet for option 1. It’s very popular right now because people swapped their precious collection of Notion templates for a collection of Claude skills (a fad that will fade as they all do), but here’s the 80/20 of how to do it yourself:

1. Download Obsidian and Claude
2. Open Claude Code or Claude Cowork and select your Obsidian vault folder on your computer as the folder you’re working in
3. Create a “save an idea” skill - ask claude to create a skill that creates a note in an inbox folder with a clear title
4. Create a “process my inbox” skill - ask claude to create a skill that goes through your inbox folder, add tags, move it to the right folder, and add backlinks to other related notes within the vault
5. Ask Claude to help you define your taxonomy so it knows what tags/categories to use

That allows you to capture ideas, notes, and knowledge into a time-tested note-taking tool. Then, you can ask Claude at anytime to “Search my vault for everything related to [idea I’m writing about].” That works for finding most ideas, but good writing and creative work come from novel connections, not keyword search or the AI brainstorming synonyms to find related matches. If you don’t want to do all of that manually, then you can use a software like MyMind, which allows you to save any link or idea to one big and searchable library. Eden does the same thing (you can capture anything fast into your library), but takes it a step further. When you save a link, like a Substack article or YouTube video, it transcribes it, and allows you to highlight it. Plus, you can integrate with Kindle to pull all previous highlights in - which are potent creative fuel. The way MyMind and Eden differ from Obsidian and Claude is that everything you add to your library is automatically tagged, categorized, and embedded. So you can do the same search that Claude allows you to do, without wasting precious AI usage (Eden also has an MCP if you do want to build and access your knowledge base with Claude.) Plus, if you’re a writer or creator, Eden has an outlier search feed where you can find what social posts are performing in your niche and save them straight to your library. I am not entirely sure if MyMind does this, but with Eden, it also differs in that it can search based on meaning. Obsidian can show you “what’s related,” Eden can show you “what’s nearby” because each idea is embedded with ~1500 numbers that act as GPS coordinates for an idea. They can be found even if they share zero of the same words. This is what allows you to just drop an idea in and forget about it, because you know you will find it exactly when you need it.

It can pull up novel connections without re-searching through your entire knowledge base every time, costing hundreds of thousands of AI tokens. You probably don’t want to maintain a vector database, an embedding API, indexing scripts, re-embedding when notes change, keeping the index in sync when files are renamed or deleted, and caching so you don’t re-pay for unchanged content. All of the tools do this for free, but if you want a true “second subconscious” that you can research while writing, creating, or building projects - Eden may be worth trying out.

Step 2) Capture The Ideas That Best Represent Your Ideal Mind

Now that you have a place to drop ideas without worrying about organization (because you only organize things if you want to find them later, which we just solved), you don’t just dump everything in their. When AI can create anything, curation matters more than ever. You need a curated space for ideas that spark inspiration. The opposite of an endless fire hose of noise we call a social media feed. As a writer, creator, or someone trying to do independent work (meaning you need to build an audience by attracting them to the ideas you put out), people don’t follow you for your content anymore. There’s Google, AI, and plenty of information that can be found at the click of a button. They follow you for your point of view. Your opinion. Your interpretation. Your personality. Your story. And all of those things are downstream of the ideas that compose your worldview. The ideas you use to make sense of the world. As an example, when I get into a conversation about the nature of reality, my mind jumps to ideas about history, integral theory, spiral dynamics, and more - because I’ve deemed these the most useful lens from which I can view that conversation from. It makes the most sense out of the other ideas I’ve heard that tend to fall flat. Those are the ideas you capture. You curate a large set of knowledge that would best represent your ideal mind. Because that’s what your fancy note-taking system was meant to be, right? You just never got around to solidifying those ideas as a part of yourself, usually through the act of thinking, writing, and sharing in public so that you can receive feedback from the market and let the best ideas win. How do you do this? You read more books. You let your curiosity guide you. You reject doomscrolling and embrace curated lists of authors and thinkers who are dedicated to producing good ideas. You make time for “research,” because as a writer or creator, that’s 80% of your job. The rest of your job is just synthesizing that “research” into something that’s beneficial to other people.

