Second brain syndrome: ‘I deleted everything’
What brings someone to delete every note they’d ever had, every thought they’d ever saved? I mean everything
From a post by Joan Westenberg in 2025:
Two nights ago, I deleted everything.
Every note in Obsidian. Every half-baked atomic thought, every Zettelkasten slip, every carefully linked concept map. I deleted every Apple Note I’d synced since 2015. Every quote I’d ever highlighted. Every to-do list from every productivity system I’d ever borrowed, broken, or bastardized. Gone. Erased in seconds.
What followed: Relief.
And on the future, Westenberg adds:
I don’t and I won’t build a second brain. I just want to get a whole lot better at inhabiting the first.
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