We know you love Notion, and we do too! In this post we'll share 100% free Notion templates, which you can click duplicate and use imidiatly, to help build your second brain and help you boost productivity.
But if you're not a designer, building a notion second-brain template from scratch can be intimidating.
That's why we wanted to help you get started with simple, one-page Second Brain Notion template - created by our design team specifically for non-designers. We've laid out all the Second Brain components you'll need to make them easy to rearrange and customize, so all you need to do is fill in the blanks.
Table of Contents
An introduction to Notion and Second brain method
About Notion
Notion is a full-platform, block-based, customizable and flexible software for talking digital notes. It allows users to create and organize their own workflows, collaborate with others and share ideas. Users can create any kind of content they want including text files, tables, documents and even spreadsheets.
Notion is an online productivity platform that allows users to create any kind of content they want including text files, tables, documents and even spreadsheets. Users can also collaborate with other users from around the world as well as share their work publicly or privately.
- It is backed up by the cloud, it is cross-platform and accessible via the web
- I can quickly capture, edit, search, copy and store any type of file, such as notes, import text, images, videos, PDFs, embeds, etc.
- It's easy to add and move information between pages and databases by copying/pasting and dragging and dropping
- I can keep all content private in one place and share a single page for public viewing
- It's highly visual, flexible and minimalist.
About second brain method
The second brain is a way to preserve and manage our knowledge, inspiration, and insights through digital note taking software or a note management system that expands our memory and intellect to better manage and use our knowledge and increase productivity.
PARA is a digital information categorization system that helps us organize the information we encounter every day so that we can better manage our lives. The full name of para is - Projects, Areas of Responsibility, Resources, Archives.
Tiago Forte's famous "Building a Second Brain " course uses four categories to organize all the content in your second brain:
- Projects - multiple tasks associated with a goal
- Areas - areas of activity that require maintaining standards
- Resources - topics or themes of ongoing interest
- Archive - inactive or no longer relevant items
Using Notion's database magic, Areas can contain items and resources to create super useful dashboards for each of the major areas of your life.
Free template 1 - Notion template for second brain
https://lordnote.notion.site/lordnote/Second-Brain-e1d801d5f8c24b45b9117478507e5524
How to use this template, you can follow thses guidelines.
Section Layout
I like the layout of this notion template, all the big sections are arranged from top to bottom. It looks very straightforward and easy to use. In this second brain template, the sections are divided into knowledge hub, actions, Projects, Areas, resources, Archive, Idea Capture.
As we said, a very important theory for building a second brain is the 'PARA' theory - Projects, Areas of Responsibility, Resources, Archives - and these four sections are clearly divided in this template.
About Area section
You can see that I have divided this section into Personal Area and Business Area, which is about my own thinking about responsibility in life. Sometimes you need to separate your personal life from your work and business, and not mix them up.
It's tough to separate your personal life from your work career. In fact, for many people, the two are so intertwined that they can't even imagine a time when But there are times when you need to make that separation-especially if you want to be successful in both areas of your life. of your life.
Fully automated generation
At the top of the page you can see that the knowledge hub is divided into different areas depending on the tag, such as Books, Guides, Online courses, Tweets, and this helps you to sort the notes from different sources.
What's even better is that these categories are automatically generated. You just need to check the appropriate tag when taking notes, and the notes will be classified into different categories and displayed at the top of the knowledge hub page for you to view.
You can add or subtract tags, customize them, and add your own categories as you see fit.
Free template 2 - Notion template for second brain
https://lordnote.notion.site/lordnote/Second-Brain-5b14622aa73b422889a3a0f0b0bb2ced
How to use this template to build your second brain in Notion, you can follow thses guidelines.
Tasks
In this notion template, tasks are my main focus, you can use it like a to do list and list the tasks in your schedule here, which is a very effective way to manage your time. This allows you to see what you need to accomplish today and what you haven't done yet.
Calendar
The calendar is placed in a large area, so you can easily see your short-term and long-term goals at a glance. Useful for your daily schedule.
Section
I use the '5A' taxonomy here, categorizing notes into, Areas, Actions, Assets, Archive and Allotment, which is a little different from the 'PARA' approach we use in Building the Second Brain, but you can of course customize the page as you see fit. There is no limit to how much you can customize the page.
Your won template - Notion template for second brain
The notion template customized to your habits is the best for you.
There's no one-size-fits-all template for success.
You have to do what works for you, and that means not trying to copy someone else's habits.
If you're looking for a new way to stay motivated and productive, try this: Make a list of all the things that make your life easier. Then, when you're feeling like nothing is working, go back to this list and remind yourself that there's a way out of the chaos.
For this reason, I have added two areas to my notion, a "Knowledge Center" (Capture) and a "Notes" area.
The "Knowledge Center" (Capture) - which works well with the Notion Web Clipper - serves as a single place to store all the articles, emails, and pages you find on the web.
"Notes" area - a place to capture ideas and refine your intake through a progressive summarization process.
You can try and build your own second brain Notion templates given looking at the two examples above. Be sure to let me know if you successfully build it.
Notion Template Ideas for Bulding a Second Brain
Here are some screenshots of images of notion pages. I didn't find a corresponding Notion template about how everyone is using notion to build a second brain. When I was investigating online, I found that there are many excellent examples of notion building second brains, they look creative and the layout is very worthwhile.
You can refer to these images below.
Idea 1 - Dashboard
In this Notion template, I see he put the dashboard on the front page and tasks at the top, which is good for reminding the most urgent tasks to be done today. I saw that he used a dark theme, which can give your eyes a good rest. Also I noticed that he used the 'PARA' method from Building the Second Brain to name the folders on the left. I also like the overall color scheme.
Idea 2 - Main Page
The design of this template is quite simple, but I really like this minimalist design. This is his BASB mian page, on which four pages of the 'PARA' method are placed. Maybe this template doesn't have fancy design, but at the same time this template becomes simple and clear at a glance.
I noticed that there is a mindsweep option here, so you can use the GTD method to do a sorting of your ideas, which is a good design.
Idea 3 - Resource Page
This is a Resource page, Resource represents the R in the 'PARA' method of building a second brain, the content in the resource page can be used to provide help or reference for your work at hand, or future plans.
So the Resource page must be well categorized. I like the way this page is categorized, first he categorizes it from time to time, into today and last week, so you can see which notes are the new ones you added recently. Then he divides the notes into different tags like books, Articles, Videos, etc., which makes it easy to find.
conclusion
I hope you’re as excited about this template as I am. It has been so much fun to build, and I can’t wait for you to use it.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment below! I love hearing from you! And if you have made a template that works well, please write me an email or comment below.