I use NotebookLM as a second brain, and I wouldn't have it any other way

Here's the thing: I have the memory of a goldfish but juggle a lot simultaneously. This combination is, well, a complete disaster without some kind of support system. I've tried creating to-do lists to track every single aspect of my life, using personal knowledge management tools like Notion and Obsidian, and even tried setting endless reminders on my phone. But, none of it really stuck. Everything either felt too scattered or just too overwhelming to maintain.

Though I'm not too big on AI tools yet, since a lot of them aim to pull the creativity out of tasks, one tool that's genuinely convinced me that AI can be a game-changer for productivity is NotebookLM. The tool is easy-to-use, has features that genuinely speed up my workflow and help me interact with information better, and I don't need to pay a hefty subscription fee since the free version is good enough.

Naturally, I thought, "Hey, why not try throwing all my chaos into it and see what happens?" Turns out, that was the smartest move I could’ve made. It's the closest thing I've found to having a second brain, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

NotebookLM helps me borrow ideas and make them mine

A second brain is essentially a productivity system that I first heard about from Ali Abdaal's YouTube video. He explained that, over time, you build a digital note-taking system where you add thoughts, ideas, resources, and everything else you might want to remember later. The overall idea of offloading bits of your brain into a digital system really stuck with me, especially since I’m someone who forgets things almost as soon as I think of them. So, I started testing different tools that could help me build that kind of system, but none of them really clicked long-term. That was the case until I tried NotebookLM.

In Ali Abdaal's video explaining the fundamentals of a second brain, he mentioned that the very first fundamental of building a second brain is borrowed creativity. What he essentially said was that creativity isn't about coming up with something original from scratch. Instead, it's about taking existing ideas, adding your own perspective, and combining them in new interesting ways. What makes NotebookLM an excellent tool for this is the fact that it's source-grounded.

If you aren't familiar with what that means, source-grounded AI tools only respond based on the documents and information you provide. So, NotebookLM only uses the sources you upload to a notebook to respond to any queries you may have. Ultimately, instead of giving generic or potentially inaccurate answers from across the internet, NotebookLM only references content you've already uploaded.

NotebookLM can then help put bits of information from all the content in my notebook together to help me create something new, or at least spark a connection I wouldn’t have made on my own. It’s like having a thinking partner that actually knows what I’ve been reading and working on, because I fed it all that context myself.

NotebookLM can store the thousands of ideas my brain can’t

Ali Abdaal also explained "The Capture Habit" principle in his video. He said that our brains are meant for having ideas, not for storing them. Ultimately, it's best to "capture" any ideas that resonate with you as soon as you can, since your brain won’t hold onto those ideas for too long. And for people like me who have the memory of a goldfish, this principle couldn’t be more relevant. I come across ideas all the time, while scrolling on Instagram, watching a video, mid-conversation, or even during a shower, and if I don’t jot them down somewhere immediately, they’re gone.

With NotebookLM as my second brain, I still need to jot them down somewhere, but fetching them later becomes a lot easier. Instead of digging through random note apps, screenshots, or sticky notes, I can just upload everything to a notebook and let NotebookLM surface what I need, when I need it.

For instance, I've recently been creating a bit of tech content on Instagram, and I always have a list of half-baked ideas saved in Google Docs. I’ve simply uploaded the document I constantly update to a NotebookLM notebook, and all I need to do is hit one button to sync the latest version of the document. Whenever I need inspiration or want to create a new video, but I am blanking on an idea, I just ask NotebookLM to help me pick.

Sometimes, I explain the kind of vibe I'm going for, whether it’s something light and funny or more informative and newsy, and NotebookLM pulls a few relevant ideas from my doc that fit the tone. Other times, I ask it to connect two half-baked concepts I’ve written down, and it helps me shape them into something that’s actually post-worthy.

Using NotebookLM as a second brain actually keeps my ideas moving

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The issue with storing my ideas offline or in a tool isn’t always the fact that I’ll forget about them. It’s that they just sit there. Untouched. Unused. I might write something down with the intention of coming back to it later, but if it’s buried in some random folder or 40 notes deep in an app, I probably never will.

Since NotebookLM is powered by AI at the end of the day, if everything I’d like to remember is accessible within the same notebook, I’m a lot more likely to actually act on it. And if the idea has been sitting for a while and I don’t remember much about it, NotebookLM can help with that too, as long as I entered some sort of description.

A lot of the ideas I upload tend to come from YouTube videos too, and since I use NotebookLM to consume videos, it becomes even easier to extract key points or revisit something that stood out. At the end of the day, the most important part of listing down ideas I have is actually making something out of them. And that’s exactly what NotebookLM helps me do. Instead of just storing my thoughts for later, it helps me bring them back to life.

NotebookLM’s the only tool that keeps my second brain alive

Keep in mind that the idea here isn’t to let AI do all the thinking or automate creativity. Instead, it’s to use NotebookLM as an extension of my second brain and something that helps me think better, not less.