If you are googling "Second Brain Template for Notion", chances are you find yourself in a bit of indecision. Which second Brain is the best? Which one worth my money? In this article I compared some of the most popular Second Brain templates, based on features, functionality, ease of use, price and adherence to the Second Brain methodology.
First, let's see what a Second Brain is and how a Notion template can help you build your own Second Brain.
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What is a Second Brain?
The concept of a "Second Brain" was popularized by productivity expert Tiago Forte. It is essentially a system designed to help you manage and store information, tasks, and ideas in the most effective way possible. This concept has rapidly become popular as the ultimate productivity and knowledge management tool. The idea is that by offloading your mental clutter into a reliable, organized digital space, you can improve focus and become more creative and effective in both your personal life and professional work.
A Second Brain is not just a tool or an app but rather a comprehensive system. Over the years, enthusiasts of this system have used multiple tools, apps, and workflows to build their Second Brain. Notion, with its flexible and customizable interface, interconnected databases, and easy learning curve, has quickly become the go-to, all-in-one app for those who want to build their Second Brain.
The abundance of available templates can make selecting the best one challenging. While no template can build a Second Brain for you, the right template can assist in the process, while the wrong template can slow you down. The purpose of this blog post is to review the most popular templates to help you decide which one is worth your money.
The Purpose of Building a Second Brain
As our purpose is to find which Second Brain for Notion will aid in the process of building your Second Brain, it is worth reminding ourselves of the true purpose of the Second Brain system. Before determining the best value out there, let's explore what the specific purpose of these tools is. With this information in mind, we can later discuss other factors like ease of use, customization, features, design and aesthetics, and finally, price and value for money.
Second Brain System
Let’s reference Tiago Forte’s "Building a Second Brain" course to understand what we are discussing here. A Second Brain is effective when:
A Second Brain is a good Second Brain when:
- You can find anything you’ve learned, written, or thought about in the past within seconds.
- You have a place to save your best thinking.
- You spend more time doing and less time looking for things.
- You create a digital environment that promotes clarity.
- Non-actionable items (such as ideas, notes, resources, and bookmarks) are easy to retrieve to make actionable items (tasks, projects) easier to accomplish.
- It assists you in processing and streamlining your workflow.
- You have a space to offload your mind, so you can become more creative.
- You use the PARA Method to organize your tasks and ideas.
- It promotes output and prioritizes action, making it both action-driven and task-driven.
Since the purpose is to save time, become more productive, work in tandem with our brain (not against it), and improve our output in what matters to us, there are some features we will take into account:
- Features & Functionality
- Design, Usability & User Experience
- Support & Tutorials
- Look & Aesthetics
- Price & Value
- Mobile
- Extras
Selected Second Brain Templates
There are many Second Brain templates available for Notion. Here, we have selected some of the most popular and comprehensive options for comparison:
- Easlo Second Brain
- Thomas Frank Second Brain
- Pathpages (Formerly Notionway) Second Brain
- Notion Avenue Ultimate Second Brain
Easlo Second Brain Review
Easlo, one of the first Notion template creators, has the advantage of being both a pioneer in the space and one of the most popular creators. The version of the Second Brain I’m going to explore is the latest. Let’s see if this template stands up to other competitors.
Overall
Easlo's template is minimal yet generous, offering a comprehensive collection of databases and dashboard extras. It includes everything you’d expect from a Second Brain, such as the PARA Method, a GTD-based task management style, and a Quick Capture button.
The dashboard comes with a navigation column featuring all the pages and databases, divided into sections like Quick Capture (with buttons), Dashboards (PARA, GTD, Notes), Productivity (Inbox, Tasks, Projects, Goals, Area, Event), and Knowledge (Notes, Notebooks, Highlights, References, Topics, Archive). It also includes a Wishlist and Book Tracking database.
