I think the useful middle ground if it’s getting to be too much is not trying to merge every note into a “second brain”. But instead keeping a much smaller reusable layer for the things you actually want to come back to, ideas, links, AI prompts, quick replies, checklists, and notes you reuse often.

If my notes are not visually scannable in categories and easily retrievable then I just end up forgetting about them.

So I use a text manager with a custom keyboard so I can quickly find and paste things whenever I need. I use the app Snippeta for this.