Step 3) Build Your Ideal Mind Through The Act Of Creation

Let’s close the loop. We have the system for capturing and retrieving knowledge. But now we need the project to apply it too so that it doesn’t go to waste. And, we still aren’t capturing specific knowledge because we don’t have a reason to learn. We aren’t giving our mind the frame from which it can effectively signal that ideas are important enough to capture, as we discussed. That’s the entire goal we’re after, right? We want to be smarter. We want to retain and remember what we learn. We want to sound articulate. For superficial reasons, maybe, but also because the outcome of our lives depend on the decisions that we make, and our level of smartness and ability to articulate our own value absolutely contribute positively to that. I can’t tell you what to create. But if you’re interested in writing, I can give you a part of my process that recently helped someone else. For something like writing a Substack article, YouTube script, or X article, here’s what I would do:

1. Choose a topic. Obviously. The best topics are the ones that lie at the intersection of performance and excitement.
   • Performance = topics that have already proven to do well. You find these by saving social posts that have gone viral, or using a research tool that allows you to find outlier content and study creator’s top posts. (This article I’m writing now is based on “How to remember everything you read,” a topic that has gone viral more times than I can count, but I applied my own contrarian perspective to it).
   • Excitement = topics and ideas that you want to explore more out of curiosity. Your job is to pair the topic you want to write about (that probably wouldn’t do well on social media) with a topic that has already proven do well, so that you can write about what you want and increase it’s potential to actually gain traction. That’s where most beginners fail.

2. Braindump → Outline → Draft Don’t start writing yet. Writer’s don’t just open one page and then expect all of the ideas to linearly fall into place. Start with a braindump. Write down all potential ideas that could fit under the topic you’re writing. Look through your notes, ideas, and links and add them inside it too. Then, start to add some structure with an outline. Take all the ideas in your braindump and try to fit them into a general storytelling framework: Problem → Insight → Solution. Organize ideas under each of those sections in the outline. Then, have your outline, ideas, and library of knowledge open and ready to pull from as you string together the ideas in the form of an actual draft.

3. Use AI to remove friction, not write for you. I’ll write about my thoughts on AI writing in a future letter, but when I say “don’t use AI for writing,” I’m actually saying “don’t use AI to articulate your own beliefs and opinions.” Now that Substack has their AI writing estimator, people are going to start pointing out how certain accounts use AI in their writing. I’ve had a few point out that some of my articles have AI writing in them. Don’t be dense. Yes, I copy paste straight from AI when providing pure information - like explanations of Greuter’s 9 stages of ego development, the same information you’d get from a Google search. I’m not going to waste my breath trying to rewrite it in my own words, because that doesn’t need to happen. It’s a disservice to myself and the reader. I think there is value in struggling to articulate your own thoughts and beliefs, which is something the anti-AI people can’t seem to do very well as they are kept narrow minded by their new religion. When I say “use AI to remove friction,” I am talking about using it like you would a course or mentor or editor while you are learning the skill.
   • If you don’t know how to structure your article, ask for a list of structures that your ideas could fit into.
   • If you don’t know what to write next, ask for a few directions the article can go.
   • If you don’t understand something, research it, like any writer would in the past with a less efficient method of scouring through the internet for the right information.

All in all, I trust that you have a brain. You are ultimately the one who decides what gets published. If it doesn’t represent the values, ideas, and beliefs you want it to, then refine it until it does. I’ll leave it at that, because I have much more to say that I’ll save for another letter.

– Dan

If you want to write but don’t know where to start, what to write about, or anything about how to grow on social media, consider joining the bootcamp here.

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第二部分：中文翻译（Chinese Translation）

如何记住你读过的所有内容（别试了）

如果你需要记住它，那它就不重要。如果它重要，你自然会记住。 不知为何，记住读过的所有内容成了一种执念。有几百个相关视频，播放量数百万。 人们觉得，如果读过的知识没记住，自己就是个失败者，或者浪费了时间，但这根本不是阅读的意义所在。 首先，你为什么要记住书里的每一个字？ 我知道为什么。 你想显得聪明。 这对你来说是一种无意识的身份象征。 你想用你的口才和智慧打动别人，但你没意识到，显得聪明来自于理解，而不是记忆，而理解需要截然不同的学习方法。学校测试你的记忆能力，这对你也没帮助。你苦学几个小时，只是为了能填出正确答案。但生活不是这样运作的。 我懂。 你想获取知识，以便做出更好的决策，让自己进入更有利的生活状态，拥有更多金钱和权力，这样你就不必为日常生存而担忧。每个人都想要这些，但记忆事实是达到这一目标最无效的方式。 这就是我们首先要讨论的——如何以真正能记住的方式获取知识，从而为自己创造更美好的未来。 然后，我们会讨论为什么你的笔记系统、书签，甚至你珍贵的”第二大脑”（精神自慰者的充气娃娃）基本上毫无用处。

如果你对自我推销过敏，请跳到文章其余部分： 说到第二大脑，我们刚刚在 Eden 中添加了 Library、Reader 和 Highlights。现在，你不仅可以研究创作者的热门内容，找到你的下一个爆款话题（并安排帖子发布），还可以建立一个由 Eden 为你整理的、相互关联的帖子、链接和想法库——并且允许你基于含义而非仅仅关键词进行搜索。 而且，你可以保存任何 Substack 文章、X 文章或 YouTube 视频，阅读转录文本并高亮，这样你就永远不会丢失一个想法。 我们还没有完全公开推广 Eden，但我们的用户一直在说它对创意工作者和创作者来说是多么颠覆性的工具。 在此处免费获得 4 个月使用期和 Creator Bootcamp（通常价值 499 美元）。

如何真正快速学习任何东西

大多数人不知道如何学习。 因为大多数人不知道学习过程是什么。 大多数学习失败的原因是没有负面反馈回路。 这样想吧。 如果你没有塑形的目标（我说的是深层的内在生成目标，而不是为了合群而追求的肤浅目标，比如新年决心），那么一夜豪饮狂欢就不会被视为问题（负面反馈），因为它不会影响你第二天晨跑或健身的不存在的目标。你可以带着宿醉正常上班，因为你根本不在乎工作表现如何。 学习是一个控制论过程。 控制论听起来像是与半机械人有关的东西，但它源于希腊词 kybernētēs，意为舵手或领航员。那个掌舵的人。 选择”控制论”这个词，是因为舵手是反馈系统的完美形象。舵手不只是朝一个方向指一次船，他不断读取当前状态（风、浪、航向），将其与预定航线比较，然后调整。换句话说，这是一个试错过程，而很少有人拥有能让他们注意到生活中错误的方向。 控制论阐明了智能系统的特性。

1. 参考信号（目标） – 系统持有一个目标状态。
2. 传感器（感知） – 系统读取其当前状态。
3. 比较器（差距） – 系统计算目标状态与当前状态之间的差异。这个差异就是误差信号。
4. 执行器（行为） – 系统采取行动以减少误差。

就像恒温器在太冷时打开暖气，或者你的胰腺在血糖升高时释放胰岛素一样。 这很好地揭示了问题所在。 当大多数人尝试学习新东西时，他们专注于内容。他们囤积材料，并试图通过间隔重复、闪卡、课程和学习基础知识来吸收。他们假设学习是一个输入过程。 实际上，学习是一个输出过程，因为输出需要输入。 目标创造了误差信号。 误差信号创造了过滤器。 过滤器创造了相关性（大多数人的头脑充满了噪音和永远不会用到的东西）。 相关性创造了记忆。 一个一生都被训练成拥有”上学然后找工作”这个近乎无意识目标的人，自然会朝那个方向学习和行动。他们被分配的命运必将实现。 一个被深度训练走默认路径的人，甚至不会注意到工作之外的赚钱机会，因为他们的大脑将其过滤掉了。他们出生时被分配的重大人生目标支配着他们的行为和学习。他们是别人理想的傀儡。他们无法掌控自己的生活。 但是，如果你有意识地创建自己的框架，通过确切地知道你不想要什么样的生活，并将其与你想要的生活的不断演变的愿景进行比较，你才能感知何时偏离轨道，注意到错误，纠正前进方向，并作为副产品进行学习。 有道理，但你实际该怎么做？

