Welcome to Beast Workflows!

As a reminder, this is a series of expert mini-courses that delve into targeted AI use cases. Here’s the deal:

• Invest just 5-10 minutes per week

• Acquire AI and productivity skills that compound over time

• Transform how you work and live

For more info on Beast Workflows, check out this post.

Let’s dive into this week’s course 👇️ 

What Is It?

A capturing system is a fine-tuned method for collecting, organizing, and storing valuable information and insights that you encounter in your life.

This includes any knowledge asset — an idea, article, video, email, newsletter, etc. that may be of value to you later.

Capturing serves as a foundational element of a “Second Brain” and is discussed at length by productivity guru Tiago Forte in his book Building a Second Brain.

What You’ll Learn Today

• Key components of an AI-powered capturing system

• Our two favorite platforms for capturing (the only ones you need, really)

Why You Should Learn It

• Streamline your workflows with a centralized hub for all your information

• Develop a ‘capturing’ mindset and a simple click-to-capture methodology

• Have AI automatically summarize and tag your captured content

The Bigger Picture

In our opinion, developing a capturing system is also about positioning yourself for the future; it won’t be long before your captured content will take the form of a personal knowledge base that you can chat and interact with in a conversational flow. Best to start now!

Learning to effectively capture ideas and digital information is an invaluable skill.

Yet many people think they can’t start a capturing practice unless they build a complex Second Brain system like this one.

They’re wrong.

In fact, implementing a basic capturing system with AI is easy and will get you 80% of the benefits of a full Second Brain.

But before you start, there are a few key things to understand about capturing as a methodology:

1. Capturing does not mean hoarding digital information

2. It is about making your ideas and the information you consume actionable

3. You should think of captured content as “anything that can be used in the future to solve a problem, save time, illuminate a concept, or learn from past experience,” explains Tiago Forte

4. Implementing a capture system requires being mindful of the information you consume daily and quickly determining its usefulness for future reference. in this sense, it’s almost a kind of mindfulness meditation

An effective AI-capturing system consists of:

• A designated capturing platform: Notion, Obsidian, OneNote, MyMind, Roam Research, etc.

• AI capabilities: Look for a platform that has built-in AI to auto-tag content, surface relationships, and provide smart recommendations

• Integration with other tools: Ability to save content from other apps and services for unified access

• Accessibility: Use mobile apps, offline access, and cross-device syncing for 24/7 availability.

Without a doubt, if you’re new to capturing, picking the right platform will be your biggest struggle

If you want to see the vast array of options available to you, this is a good video.

If you’d rather cut to the chase — our two go-to options at the moment are Notion and MyMind.

We’ve chosen these two because they also serve somewhat opposite personality types.

Notion is more complete and technical, and it suits systems thinkers. MyMind is simple, flexible and ideal for visual thinkers.

Read on to see our breakdown 👇️ 

Using Notion for Capture

Notion has become one of the most popular productivity apps, providing an all-in-one workspace to organize your notes, documents, tasks, and more.

As mentioned, it is particularly well-suited for individuals who prefer systematic approaches.

It offers a level of complexity and customization that allows you to build intricate workflows, databases, and project management systems.

This makes it a powerful platform that you can grow into, using capture as a jumping-off point.

Let’s take a look at a basic Notion capturing setup 👇️ 

Set Up An "Inbox" Database For Easy Capture

Create a new page in your Notion workspace and select "Table" to make a database

Title this database "Inbox" - this will be your central landing spot for capturing content

Add these properties:

• Title (Text)

• Date Added (Date)

• Source (Select) - with options like "Webpage", "Article", "Video" etc

• Notes (Text)

• AI Summary (AI Property)

Install the Save to Notion Browser Extension

The Save to Notion extension for Chrome allows you to instantly clip webpages, images, PDFs, and more directly into your Notion workspace with a click.

Set up a template to auto-populate this "Inbox" database when saving webpages and other content.

Use Notion AI to Summarize Content

You can leverage Notion AI to instantly summarize any articles or webpages you save to your Inbox database.

• Add a new property to your Inbox database called "AI Summary"

• Set the property type to "AI Autofill"

• In the prompt, write: "Summarize the key points from the content of this page in 2-3 sentences"

Now when you save an article using the Save to Notion extension, Notion AI will automatically generate a 2-3 sentence summary in the AI Summary property!

This allows you to quickly review the key information from research papers, news articles, blog posts etc without having to read the full piece.

Using MyMind for Capture

Similar to Notion, MyMind provides an all-in-one workspace to collect, organize, and synthesize information.

However, MyMind is purpose-built for AI capture; all of the content that you save to MyMind is automatically tagged and organized by AI.

It’s also a search-first platform, meaning you can search MyMind using natural language and it will surface content it thinks is related.

While MyMind may initially seem superior to Notion, given its ease of use, it's important to remember that it is a very different product.

MyMind is a flexible capture and search tool. It’s like an advanced bookmark manager backed by AI. Meanwhile, Notion is a complete note-taking and project management software.

Overall, MyMind is ideal for creative work and may lend itself best to visual thinkers.

If you're aiming for simple and effortless content capture, go with MyMind.

Getting Started

• Register for an account to use MyMind's web and mobile apps.

• Install the MyMind browser extension for quick saving of webpages and text highlights.

• Create a new "Inbox" mind map, serving as your central hub for captured content.

• Begin capturing content by clicking the MyMind extension as you browse the web.

For a slightly cheaper alternative, we recommend the all-in-one bookmark manager app Raindrop.

Capturing Like a Beast: Feedly + MyMind + Notion

To take capturing to the next level, you can combine multiple tools. Why not use MyMind for quick capture AND Notion for organizing?

In this video, Riley walks through his capturing system, which combines MyMind, Feedly, and Notion.

Got feedback?

Shoot us an email at [email protected]. We’d love to hear your thoughts on how to improve the newsletter.

Also, we run a recurring segment called Beast Mode Activated.

Here, we will highlight one shining — and ideally jaw-dropping, scroll-stopping — example of someone (or something) going absolutely beast mode using AI.

If you have something worth sharing that fits this description, shoot us an email at [email protected] and include the words “beast mode” in the subject line.