Capture is informations 'portal' into your personal knowledge management system (PKM) therefore your capture systems will greatly influence the quality, frequency and relevance of the information you interact with in your second brain.
The information landscape has changed radically in the last 20 years, and when our environments change, we must change with them. Previously, information was scarce, locked away behind university gates, government bodies and global borders, however now we face a different problem...information overload. The river of information flows plentiful, the challenge now is to be ready to pick out the best pieces of information as they flow past.
The analogy is similar to that of fishing, where one goes about their daily lives, doing their work as they normally would, leaving their fishing line (capture system) in the water waiting for a bite.
This is in comparison to the dated 'hunting' strategy that most of us still have, where every time we want a 'meal'/have a project we go out looking for the information we need, spending time sifting through the noise to uncover the nuance of the topic at hand (remember google search results are optimised for clicks, not insight!), only to discard our valuable insights once the project is over.
And that is the essence of capture, it's a strategy of collecting nuances, unexpected and valuable information over time.
It's not about having more self disciple, it's about having better systems.
Spend as little time as possible on capture and save yourself for the later stages where value is added.
In no particular order here are some principles of knowledge capture: