Recording of Tiago Forte Interview

July 17, 2022Leave a comment

Last week I had the honor of interviewing Tiago Forte about his new book, Building a Second Brain. In a sixty-minute Zoom interview with audience Q&A, we touched on a wide range of aspects around digital note taking and how it compliments a GTD practice. A link to the recording can be found on the Palm Beach County Library System web site.

Below is a selection of the questions I asked Tiago:

Briefly share how you became interested in the power of digital notes?
Explain the concept of CODE and how it applies to digital note taking.
What are the four principles of PARA and do they contribute to designing a Second Brain?
What are the best practices around processing digital notes for discoverability?
The book highlights how notes can be applied over many different projects. To that end, please explain what is meant by an intermediate packet.
What are the biggest mistakes people make when taking digital notes and how can they be avoided?
What prompted you to share your publishing journey through your blog?
Share a book recommendation (fiction or non-fiction) other than your own.

Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I subject Tiago to a fun game based on the podcast, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.

Getting Real with Reality

July 10, 2022Leave a comment

The pursuit of productivity is never just a goal in and of itself.

It is possible to whip off lots of items from your “to do” list and not actually accomplish anything of true merit. In fact, there are two things necessary to ensure that your productivity skills are being used for meaningful work. The first is to be clear on strategy, mission and objectives. The second is more subtle, but probably more impactful. It is to understand the current reality. If the truth of the situation is misunderstood, strategy is moot.

In a blog post earlier this year, David Allen of GTD fame mapped out the case for current reality. He notes that many problems stem from a lack of understanding the exact nature of what is really going on.

Companies, departments, and individuals may have big goals, even well expressed, and yet there can be a lack of energy, or a lack of real actions being defined and in motion. Groups bicker about the smallest things and can’t seem to get in gear. And the biggest problem about this is that they don’t know what the problem is. They are probably trying to build a house on sand. There’s no stake in the ground. There’s no traction.

To overcome this problem, David believes it necessary to unearth the relevant facts about the situation, even if they are hard to face. Only then can a person or group move forward.

The great challenge is to face current reality head on without letting it “get to you” and cause you to program the next one as no better. Bean counters are a critical component to the team. You need to know how many beans you have. But if all you’re doing is just protecting your current beans, soon you may not have any more beans to count. You cannot drive by just looking at the rearview mirror.

Read the entire blog post at the Getting Things Done web site.

A Neuroscientist’s Advice on Productivity

July 3, 2022Leave a comment

There are many factors that affect our productivity. However, they all come back to the fact that knowledge works happens in our brains. Therefore, a healthy brain should enable us to get more things done. To that end, what does the field of neuroscience say about productivity?

In a recent article in Science Focus, neuroscientist Dean Burnett discusses the connection between the brain and knowledge work. Specifically, he lists five tips to be more productive. The first one highlights the beneficial effect of background music.

When we’re trying to focus on a task, our conscious attention is occupied, but can still be diverted by the unconscious system. And if we’re in complete silence, any creaks or sighs or murmurs or other random sounds stand out more, meaning our unconscious attention is more likely to be distracted, which hinders our productivity.

But, if we play music in the background, it masks obtrusive noises and occupies our unconscious attention, like giving a bored child a toy to play with while you’re trying to work. Obviously, the type of music will make a difference. Things with lyrics aren’t as good because our brains are more stimulated by linguistic information, and music that has a negative impact on mood can sap motivation.

Discover the other four tips by reading the full, and fairly shor t , article.

Interview with Tiago Forte

July 1, 2022Leave a comment

In less than two weeks I will interview Tiago Forte, the leading expert in how to manage your digital notes and use them for greater recall and creativity. See the details below if you want to join the Zoom interview. Feel free to share with others:

Meet the Author: Tiago Forte
Thursday, Jul 14, 2:00 pm EST

Workplace productivity expert and author Tiago Forte discusses his newest book, “Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential,” in conversation with Library Director Doug Crane. (60 min.) Presented by Community Engagement.

Preregister through this link.

This event is hosted by the Palm Beach County Library System. Hope to see you there.

Building a Second Brain Now Released

June 19, 2022Leave a comment

After many years of anticipation, Tiago Forte has released his book, Building a Second Brain. It is the distillation of the ideas and exercises originating from his signature course of the same name. Here is how Tiago introduces the book on his web site:

What if you made use of the ideas, wisdom, and resources available to you online instead of stockpiling and hoarding information with no end in sight?

What if you knew with total confidence that you could find the information you need when you need it instead of wasting time looking for notes you swore you’d saved?

What if you could leverage technology to think better, clear your mind, and get more done instead of letting it disrupt you with constant notifications and demands?

All this and more is possible with a Second Brain – a trusted place outside your head where you can collect and organize your most important ideas and insights and use them to do your best work.

As part of his promotional tour, the Palm Beach County Library System is honored to host Tiago for a virtual meet the author session on July 14, 2 pm EST. Preregister to receive the Zoom link.

Congratulations Tiago on this great achievement!