The main dashboard provides a view of your Tasks, Projects, Areas, and Notes. The template is well interconnected, with Projects linked to Areas and Resources. It also comes with support and video tutorials. In the past, Easlo has been criticized on Reddit for lacking customer support, but it seems that he has gotten more serious by offering a support community as well.
Design & Usability
Aside from the template's minimal aesthetic, which I find a bit flat, it is definitely intuitive to use. However, I don't like the complete absence of visuals that could make the template more polished while still maintaining its minimalism. In my opinion, this would allow for more customizability.
I'm also not a fan of using a column for the navigation bar, as that rarely translates well on smaller screens. Mobile usability becomes a significant issue because everything on the right side of a Notion template is displayed first, forcing you to scroll extensively to find your daily tasks.
Conclusion
The Easlo Second Brain is a solid template. It’s intuitive and built for simplicity. It has great reviews and a solid selling history, making it a good choice for those who want to build a Second Brain.
Cons: The navigation bar is not my favorite choice and will work even worse on mobile. The design can feel a bit plain and boring in my opinion and doesn't offer any "smart" features or ingenious ways to use Notion that will enhance it.
Pros: Easlo is very dedicated to this product and consistently tries to implement better solutions. The price is in range with other Second Brain templates: $79 for the basic version and $99 for the premium version, which comes with access to the support community and future updates. Easlo never offers discounts on this Second Brain, so the price is fixed at a minimum of $79.
Thomas Frank Second Brain Review
Thomas Frank is another big name on this list. Before becoming the number one Notion educator on YouTube, Thomas had a channel with 1 million subscribers focused on productivity and self-development. Thomas Frank's Second Brain is more colorful, making use of many of the text editor customization options in Notion, including emojis and frequent use of the gallery view.
Features
The dashboard comes with a view of the Task Manager, some Quick Links, and a Scratchpad. A one-line navigation bar at the top of the page allows you to navigate to Notes and Tasks. There is a solid PARA system, a GTD®-style processing setup, and a Daily Planning dashboard. Here you can see your upcoming tasks database, but you also have some to-dos and events written as checkbox elements inside a callout.
While it is true that sometimes it may be useful to jot down some tasks for the day, I wonder if that would not cause some friction and confusion when deciding where to add the task. Should it be a database entry or a to-do list item? The daily page also has a checkbox for self-care items, which raises the same doubt for me. Wouldn't it be better to have a self-care habit tracker?
The Daily Journal is definitely an appreciated addition to the template, as it's something that's usually not present in a Second Brain but more in a Life Planner template. Projects are interconnected with tasks and notes, so it's easy to retrieve all the relevant information for a specific project you are working on.
All the standard dashboards of a Second Brain are present: Tasks, PARA, and Notes. Additionally, there are two extra dashboards for Recipes and Books. A book section is a perfect fit in a Second Brain, but I'm not sure of the value a recipes dashboard can add unless you are a chef, of course.
Nothing needs to be said about the support, as Thomas has a full team working with him. If you get stuck, you will receive support very quickly.
Design & Usability
I'm a designer and artist, and I have to say I don't really like the design and overall aesthetic of Thomas Frank's Ultimate Brain. Of course, this is just a personal opinion. There are some tweaks that would make the template sleeker, like a cohesive color scheme or visual choices.
From the user experience side, I think the horizontal navigation at the top, with more entry points as hyperlinks on the page, is a better solution than the navigation column used by Easlo. On the other hand, the extensive use of gallery view can make it easy for users who prioritize aesthetics to customize and create their own unique template from this.
Mobile
On mobile, the first section visible is, of course, the navigation menu, starting with the Quick Capture button. This is not a bad mobile version, as I think most users will use their Second Brain to capture information rather than explore its content. However, I would prefer users to have a quick way to see their daily tasks on the go. But let's face it: Notion Mobile is not great, so that's not the creator's fault.
A solution to maximize device usability would be to have specific pages optimized for mobile, where users can both see their daily tasks, notes, or projects and also have quick capture functionality, like the one implemented in Notion Avenue's Second Brain.
