My second brain

The problem

Priorities change a lot. Decisions get made in a hallway and forgotten by Friday. A client's preferences live in someone's memory, and that someone is me.

With ADHD, that's not a small inconvenience. A long list of everything that matters just makes me freeze.

What I built

A folder of ordinary text files. No special software. It holds four things:

• PrioritiesWhat matters right now, ranked. A one-page "what's true today" summary is rebuilt every 15 minutes, so it's never a guess.
• DecisionsA running record of what we chose and why, so I don't relitigate it in three months. It's over a thousand lines long now.
• Daily logOne file a day, added to as work happens. I've got more than 120 days of it.
• MemoryShort notes on how I like things done, saved the moment I correct something.

Because it's plain files, any AI tool can read it. Nothing is locked inside one product.

Built for how my brain works

• Short and scannableEverything it tells me is bullets and a bottom line first. Long paragraphs get cut.
• It doesn't chaseIf I ignore something, it doesn't pile on. It waits.

Memory that learns

When I rewrite something the AI drafted, it notices the difference and saves the preference. Next time, it starts from my version.

The time we changed the product

In June, mode40 locked its product into one platform, the Singularity, and retired the older product names.

I changed it in one place. Every tool I use picked it up the next time it read the brain. The rule I follow now: when a fact changes, search for the old one everywhere and fix what depended on it, the same day.

Without that, I'd be re-explaining it to each tool, one at a time.

What it gives me

If you're counting on one person's memory to run important work, you've built something fragile. Mine is written down where I can see it. That's what lets me hand real work to AI and trust what comes back.