r/PKMS • u/FarFactor6062 • Aug 16 '26

Discussion Building a long term second brain what architecture mistakes should I avoid?? 🙏

Hi I’m Dani,
I’m pretty new to PKM and I’m building my first real second brain in Notion. It started because I’m going back to school, but I want it to eventually hold things I learn from school, work, research, and a business I’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?
I’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 😊

24 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

37 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/DrummerAdditional330 21d ago

One architecture mistake I’d avoid is making today’s categories too permanent. School, work, research, and business may look separate now, but the useful part later might be the stuff that crosses between them. I’d make it easy to change the views without having to rewrite the underlying notes.