Humans have used technology to augment themselves for generations. One of the more recent iterations of this has been the "second brain", a digital system which helps us collect, store and find information we come across. Such systems help many collate information, hold themselves accountable and stay organised. In future, this data could even serve as a personal context for further augmentation (for instance, using private, locally-running LLMs).
In this talk, I discuss the basic concepts of personal knowledge arrangement, including why we should preserve information about ourselves over time. I also talk about the tools I use for my second brain, namely Plane (plane.so) for personal task tracking and Outline (getoutline.com) for free-form note-taking. In my mind, second brains are the ultimate knowledge arrangement problem, and this talk covers principles for people to consider when building similar systems so it hopefully becomes easier.