步骤 1) 沉迷于一个有意义的目标。

让你沉迷的方法是审视你当前的行为，并意识到如果你不改变，你的生活最终会走向何方。 对大多数人来说，这个结果并不美好。 沉浸在那个画面中，让它充满你强烈的情感，并将那种情感能量引导到你生活的更好方向上。 只有这样，你才能真正将你追求的目标与你未来的目标对齐。只有这样，一个有用的学习过程才会开始，这与学校教育相反，在学校里，你的学习是由社会为你设定的方向和目标决定的。 变得极端会改变你的大脑并增强神经可塑性。在我看来，做一个极端的改变比做许多小改变更好。 破釜沉舟。改变你的生活。

2) 不要开始学习。

你想要的生活位于一系列有意义的项目的终点。 你的头脑应该被当作一个项目来对待。你的身体、人际关系和财务状况也是如此。一个项目只是一组结构化的目标和里程碑。一个项目为你的学习创建了一个框架（通过过滤不重要的噪音）。任何不能直接推动项目前进的东西都不值得（现在）学习，因为你反正也记不住。 换句话说，当你想学习新东西时，不要开始学习，而是朝着目标迈出第一步。

3) 寻求特定知识。

我最终认为，每个人都应该弄清楚自己独特擅长什么——那些与自己的本质相符，能带来真实感，带来特定知识，带来竞争优势，让自己不可替代的东西。他们应该专注于这一点。有时，你不做就不知道那是什么。

– Naval

学校教授通用知识，或完成工作所需的知识。 它们不教你如何走自己的路。它们把你局限在一个研究领域，这本质上无法让你准备好通过创业之路——或者仅仅是做你想做的事——来指导自己的工作。 自我教育是学习实现自我生成目标所需知识的过程。重申一遍，不要囤积通用知识来感觉自己在学习。 举个例子，假设我想学习 After Effects——那个动画软件。 去看一堆通用的 After Effects 教程，学习软件的每一个小细节，那是愚蠢的。 相反，你需要对你想要构建的项目有一个愿景。 你用已有的知识开始项目，如果你没有知识，那么你就找一个与你想要创建的项目尽可能相似的特定教程。 现在，因为你有了一个过滤器（你想创建什么），大部分教程将是无用的，但你会发现一个小技巧，至少能让你开始这个项目。 你应用它，然后重复，直到你积累了足够多的技巧，当你去创建下一个项目，再下一个项目时，它会变得越来越容易。 学习吉他或乐器也是如此。 你不会去学习乐理。 你选择一首你想弹的歌。 然后你学习这首歌的第一个和弦。然后是第二个。然后是第三个。最终你学会了用一种特定的方式调音，并且你掌握了一些能让你弹得更好的小窍门。 学会几首歌后，你觉得自己可以创作一首简单的歌了。 这就是你学习的方式。