Conclusion
Like Easlo's, Ultimate Brain is a robust template built by a capable creator. I do find that some sections, like the Daily Page, can lead to friction or confusion if users need to think about where they should put their tasks (to-do list or task database), but I understand the choice.
The price is the highest you'll find in this comparison, standing at $129, and again, there are never any discounts available. The template does come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, which is a big plus. Additionally, you can build this exact template completely from scratch by following a Thomas Frank tutorial.
Pros: Designed by a productivity & Notion expert, full customer support, tons of features, advanced task management system.
Cons: A bit pricey. The design and style is not aesthetic.
PathPages (Notionway) Second Brain Review
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Another popular creator is PathPages, formerly known as Notionway. PathPages has a big social media following, primarily on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). Here, let's see what this Second Brain template has to offer.
PathPages' founder is a former UX designer, and it shows. The design is minimal but better designed and more polished than Easlo, in my opinion. This Second Brain is definitely less generous than the first two, not having any extra dashboards like Easlo and Thomas Frank do. The Second Brain foundation is there: Inbox, Task Management, Goals, Notes, PARA (Project, Area, Resource, Archive).
In the dashboard, you find the Area section and Quick Capture (with quick access to the inbox), where you can add tasks, notes, resources, and projects. Next, there are the Goal Database and the Project Database with only the timeline view. To see your project by status or different filters, you need to navigate to the project database itself. The Task section has a calendar view that makes it easy to reschedule tasks visually, followed by a list view with Today, Upcoming, and Overdue tabs. Next, we have the Resources section, followed by the Notes section.
Navigation is intuitive. I like how sections on the dashboard have quick navigation to the corresponding database or pages. There is also a Navigation page that includes all the pages in the template that can be pinned so each page can be accessed from the Notion sidebar if you want.
The template includes a recap section called Review to help you declutter the space. This is a good addition. Unfortunately, I thought this was an actual Review System with Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly Review workflows with guided prompts and filtered databases to assess your progress, like the GTD® Style Weekly Review, but this wasn't the case.
Design & Usability
I already said I like the design and overall aesthetic of this Second Brain. The navigation is well designed and intuitive. My main problem with this Second Brain is that the order in which the sections and features are placed in the dashboard doesn't make sense. The main objective of the Second Brain is to increase output (i.e., become more productive) by blending knowledge management and productivity in a sweet spot. So you would think that the most accessible and prioritized sections would be tasks, quick capture, and projects. But in this template, the first section is instead Area, one of the least actionable parts of the PARA Method (only followed by Archive). This means that the user is forced to scroll way down to even see their daily tasks, the most actionable items, making the process time-consuming. If the purpose of the template is to aid and provide more structure to productive endeavors, the design is a miss for me.
Mobile
The dashboard design issues I explained before become even more of a problem with smaller devices, as the first and only thing you will see when opening the template on mobile is the Area section. The Quick Capture section is also poorly designed and feels clunky.
Conclusion
PathPages' Second Brain delivers what it promises: a Second Brain template for Notion that is easy to use and navigate, with all the fundamental features. It is the cheapest Second Brain on this list, always selling at a 40% discount from its declared price, at $77. Of the templates reviewed, it is the least generous in terms of features.
It has some good intuitions in the navigation, but the design choices of the dashboard leave me with the impression that this template misses the main purpose of a Second Brain, such as promoting productivity and prioritizing actionable items. A in depth understanding of the Second Brain system would probably have informed better decision on how to prioritize sections of the system.
Like the other templates on this list, there is customer support included and future updates. It does offer a Foundational Course on Notion, but this can be found for free on the YouTube channel, so it doesn't add any true value to the offer.
It also lacks a 30-day Money Back Guarantee, making it the worst value-for-price pick for a Second Brain on this list.
Pros: Affordable, minimal & polished look.
Cons: Lack of 30-day Money Back Guarantee. Dashboard is not well though in its structure.