12 Steps to Build a Second Brain

May 29, 2022Leave a comment

I have frequently written about Tiago Forte and his Building a Second Brain program. It is the definitive approach to unleashing the power of digital notetaking. In fact, his first major book is being published in June.

Recently Tiago wrote a concise summary of the practice by listing the 12 Steps to Build a Second Brain. This is a very fast crash course in how to create and utilize digital notes. For those wanting to get started, here are the first two steps:

1. Decide what you want to capture

Think about your Second Brain as an intimate commonplace book or journal. What do you most want to capture, learn, explore, or share? Identify two to three kinds of content you already value to get started with.

For an extended intro to capturing and taking digital notes, check out this workshop covering how to capture and save the best information you consume each week.

2. Choose your notes app

If you don’t use a digital notes app, get started with one now. But I know that choosing your notes app can feel overwhelming and paralyzing.

My recommendation is to choose an app based on your notetaking style since notetaking is a highly personal process based on intuition and feeling.

In this video, I introduce you to 4 notetaking styles and the best apps for each.

Read the other ten steps on the Forte Labs web site.

Second Brain Summit

March 20, 2022Leave a comment

Some very exciting happened this past week. The first ever Second Brain Summit was held online! Tiago Forte of Forte Labs brought together a series of speakers to excite and educate everyone on how to build a second brain and maximize its potential.

Here’s what Tiago had to say in a recent email:

Incredibly, we had over 12,300 live participants across 15 sessions led by 18 experts and thought leaders. Thank you to everyone who made it possible.

This week you learned:

How to avoid self-sabotage in your productive efforts
How to apply a “systems mindset” to your life
How to reframe productivity through the lens of ADHD
How to use apps like Notion, Logseq, Evernote, and OneNote
How to automate your notetaking using tools like Readwise and Matter
Insights into the future of digital notetaking
How to use “meta” thinking and adopt “habits of learning”
How to choose the perfect productivity app for you
How to appreciate the inherent joy of thinking
How to leverage your Second Brain to do your highest value work

And you know what? In case you missed anything, we’ve made every recording available on a YouTube playlist you can revisit and watch anytime.

Learn more about Building a Second Brain at the Forte Labs web site.

Empty Inbox – Less Stress

February 27, 2022Leave a comment

With the high volumes of incoming email we all receive, it can be very tempting to let them pile up. In fact, most people use their inbox as a workflow management and archival system. This approach is highly inefficient and creates unnecessary stress. Thankfully, there is a simple way to resolve this problem: empty your inbox regularly.

For the past ten years I have enjoyed the clarity of an empty inbox. I was inspired to do this after reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. In the book he provides a simple approach to clearing out the inbox no matter the volume. At the core of his technique is the workflow diagram. In a way, the GTD approach is similar to a plumber who ensures that water remains flowing through pipes.

To clear any inbox, there are three important things to understand:

1 – An inbox is only for in: The best use of an inbox is to identify new messages. Once they have been read, they must leave the inbox. No skipping over items. Go through every message from newest to oldest until complete.

2 – Empty it regularly: To cope with the high volumes, it is important to clear the inbox every day. Not only does this prevent serious backlog that can impact your efficiency, it can eliminates the stress which comes when important messages are buried under junk.

3 – Create functional folders to store messages: An “action” folder will hold items you need to respond to as soon as possible. A “waiting for” folder will hold reminders of actions you are waiting for others to do. An “archive” folder will hold all non-actionable messages you need to retain. Finally, be sure to trash as much as you can early to reduce clutter.

If you want to enjoy a less stressful work life, be sure to clear out your inbox every day. I speak from a decade of experience on this point. An empty inbox is an awesome sight to behold.

Personal Productivity Stacks

February 21, 2022Leave a comment

We rely on a wide range of technology to get things done. However, if we don’t apply the right tool in the right way, we can end up undermining our efforts. To avoid this problem we need to spend time understanding the structure of knowledge work. This will guide us to use the right tool the right way for better results.

Tiago Forte has thought deeply about how to be more productive and creative at the same time. In a recent posting on his web site called How to Build Your Personal Productivity Stack, he discusses how technological change can both make our work easier and more frustrating.

Each wave of technology does legitimately solve a new problem from the previous wave, and – if harnessed correctly – can move us closer to our goals: the experiences and feelings that we want more of.

But if you’re like most people, you’re probably using email for multiple purposes far beyond what it was designed for:

You use email to send messages
You use email as a to-do list
You use email to keep track of notes and ideas
You use email to manage complex projects and areas of your life

These are extremely different use cases, and using one platform for all of them ensures it fails at all of them.

To be more effective, Tiago breaks down the four key components of knowledge work.

To perform each of them effectively, you have to break apart each of the four essential activities of modern work – Email, Task Management, Notetaking, and Project Management – and use the right tool for each of those jobs.

I call these four functions a “Productivity Stack,” since each one is layered on top of and builds on the one before.

To learn more, read the rest of his post on the Forte Labs web site.

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