第二潜意识（删除你的笔记系统）

我以前尝试过所有系统，并且很喜欢它们。我从 Roam Research 开始，它彻底改变了我的写作方式。我建立了一个强大想法的知识库，每次坐下来在屏幕上码字时，我都会从中汲取灵感。 几年前，我甚至构建了 Kortex，它本意不是第二大脑软件，但在它不可避免地失败之前，它最终变成了那样。嗯，它并没有真正失败，而是痛苦地演变成了 Eden，它已经成为市场上寻找社交媒体热门趋势（面向创作者）以及从任何地方捕捉想法（面向创意工作者）的最佳工具。 所以，我在这里不是说第二大脑没用。 我只是认为它们被误用了。 你添加书签、做笔记，结果它们再也不会被看到。你简直是在浪费时间，以为自己正在学习，而实际上你本可以像我们讨论的那样真正地学习。 在过去，人们没有一个被广泛推广、营销得很好的”第二大脑”。他们有一个摘记簿。 马可·奥勒留的书《沉思录》本质上是一本私人的摘记簿，里面有给自己的笔记和消化的哲学。它从未打算出版。 列奥纳多·达·芬奇用素描、观察、问题和借来的想法填满了数千页笔记本。 马克·吐温、H.P. 洛夫克拉夫特、托马斯·杰斐逊、罗纳德·里根、蒙田、里克·鲁宾等等，每个人都有某种形式的摘记簿。 但日常的第二大脑粉丝和他们之间有一个主要区别。 他们的想法收集是他们创作的燃料。 他们的发明、写作和音乐不会是今天这个样子，我甚至敢说，如果他们没有某种形式的摘记簿，你根本不会知道那些名人是谁。 当你创作时，你的潜意识会吐出相关的想法，这些想法有助于提高创作质量，但它的处理能力仍然有限，有时它决定根本不帮你，让你陷入创作低谷。 塞内卡用过的一个比喻是，从许多花朵中采集花粉，然后消化成你自己的蜂蜜。 用现代的话说，像艺术家一样偷窃。 这是写作障碍的解药。你对你的写作、内容或视频没有想法，是因为你没有可供汲取的想法库。这封信里我写的每一件事，都来自我之前保存的文章、视频、社交帖子、随机想法和高亮内容。 我想你明白了，但我们实际如何构建这个呢？ 我们如何创建一个数字化的摘记簿，或者说第二潜意识，它可以贯穿我们的一生，而不会变成一个杂乱无章的笔记应用，让你的想法在那里消亡？

步骤 1) 选择合适的软件，或者创建你自己的 AI 系统

别对 AI 有多”聪明”大惊小怪。它比一袋湿锤子还笨。

相反，要利用它在大数据集上快速执行简单任务的输入输出能力。

– Devon Eriksen

大多数笔记和”第二大脑”软件仍然需要手动维护。 其中一些附加了 AI 聊天功能，这绝对有用，但它们缺少了所有应用中最有用的一个：让你的想法不会消失到虚空中——因为你的创意工作取决于你重新浮现它们的能力。 这里有 2 个选择。 我们的目标是有一个地方可以存放想法，并且能够轻松地为我们的项目重新浮现正确的想法。

选项 1 - 使用像 Claude Code + Obsidian 这样的组合，将你的知识存储在一个地方，并用 AI 检索想法 选项 2 - 使用像 MyMind 或 Eden 这样的软件，它会自动标记、分类，并将你的知识嵌入到”意义空间”中，这样它就能连接看似无关的想法，从而产生新颖的见解

网上有很多关于选项 1 的教程。它现在非常流行，因为人们把他们珍贵的 Notion 模板收藏换成了一堆 Claude 技能（一个会像所有潮流一样消退的时尚），但这里是如何自己做的 80/20 法则：

1. 下载 Obsidian 和 Claude
2. 打开 Claude Code 或 Claude Cowork，并选择你电脑上的 Obsidian 库文件夹作为你工作的文件夹
3. 创建一个”保存想法”技能 - 让 claude 创建一个技能，该技能在收件箱文件夹中创建一个带有清晰标题的笔记
4. 创建一个”处理我的收件箱”技能 - 让 claude 创建一个技能，该技能遍历你的收件箱文件夹，添加标签，将其移动到正确的文件夹，并添加回链到库中其他相关笔记
5. 让 Claude 帮助你定义你的分类法，这样它就知道使用什么标签/类别