Ultimate Second Brain by Notion Avenue
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And finally, we have the underdog on this list: the Second Brain designed by Notion Avenue, created with the ambitious goal of overthrowing the previous Second Brain templates from the most popular list. (A bold attempt! 🦸)
Overview
Let's start with the features. Ultimate Second Brain offers everything that the other four templates share: Quick Capture, Inbox, Tasks, Goals, PARA (Project, Area, Resource, Archive), Notes, and Bookmarks. However, it also includes even MORE features. This template comes with a GTD®-style Review System (with weekly and monthly reviews), three workflows designed to streamline and improve your processes, a Habit Tracker, and a Mobile Dashboard.
Navigation
The navigation system in this Second Brain template is expanded and enhanced, making it easier to manage all the features and tools included.
The navigation menu in this template stands out from others, as it is embedded inside a toggle, allowing you to quickly collapse or open it based on your needs. This feature not only contributes to faster loading times but also creates a more elegant and efficient dashboard that translates well to the mobile version. The navigation can be easily customized, offering gallery views and images for those who prefer a more aesthetic template, or a simple column for minimalists. In addition to the navigation bar, you can easily move across the template using the Navigation page, the sidebar with Notion’s new table of contents feature, or links from the dashboard. Each page includes a top and bottom return icon, enabling you to quickly navigate back to the main dashboard with just one click.
Dashboard
The core of the Second Brain template is designed to be your command center, allowing you to access all features of the template on the go. After the collapsible navigation bar, you'll find your inbox clearing button and easy access to your workflow. Next is the Productivity section, which includes a Quick Capture area and Task management, designed to reduce friction and information overload by showing only the next tasks on your list.
This area is followed by a weekly and monthly calendar, so you can view your tasks more visually and easily reschedule them by dragging and dropping. Next to the calendar view, you'll also find your habit tracker. After that, you have your less actionable sections, with an overview of your Projects and Goals. Your resources are just below, with easy access and an overview of your notes, books, and watchlist, smartly inserted into a toggle to maximize loading time and reduce information overload.
In the footer, you'll find the instruction and setup page, the mobile page, and the navigation bar page. It’s a good idea to add these to your favorites for quick access.
Workflows
Notion Avenue’s Second Brain template is the only one that comes with pre-built workflows. Workflows are pre-designed pages that streamline certain sequences of tasks or activities, organized and managed to achieve specific outcomes or goals. They provide a structured approach to executing processes, ensuring each step is carried out logically and that resources are utilized efficiently. In the template, you'll find workflows for both productivity and knowledge management.
The Knowledge Management workflow is inspired by Tiago Forte’s Second Brain Method, specifically the CODE (Capture, Organize, Distill, Express) framework, as well as the Zettelkasten Method (the predecessor of the Second Brain method). For getting more things done, you can use the Plan workflow to turn goals into projects and then into tasks.
To organize your knowledge, you can use the Process workflow, which allows you to structure everything by adding relations, information, details, and more. Additionally, the Connect & Distill Method can be employed to link your knowledge, distill ideas you’ve explored, or content you’ve consumed. This method provides the right setup to enhance your knowledge and boost creativity.
Notion Second Brain Features
Dashboard: A minimalist dashboard providing quick access to your Second Brain, eliminating distractions and allowing easy navigation.
Quick Capture: Instantly capture thoughts, ideas, and tasks with one click, ensuring nothing is forgotten.
Inbox: A dedicated space to quickly jot down thoughts, tasks, and ideas, to organize later.
PARA (Project, Area, Resource, Archive): Organize your life with the PARA method, categorizing everything for easy access and clarity.
Project Manager: Manage and track your projects, linking related tasks and resources for seamless execution.
Tasks Manager: Streamline your to-do list, set deadlines, and monitor progress to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
Goal Tracker: Define, track, and achieve your goals with clear objectives and progress monitoring.
