In a previous post, I discussed linking a Google Doc in NotebookLM. But what if you linked multiple documents and used them together as a kind of second brain? A place where you think out loud, collect insights, and, over time, start seeing patterns and connections you might never have noticed on your own.
One simple starting point is a journal. Create a NotebookLM notebook, add a Google Doc dedicated to daily reflections, and use it to capture whatever’s happening throughout your day: insights, observations, concerns, lessons learned. Add dates, jot down thoughts as they come, and don’t worry about polish. Over time, this single document becomes a growing record of what’s on your mind. Once it’s inside NotebookLM, it becomes part of something bigger.
The Benefits of Journaling
There are many benefits to journaling. I have listed some of them. It is not a practice I have fully developed yet, but I am hoping to. I am using technology, specifically AI, to maximize my return. I have only been doing it for a couple of weeks, and the results have been nothing short of amazing.
Journaling brings your mind into focus. When you slow down enough to put words on a page, the mental noise starts to settle. You can finally hear yourself think. It’s funny how five quiet minutes of writing can solve something you’ve been wrestling with all week.
It’s a solid stress reliever. Getting thoughts out of your head and onto paper feels grounding. It releases tension before it piles up. Your journal becomes that quiet corner where you can set things down without anyone judging you.
It helps you track your progress. Whether it’s work goals, personal goals, or just getting through the day, journaling shows you how far you’ve actually come. Those small wins you forgot about suddenly reappear, and old entries reveal patterns and strengths you didn’t notice in the moment.
You get to understand yourself better. Write often enough and you start spotting your own stories: what fires you up, what drains you, what you keep avoiding. You get honest with yourself in a gentle way. Sometimes the pen admits the truth before your mind does.
It boosts creativity. A journal is a great place to catch ideas before they run off. It’s low pressure, messy, and free—and that’s precisely where the best creative sparks tend to show up.
It helps you regulate emotions. Naming what you feel on the page gives you space and perspective. Emotions lose some of their intensity, and better decisions start to appear.
It improves memory and learning. Writing things down helps them stick. When you jot a few notes after reading or learning something new, it becomes part of you instead of disappearing an hour later.
Morning Pages as Fuel for Your Second Brain
Within this broader journaling practice, Morning Pages fit perfectly.
Morning Pages became popular through Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way. They are a simple daily ritual: first thing in the morning, write three pages of whatever is on your mind. No structure, no editing, no judgment—just a brain dump.
The benefits sneak up on you. The practice clears mental clutter, frees space for better ideas, warms up your creative muscles, and helps you notice thinking patterns you might have missed. It just feels good to unload everything before engaging with the world.
Now imagine feeding those Morning Pages into the same journal document inside NotebookLM. Instead of disappearing into a notebook, your raw, unfiltered writing becomes another stream of insight that NotebookLM can analyze and connect with everything else you’re working on.
Building a Living Document System
Your journal isn’t the only document you can add. You might create a Google Doc for your business—your goals, services, ideas, operations, strategies, whatever you’re thinking about. Every time you learn something new or have an idea worth capturing, you drop it in.
You could also maintain personal training documents for topics you’re studying. Over time, you might have dozens of these sources contributing to your NotebookLM notebook.
When NotebookLM can look across all of this—your journal, your Morning Pages, your business notes, your learning logs—it can start surfacing insights you might not discover on your own. Every week or two, you can ask questions like:
- “What are my latest lessons learned?”
- “What themes keep showing up?”
- “What connections am I missing?”
The system grows with you. Each document becomes another piece of the puzzle, and NotebookLM helps you assemble the bigger picture.
My Process
I have been experimenting with Morning Pages/Journaling for the last couple of weeks. My process is pretty straightforward.
Recording my thoughts. While morning Pages calls for writing longhand, I capture my thoughts by speaking them out into an audio recorder. I usually do this while I am on my commute to work or sitting in the parking lot before I work out.
Transcribing my recording. Once the recording is done, I send it to Otter.AI for transcribing. This process takes only a couple of minutes.
Clean up transcription. After Otter.AI finishes transcribing, I export it to a text file. I then import the transcription into a GPT I created in ChatGPT. The GPT does not alter the transcription other than to clean up some spelling, grammar, and punctuation issues.
Paste into a Google Doc. Once the cleanup is done, I copy and paste the results into my morning pages Google Doc. I am creating a new Google Doc for each month. This will allow me to source four years of material in a single NotebookLM notebook.
Add the Google Doc to NotebookLM as a source. Ensure that you add each new Google Doc to your notebook as a source. Every time you update the Google Doc and want to interact with it, you will have to select the source in NotebookLM and sync it.
Impressive Results
Even though it has been a short time, NotebookLM has produced impressive results. I create a mind map. Here is the result.
Morning Pages Mind Map
At the end of November, after I submitted my last Morning Pages entry for the month, I asked NotebookLM to create an action plan for December. The results were quite detailed and helpful. It was at this point that I saw the actual value of the exercise.
It’s something I’m going to continue to experiment with to see how far it can go and how it can benefit me. I’ll keep you informed.
Photo by Kevin Malik and Maxyne Barcel