这允许你将想法、笔记和知识捕获到一个久经考验的笔记工具中。 然后，你可以随时让 Claude”在我的库中搜索所有与 [我正在写的想法] 相关的内容。” 这对于找到大多数想法是有效的，但好的写作和创意工作来自于新颖的联系，而不是关键词搜索或 AI 头脑风暴同义词来找到相关匹配。 如果你不想手动做所有这些，那么你可以使用像 MyMind 这样的软件，它允许你将任何链接或想法保存到一个大的、可搜索的库中。 Eden 做同样的事情（你可以快速将任何东西捕获到你的库中），但更进一步。当你保存一个链接，比如 Substack 文章或 YouTube 视频时，它会转录它，并允许你高亮它。此外，你可以与 Kindle 集成，拉入所有以前的高亮内容——这些都是强大的创意燃料。 MyMind 和 Eden 与 Obsidian 和 Claude 的不同之处在于，你添加到库中的所有内容都会自动被标记、分类和嵌入。所以你可以进行 Claude 允许的相同搜索，而无需浪费宝贵的 AI 使用额度（如果你确实想用 Claude 构建和访问你的知识库，Eden 也有一个 MCP）。此外，如果你是一个作家或创作者，Eden 有一个异常搜索 feed，你可以在其中找到在你的细分领域表现良好的社交帖子，并将它们直接保存到你的库中。 我不完全确定 MyMind 是否这样做，但 Eden 的不同之处还在于它可以基于含义进行搜索。 Obsidian 可以向你展示”什么相关”，Eden 可以向你展示”什么在附近”，因为每个想法都嵌入了大约 1500 个数字，这些数字充当想法的 GPS 坐标。即使它们共享零个相同的词，也能被找到。这允许你只是放下一个想法然后忘记它，因为你知道你会在需要它的时候准确地找到它。

它可以拉出新颖的联系，而无需每次重新搜索整个知识库，从而节省数十万 AI token 的成本。 你可能不想维护一个向量数据库、一个 embedding API、索引脚本、在笔记更改时重新嵌入、在文件重命名或删除时保持索引同步，以及缓存以避免为未更改的内容重复付费。 所有这些工具都免费提供这些功能，但如果你想要一个真正的”第二潜意识”，可以在写作、创作或构建项目时进行研究——Eden 可能值得一试。

步骤 2) 捕捉最能代表你理想心智的想法

现在你有了一个存放想法的地方，无需担心组织问题（因为你只有在以后想找到它们时才会组织，而我们刚刚解决了这个问题），但你不要把所有东西都扔进去。 当 AI 可以创造任何东西时，策展比以往任何时候都更重要。 你需要一个为激发灵感的想法而设的策展空间。这与我们称之为社交媒体 feed 的无尽噪音消防水带相反。 作为一个作家、创作者或试图做独立工作的人（意味着你需要通过吸引人们关注你发布的想法来建立受众），人们不再因为你的内容而关注你。 有谷歌、AI 和大量点击按钮就能找到的信息。 他们关注你是因为你的观点。你的意见。你的诠释。你的个性。你的故事。而所有这些都源于构成你世界观的想法。你用来理解世界的想法。 举个例子，当我进入关于现实本质的对话时，我的思绪会跳到关于历史、整合理论、螺旋动力学等等的想法上——因为我认为这些是我看待那场对话最有用的镜头。它比我所听到的其他往往站不住脚的想法更有意义。 这些就是你捕捉的想法。 你策划一个庞大的知识集合，最能代表你理想的心智。 因为那正是你花哨的笔记系统本应成为的样子，对吧？ 你只是从未抽出时间将这些想法巩固为自己的一部分，通常是通过思考、写作和在公共场合分享的行为，这样你就可以从市场获得反馈，让最好的想法胜出。 你怎么做呢？ 你读更多的书。让你的好奇心引导你。你拒绝无目的刷屏，拥抱致力于产生好思想的作者和思想家的策展列表。你为”研究”腾出时间，因为作为一个作家或创作者，那是你工作的 80%。 你其余的工作只是将那些”研究”综合成对他人有益的东西。