Resource: Store and organize essential resources, bookmarks, and references in one place for easy retrieval.
Notes: Capture and expand your ideas into structured notes, linking them to projects and resources.
Notebook/Collection: Organize and group your notes, ideas, and references into collections for easier navigation and deeper insights.
Books: Track, summarize, and gather insights from your readings, building a personal knowledge library.
Watchlist: Manage and distill insights from movies, shows, and videos, turning consumption into knowledge.
Bookmarks: Save and organize important web pages, articles, and resources for quick access.
Reviews: Reflect on your progress with built-in review templates, optimizing your strategy for future success.
Habit Tracker: Monitor and visualize your habits, helping you build consistency and achieve personal growth.
Plan Workflow: Turn goals into actionable steps with an integrated planning workflow, simplifying task and project management.
Process Workflow: Organize and process information efficiently, keeping your Second Brain tidy and functional.
Connect & Distill Workflow: Seamlessly link notes, resources, and ideas to distill key insights and deepen your understanding.
Setup Page: A guided setup page to help you personalize and configure your Second Brain quickly.
Mobile Page: Optimized for mobile devices, ensuring your Second Brain is accessible and functional on the go.
Navigation Page: Intuitive navigation structure to help you move through your Second Brain with ease.
Design & Usability
The design is minimalist, polished, and aesthetic, with a key focus on customization. By using the gallery view for the navigation bar, it’s incredibly easy to transform the template from minimalist to aesthetic by simply adding your own covers and personal style. The template includes both dark mode and light mode cover styles for the navigation bar, making it easy to switch between them using the gallery layout.
Designed with the user in mind, this template is structured around Second Brain principles, ensuring that you can always find what you need without feeling overwhelmed by random information.
Mobile
The template is optimized for both laptops and desktops, but I also considered mobile users, as I have a habit of quickly capturing things on the go or checking my daily tasks from my smartphone. In addition to a mobile-friendly navigation bar, the template differs from Easlo’s by displaying key features immediately when you open it on your phone—not just the navigation bar. This design minimizes scrolling and saves time. The mobile dashboard gives you access to the most relevant parts of the template on the go, such as Quick Capture or your upcoming tasks.
Conclusion
Ultimate Second Brain is the most comprehensive and generous on this list. It has every features you need, nothing you don't need. The addition of the habit tracker, make it a more powerful system to stay accountable, while the three unique workflows make this template a system that guide you in the process of building a Second Brain, and doesn't give you a nice template to fill with random information. It also included a detail video tutorial and a setup page to help you start using the template in 5 minutes.
Pros: The most comprehensive system, strong adherence to Second Brain, Para and Code Method Philosophy, workflows, 30 day Money Back Guarantee,
Cons: The least popular on the list, not many review yet.
Notion Second Brain Template Features Comparison
In this chart you can compare the four Second Brain for features, extra, support and price.
Conclusion
When deciding which Second Brain template is best for you, it's important to consider your specific needs and preferences. Each template reviewed offers unique strengths:
- Ultimate Second Brain by Notion Avenue delivers the most comprehensive and feature-rich experience, with built-in workflows, an habit tracker, and mobile optimization, full support, video tutorial and 30 day Money Back guarantee making it an excellent choice for users who want a guided and all-inclusive system to build their Second Brain.
- Easlo’s Second Brain is a solid, minimalist choice with a straightforward design and comprehensive dashboard, though it may feel a bit plain and lacks mobile optimization.
- Thomas Frank’s Ultimate Brain stands out with its rich features and strong support, but its higher price point and potential for user friction in task management might be drawbacks for some.
- PathPages (Notionway) Second Brain offers an affordable and polished option, though it lacks depth in features and a 30-day money-back guarantee, making it less appealing for those seeking a fully-fledged system, and don't like to invest in a product without guarantee.
Ultimately, the best template for you will depend on how much guidance you need, how important mobile usability is, and which features you prioritize in a productivity system.
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