Become a 'Maker' of your Second Brain (in Microsoft 365)

Do you like to create things? With wood, clay, yarn...?

Then you might want to explore the possibilities of being a 'Maker' in Microsoft 365.

In his speech Adam continues (from the quote in the header image):

When you make something, you tell a story about something that you desire, about something that you want. You tell a story about something that you see needs to be made, and you use your tool to improve yourself and the world around you.

Previously it was basically only people with programming skills who could create in the digital realm, but that have changed quite dramatically in recent years. Now anyone who is a Maker can create powerful automations within their digital workplace in Microsoft 365. Just go to https://make.powerautomate.com and you can get started. Maybe you will even take your first step towards building your Second Brain in Microsoft 365 today. ??

Having a Maker's mind is important, though. Not all of us have that. You need it to motivate you to get started to learn how to do things, and to drive you forward, to create that which helps you improve your world (as a knowledge worker that would involve the management of a lot of information).

Maybe you are frustrated today with how much repetitive work you need to do manually. Maybe you are fed up with the many mistakes that are made in this manual work. Or you feel intuitively that you want to use your daily brain energy for more creative and constructive work than what is currently the case. The list can be made quite long, and it is for you to discover what your own motivation is.

You see, in Microsoft 365 you can quite easily create your own tools for effective handling of your information (and thus not be limited to use only the apps and functionalities that Microsoft provide).The benefit of this is that you can design tools for your own specific needs and requirements.

Let me provide an example from a client of mine, Anna. Anna was asking me how to use Microsoft 365 for keeping track of the streak the goal she wanted to set out for (specifically she wanted to challenge herself to go to the gym 21 days in a row). We explored the ready-made apps (To Do, Planner, Microsoft Lists) and even if they have powerful functionalities, they didn't go all the way in this case.

So with my guidance, Anna set out to make her own tool in Microsoft 365. The end result was a Microsoft List that keeps track of the streak ("Which day of the 21 days"), a Planner plan which holds each day's task, and a Power Automate flow that gets triggered when a Go-to-the-gym task had been completed by Anna. The final thing the flow did was to update the streak in the lust as of what day has been completed and what day would be next, plus creates a task for tomorrow as well.

The tool worked wonders for Anna and she was able to complete the 21-day streak. In the meantime she discovered more behaviours that she wanted to run streak challenges for (in order to get them installed as automatic behaviours) and she then extended the tool. And this goes very well with my experience too, that the way to do it is to start with making a tiny tool and then trust that your Maker's mind will come up with a lot of extensions of the tool and that the innovation will flourish.

What would you like to make in Microsoft 365 that would help you manage your information better?