The Best Chrome Extensions To Power Up Your Second Brain
Discover browser add-ons that enhance Tiago Forte’s Second Brain system, to streamline your digital organization and capture information effectively.
Tiago Forte's concept of building a second brain has revolutionized digital organization.
Since the release of his book “Building a Second Brain” in 2022, many tools have claimed to be the best for organizing your second brain.
Most of these tools use the powerful PARA method to organize your digital life.
PARA, which stands for Projects, Areas, Ressources, Archies, works for everyone, no matter your profession or field, because it organizes information by how actionable it is, not by the type of information.
While Tiago Forte claims his system works with any digital note-taking app and lets you switch between them, we've put together a list of our favorite Chrome Extensions to help you easily apply the powerful Second Brain framework.
These Chrome Extensions aren't meant to be your primary tool for organizing your Second Brain; instead, they're useful add-ons to help you gather information into your digital brain. Forte defines this step as the “Capture” layer in his progressive highlighting method.
In other words, instead of “one app to rule them all,” which was never realistic and is getting even less so, we’ll have dedicated “capture apps” [...] that specialize only in capturing and organizing content, alongside other kinds of apps [...] that specialize in distilling and expressing new ideas.
- Tiago Forte
Here are our top 5 Chrome Extensions helping you to organize your Digital Second Brain:
Web Highlights - PDF & Web Highlighter
Web Highlights is a universal tool that offers many integrations with popular Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) tools like Notion and Obsidian, making it an ideal choice for capturing information into your Second Brain. This productivity highlighter is perfect for websites and PDFs, and it’s free and easy to use without requiring any sign-up.
- Highlights websites and PDFs.
- Save Bookmarks.
- Note-taking.
- Organizes content using tags and full-text search.
- Supports various formats (paragraphs, headings, etc.).
- Allows export to platforms like Notion and Obsidian.
- Offers offline and sync modes.
- Provides daily highlights recap and learning.
- Imports Kindle highlights and notes.
Evernote has been a key player in personal note-taking for many years and remains one of the best tools available. Tiago Forte himself has praised Evernote as a reliable and robust option.
Evernote is in a much better position than I expected
- Tiago Forte
Its Chrome Extension allows for quick and easy saving and capturing of websites into your Evernote space.
- Quick saving of websites into Evernote.
- Robust note-taking and organizational features.
- Reliable performance and trusted by many users.
Pocket is an excellent choice if you’re simply looking to collect websites. It offers the easiest and fastest way to capture articles, videos, and more. With a single click, content is saved and accessible across all devices in a clean, distraction-free space. Pocket serves as a personal, quiet corner of the internet, perfect for spending quality time with content that matters.
- One-click saving of articles, videos, and more.
- Cross-device access in a clean, distraction-free format.
- Easy tagging and organization of content.
- Pocket Premium offers custom fonts, unlimited highlighting, and article listening.
Notion is undoubtedly one of the best PKM tools for organizing your Second Brain, and this extension is perfect for capturing content directly into Notion.
- Saves web articles, emails, tweets, YouTube videos, and more.
- Highlights portions of text directly from the web.
- Maps data to Notion's database properties.
- Captures screenshots and images from the web.
- Offers custom forms for different use cases.
Capacities is hailed by many as the best PKM tool for organizing your digital Second Brain. When used in conjunction with the Web Highlights Chrome Extension, Capacities enables a seamless workflow for saving website URLs, titles, and cover images directly to a Capacities space.
- Direct saving of website URLs, titles, and cover images.
- Smooth integration with Capacities space.
- Streamlines the process of storing and managing online content.
Learn More About The Second Brain Method
If you want to learn more about Tiago Forte's powerful second brain method, check out our articles:
