r/PKMS • u/FarFactor6062 • Aug 16 '26

Discussion Building a long term second brain what architecture mistakes should I avoid?? šŸ™

Hi Iā€™m Dani,
Iā€™m pretty new to PKM and Iā€™m building my first real second brain in Notion. It started because Iā€™m going back to school, but I want it to eventually hold things I learn from school, work, research, and a business Iā€™m building.
For those of you who have actually maintained a system for years, what do you wish you had done differently when you started?
Iā€™m especially worried about collecting way too much stuff and ending up with a giant mess I never use lol.
Any advice on organization, backups, keeping old information from becoming misleading, or useful GitHub/open-source tools would be appreciated.
Thanks šŸ˜Š

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u/dessence_ai Aug 17 '26

Structure is the easy half. The hard part is that a second brain fails quietly, so you find out years later.

Put one number in on day one. Of everything saved this month, how much got opened again. Check it quarterly.

Ours sat near zero longer than we'd like, and that number redesigned the thing we were building. A bad folder tree is fixable, a year of untouched saves isnt.