步骤 3) 通过创作行为构建你的理想心智

让我们闭环。 我们有捕捉和检索知识的系统。 但现在我们也需要项目来应用它，这样它才不会浪费。 而且，我们仍然没有捕捉到特定知识，因为我们没有学习的理由。我们没有给我们的心智一个框架，让它能有效地发出信号，表明某些想法足够重要需要捕捉，正如我们讨论过的。 这就是我们追求的整个目标，对吧？ 我们想变得更聪明。我们想保留和记住我们学到的东西。我们想显得口齿伶俐。也许出于肤浅的原因，但也因为我们生活的结果取决于我们做出的决定，而我们的聪明程度和表达自身价值的能力绝对对此有积极贡献。 我不能告诉你该创造什么。 但如果你对写作感兴趣，我可以给你我最近帮助了别人的一部分流程。 对于像写 Substack 文章、YouTube 脚本或 X 文章这样的事情，我会这样做：

1. 选择一个主题。 显然。 最好的主题是那些位于表现力和兴奋度交叉点的主题。
   • 表现力 = 已经被证明表现良好的主题。 你可以通过保存已经爆火的社交帖子，或使用一个允许你找到异常内容并研究创作者热门帖子的研究工具来找到这些。 （我现在写的这篇文章基于”如何记住你读过的所有内容”，这是一个我已经数不清爆火过多少次的主题，但我应用了我自己的逆向观点）。
   • 兴奋度 = 你出于好奇心想要更多探索的主题和想法。 你的任务是将你想写的主题（可能不会在社交媒体上表现良好）与一个已经被证明表现良好的主题配对，这样你就可以写你想写的东西，并增加它获得关注度的潜力。 这就是大多数初学者失败的地方。

2. 头脑风暴 → 大纲 → 草稿 先不要开始写。 作家不会只是打开一个页面，然后期望所有想法都线性地各就各位。 从头脑风暴开始。写下所有可能适合你正在写的主题的想法。查看你的笔记、想法和链接，也把它们加进去。 然后，开始用大纲添加一些结构。把你头脑风暴中的所有想法拿出来，尝试将它们放入一个通用的故事讲述框架中：问题 → 洞察 → 解决方案。 在大纲中，将想法组织到每个部分下面。 然后，打开你的大纲、想法和知识库，准备好在将想法以实际草稿的形式串联起来时从中汲取灵感。

3. 使用 AI 来消除摩擦，而不是替你写作。 我会在未来的信中写我对 AI 写作的看法，但当我说”不要用 AI 写作”时，我实际上是在说”不要用 AI 来表达你自己的信念和观点”。 既然 Substack 有了他们的 AI 写作估算器，人们将开始指出某些账户如何在写作中使用 AI。我已经有几个人指出我的一些文章中有 AI 写作的痕迹。 别傻了。 是的，当提供纯粹的信息时——比如解释 Greuter 的自我发展 9 阶段，这些信息和你从谷歌搜索得到的一样——我会直接从 AI 复制粘贴。我不会浪费口舌试图用自己的话重写它，因为那没有必要。那是对我自己和读者的不尊重。 我认为努力表达自己的思想和信念是有价值的，这是反 AI 人士似乎做得不太好的一点，因为他们被他们的新宗教束缚了思想。 当我说”使用 AI 来消除摩擦”时，我指的是像在学习技能时使用课程、导师或编辑一样使用它。
   • 如果你不知道如何构建你的文章，请求一个你的想法可以适合的结构列表。
   • 如果你不知道接下来写什么，请求几个文章可以发展的方向。
   • 如果你不理解某事，就去研究它，就像过去的任何作家一样，只是他们用的是效率较低的方法在互联网上搜寻正确的信息。

总而言之，我相信你是有头脑的。 最终是你决定发布什么。 如果它没有代表你希望它代表的价值观、想法和信念，那就完善它，直到它做到为止。 我就说这么多，因为我还有更多要说的，留到下一封信再说。

– Dan

如果你想要写作，但不知道从哪里开始，写什么，或者任何关于如何在社交媒体上成长的事情，考虑在此处加入训练营。