Everything you need to set up the two engines you built in the workshop: your Second Brain, and an AI that thinks like you. Grab the tools, follow along, and watch it get built.
You only need a handful of apps. Install these first and you're ready for everything that follows. You don't need to be technical, and you don't need all of them on day one. Start with the first one.
Your command center: the AI that reads your files, builds your second brain, and does the real work. Both engines get installed right here.
Download ClaudeA second AI to think out loud with, draft quick things, and run fast research. Good to keep next to Claude so you always have a second opinion.
Download ChatGPTOpenAI's version of Claude Code. Your second brain is built to work in both, so if one tool is ever down or stuck, you can hand the same job to the other and keep moving.
Get CodexDictate instead of typing: speak your ideas, notes and prompts and they appear as clean text. The fastest way to feed your brain without sitting at a keyboard.
Get Wispr FlowA clean window into your second brain. Your files are simple notes, and Obsidian turns them into a connected, searchable web you can browse any time.
Download ObsidianAn always-on helper that runs jobs for you in the background, even when your laptop is closed. This one is more advanced. It runs best on a cheap cloud server (a VPS) or a spare computer you can leave on, and pairing it with ChatGPT keeps the running costs down. You don't need it to start, and we can set it up together later.
See HermesOnce your tools are installed, get these ready and you're good to go.
Make one new empty folder for your brain, named something like my-second-brain. Put it in your home folder, not inside Documents or Desktop, because those often sync to iCloud or OneDrive and that quietly fights with your files. One important note: the Claude you want here is the desktop app's Code tab, not the chat website. Here's the click-by-click.
my-second-brain and press Return.C:\Users\your-name).my-second-brain and press Enter.Download them from this page. You'll hand them to Claude one at a time. It reads the file, asks you a few questions, and builds everything while you watch.
Each one layers on the last. Today you install the first two. The third is coming.
Your Second Brain: a clean, organised home your AI thinks from every time you work together.
Ready to installWho you are, on file. Your memory, preferences, goals and voice, so the AI sounds like you and works the way you would.
Ready to installYour AI Implementers: a team of specialists that do the work on top of your brain and your Self Engine.
Coming soonStrategy is the home for everything you feed in. Self teaches it who you are. Systems puts it all to work. The more you feed the base, the smarter the whole thing gets.
A simple six-folder home for your notes, projects and life, shaped around your real work. Build it once, benefit forever. This is the home base everything else plugs into.
PARA is a simple way to organise everything you keep, created by productivity expert Tiago Forte. Instead of a hundred random folders you can never find anything in, everything lives in just a few, sorted by how you actually use it. Your second brain uses six top folders, and every new thing has one obvious home.
Why it works: when anything new shows up, there's only ever one sensible place for it. That's what keeps your brain easy to live in for years, instead of becoming another messy drive you avoid.
read this file and set up my second braingo and it builds while you watch.Saves as 1-Strategy-Engine-Setup.md
Fifteen questions that capture who you are: your memory, preferences, goals and voice. They get turned into a Self Engine the AI reads whenever it helps you, so it sounds like you and works the way you would. It saves as you go, so you can stop any time and say "continue" later. There's an optional last step to feed in your real history, which you can also do another time.
read this file and build my Self EngineSaves as 2-Self-Engine-Setup.md
It isn't something you build once and forget. The more you feed it, the smarter it gets about you and your work. Here's the simple loop that keeps it alive.
Anything worth keeping goes into one place. Open Claude in your folder, hand it whatever you've got, and say the line below. A voice note from Wispr Flow, a link, a half-formed idea, a meeting summary, a screenshot. No need to sort anything yourself. Capturing is the only job.
help me add to my inboxOne line reads each item, decides where it belongs, and files it across your brain. A messy pile becomes a sorted brain in one move. You can run it by hand any time with the line below, but the whole point is that you shouldn't have to remember. Set it once and let your computer run it for you every day.
sort my inboxYou don't set this up by hand. Open Claude in your folder, paste the prompt below, and it builds the daily schedule for you: it works out your computer, creates the task, points it at your brain, and runs it once to check it works. Change the time if you like.
That's the whole setup. One paste, and your brain tidies itself every day, hands-free, as long as your computer is on at that time.
Once a week, your brain looks back on its own. It reads everything new, pulls out the patterns and lessons, and writes them up as short wiki articles: clean, titled pages you can search and re-read any time. This is how a pile of raw notes slowly turns into your own library of insight. Same idea as the daily sort, just scheduled weekly instead.
review my weekSame deal, one paste. Pick a quiet slot like a Friday wind-down or a Sunday reset, drop this into Claude in your folder, and it sets up the weekly schedule for you.
Over a few months this becomes the most valuable part of your brain: your thinking, captured in your own words, with no effort from you.
Don't overthink the first day. Open Claude in your folder, say help me add to my inbox, and throw in a few easy things just to feel it work:
Then say sort my inbox and watch it find a home for each one. That's the whole thing working, start to finish.
01. Inbox/agent-drops any time and look for the latest sort or review log. If a run ever gets missed, just say sort my inbox or review my week by hand. These runs use your AI plan the same way a normal chat does, so the gentle daily and weekly pace here keeps that easy on your usage.
Your brain gets smarter the more of your real history it holds. Old chats, notes, documents, the way you actually talk and decide. This is optional and you can do it any time, but even one or two good sources make a real difference. Here's how to pull each one out, step by step.
Usually the richest source: months of how you actually think and write.
conversations.json.01. Inbox.Everything you've worked through with Claude, in your own words.
01. Inbox.Do the chats that hold the most: clients, your team, and your own notes-to-self chat. WhatsApp exports one chat at a time, from your phone.
.txt lands on your computer.01. Inbox.Telegram can export everything at once, but only from the desktop app.
01. Inbox.Apple Notes has no built-in way to export a lot of notes at once, so use a free Mac app called Exporter (by Chintan Ghate).
01. Inbox.Your offers, frameworks, sales pages, SOPs, proposals, anything that holds your thinking. These are gold, because they're already in your voice and full of decisions you've made.
01. Inbox.Your posts are the useful part here: years of how you show up in public.
01. Inbox.Your posts, captions, and reels, in one download.
01. Inbox.Your videos and captions, with links back to the originals.
01. Inbox.For Gmail, use Google Takeout to pull your mail into a file.
01. Inbox.01. Inbox, open Claude in your folder and say add this to my brain. It pulls out what's useful, files it in the right places, and refreshes your Self Engine so it sounds even more like you. Start with one or two sources that hold the most of your thinking. You don't need them all, and you can keep adding more whenever you like.
Once your brain and Self Engine are in, the last engine puts them to work: a team of AI Implementers that draft, build, sell and organise on top of everything you've installed, each one reading your brain and your Self Engine before it acts. We install these together in the next workshop.
These are the lines that make Claude work harder for you. Keep them somewhere handy and paste them when the moment calls for it.
Most people stop the second the AI says something can’t be done. Don’t be one of them. Push it to find the way through.
Before it starts, get it grounded in you and your work so the result actually fits.
When a job is large, one helper is slow. Tell it to split the work and run several at once.
A second set of eyes catches what the first draft missed, even when those eyes are also the AI.
When a chat gets long and slow, clear the clutter and keep only what matters.
Nothing in this setup is one-way. If something doesn't feel right or a word sounds technical, just ask Claude a question, because that's what it's there for. You can always fix or change it together.