Stone on the Second Brain (2026-10-18)

Reflections after reading Westenberg’s “I Deleted My Second Brain.”

Deleting ten thousand notes feels liberating, but I think it’s swinging from one extreme to the other. Neither hyper-complexity nor hyper-minimalism is the answer.

My take is simple: a second brain should have zones. The stuff you use every day sits within arm’s reach, like the open pages on your desk; the rest sinks into storage, there when you need it. Westenberg’s WHAT note is those open pages on the desk — but he threw away all the drawers underneath. When you actually need something from three years ago, it’s gone.

The hard part isn’t how many zones, it’s what goes where and when things move. There’s no standard answer; you tune it slowly, by hand.

One more thing: zones solve “can I find it,” not “what should I keep.” His real problem was the urge to save everything he saw — the act of capturing itself corrupted his thinking. Before putting something in the drawer, ask: “Does this deserve a spot?” That question is curation.

— Stone, 2026-10-18