Craft Second Brain: A Practical Setup for AI-Assisted Work

A Craft second brain works best when each active project has a short home document connected to source notes and a clear next step. Start with those documents, then add folders and links only when they help you retrieve something you use. Keep the archive useful to you before asking AI to interpret it.

For work that continues across AI apps, fenbs can hold selected project summaries, decisions, and progress outside Craft. You copy the relevant information deliberately; fenbs does not connect to Craft or keep your documents synchronized.

How do you build a useful starting structure?

1. Create a home document called Work today. List only the projects you are actively moving forward, with one sentence about the result each needs.
2. Create a document for each active project. Add its goal, current position, source links, questions, and next action. Use the same headings so you can scan quickly.
3. Create a small reference area for material you expect to reuse. Give each note a descriptive title rather than saving another document called Notes.
4. Use an archive area for finished work. Preserve the final summary and its sources, but remove the project from your active home document.
5. Choose a regular review time. Update the project summaries before reorganizing folders or adding more labels.

Craft supports folders, tags, links, and Collections, which organize repeated information with properties and views. Its organization guide↗ (opens in a new tab) explains those options. You do not need all of them for this setup; use folders for broad separation and a home document for the work you need today.

Imagine you are preparing a proposal for a neighborhood bookstore. One project document can point to interview notes, reference photos, and the latest proposal draft. You should be able to open that document and know what to do next without reading every interview again.

What should go inside each project document?

Put the current answer near the top. A project document is an entry point, so it should say what the project is trying to achieve and where it stands before presenting supporting material. Give historical notes their own place further down or link to them separately.

• Goal: the outcome and who needs it, such as an approved bookstore proposal ready for the owner to review.
• Current position: what exists now, what has been checked, and what is still provisional.
• Sources: links to original notes and documents, with a phrase explaining why each matters.
• Decisions: what a person chose and why, clearly separated from options still under discussion.
• Next action: one specific move that someone can start without another planning session.

Craft documents contain blocks, and blocks can be grouped into pages, as its Blocks and Pages guide↗ (opens in a new tab) describes. Use a separate page for a long interview or research detail when it would otherwise hide the current project summary. Avoid making readers open several nested pages just to find the goal.

Mark the boundary between observation and interpretation. “The owner requested easier event bookings” reports an interview. “A new events page may help” is your proposal. That distinction matters when an assistant later turns the notes into a draft and might otherwise present an idea as an approved requirement.

How should you save references without collecting clutter?

Save a reference when you can explain its likely use. Add the original source, a short explanation in your own words, and the project or question it supports. A useful reference note answers why you kept it; a bookmark alone leaves that work for your future self.

Keep an exact quotation distinct from your explanation, and include enough location detail to find the passage again. For an interview, that could be the meeting date and section heading. For an online document, retain its title and link and record when you checked any fact that may change.

Do not make a separate category for every new topic. If the bookstore research produces one useful accessibility reference, connect it to the proposal first. Build a broader accessibility collection only when several projects actually need it. The general AI second brain guide explains how reusable knowledge differs from active project context.

How do you prepare Craft notes for an AI assistant?

Prepare a small, checked packet for the question you want answered. Include the project goal, relevant sources, approved choices, and remaining uncertainty. Leave unrelated personal notes and old alternatives out. An assistant needs evidence and boundaries more than it needs a large pile of text.

Craft has its own assistant for working with content, including summaries and document changes; see the Craft Assistant guide↗ (opens in a new tab) for available behavior and platform details. Whichever assistant you use, ask it to distinguish source statements from its suggestions. Review the original material before accepting a new claim.

For example, request: “Using this project summary and these interview notes, draft three proposal headings. Identify any requirement you cannot support from a source. Do not treat our unapproved events-page idea as a decision.” That instruction gives the assistant a concrete output and an explicit limit.

An AI brain for ongoing work also needs the current decisions and stopping point; those can live in fenbs while your detailed Craft notes remain their source.

What keeps the system accurate after the first week?

Review active projects by asking what changed, what is now settled, and what someone should do next. Replace the current summary when the answer changes. Keep older meeting notes as evidence, but avoid leaving three competing “current” summaries at the top of the project.

Test retrieval with an ordinary question: “Why did we leave online ticket sales out of the proposal?” If finding the answer requires searching every meeting, add a short decision summary with a source link. If the decision never happened, record the question as open instead of filling the gap with a plausible explanation.

How to do this with fenbs

1. Create a free account, then add the project you already started organizing in Craft.
2. Manually record its goal and current summary in AI context notes. Add selected source references in Links and listings, checking that the intended reader can open them.
3. Record human-approved choices in Decisions and rules. Add tasks for the actual follow-up work, with enough context to understand the next action.
4. Connect a supported assistant from Integrations. Ask it to read the project context before working and save progress before stopping.

A link does not grant an assistant access to a private Craft document. Provide the approved excerpt separately when needed, and maintain the summary when its source changes. fenbs is not the right fit if you only want to write and browse personal documents inside Craft; it becomes useful when an ongoing project needs a record shared by different assistants.

Start with one project and check the next handoff before expanding. Our second-brain collection covers other approaches, while the Workflowy setup offers an outline-based alternative.