I Deleted My Second Brain
Source: joanwestenberg.com
In this reflective essay, Joan Westenberg recounts her decision to delete over a decade’s worth of meticulously organized digital notes, quotes, and productivity systems—the so-called “second brain” stored across tools like Obsidian and Apple Notes. Initially built to amplify memory and clarity, this knowledge archive had come to feel more like a mausoleum of outdated thoughts and identities. Rather than enhancing creativity, it fossilized her curiosity and delayed genuine reflection.
Westenberg critiques the personal knowledge management (PKM) movement for overpromising coherence and underdelivering on lived understanding. Drawing parallels with Borges’ “Library of Babel,” she warns how total capture can lead to existential clutter. Instead of aiding thought, her digital vault encouraged deferral, emotional detachment, and performance-driven productivity.
She also questions the metaphor itself: the brain isn't an archive—it thrives on forgetting, improvisation, and embodied context. Tools like Obsidian, while powerful, risk turning reflection into mechanical processing. By deleting her entire archive, Westenberg embraces a freer, more embodied intellectual life—one grounded in trust that what matters will naturally resurface. Her new approach is minimal: one simple note, lived ideas, no performance—just presence.