Learn the language of personal knowledge

Short, source-attributed definitions for the concepts behind capture tools and knowledge bases, and what changes when the thing you are saving is a post on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube.

• What is a second brain? Definition, the CODE method and PARAA second brain is a trusted place outside your head for the ideas worth keeping. Tiago Forte's CODE and PARA explained, and how saved posts fit in.
• What is a personal knowledge base? Definition and how to keep oneA personal knowledge base is a private, searchable store of what you have learned. The research definition, what belongs in one, and where saved posts fit.
• What is a social media knowledge base?A social media knowledge base turns posts you save on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube into lessons you can find and remember. What it is and how to start one.
• What is spaced repetition? The forgetting curve, the spacing effect and schedulesSpaced repetition brings material back at growing intervals, so each review lands as memory fades. Ebbinghaus, the research since, and a real review schedule.
• What is a zettelkasten? Luhmann's slip-box method explainedA zettelkasten is a box of short, numbered notes linked to each other. How Niklas Luhmann built his 90,000-slip box, and how to feed one from what you save.
• How to remember what you learn on social mediaSaving a post feels like learning it, and the saved list rarely gets reopened. What memory research says helps, and a routine for the posts you save.
• What is the testing effect? Retrieval practice explainedThe testing effect: recalling something from memory makes it last longer than studying it again. The key studies, why it works and how to use it well.
• Why you never look at saved posts againSaving a post feels like learning it, so the saved list grows and stays shut. The collector's fallacy, why rewatching rarely happens, and what helps instead.
• What is active recall? How to study by answering from memoryActive recall means answering from memory before you look. How to do it, the mistakes that turn it back into rereading, and how it pairs with spacing.
• What is the forgetting curve? Ebbinghaus, the replication and what flattens itThe forgetting curve: memory fades fast at first, then slowly. What Ebbinghaus measured in 1885, the 2015 replication, its limits and what flattens it.