Free Time with Jenny Blake Building a Second Brain with Tiago Forte [BEST OF]
A Painter Father's Structured Practice
- Tiago describes his father, a professional painter, who combined strict routines with prolific creativity.
- He studied masters, sketched in museums, and kept disciplined habits that fed his art.
Start Projects When 80% Ready
- Use a just-in-time approach: start projects when the collection of material is mostly assembled.
- Seek existing signals and artifacts to package instead of forcing projects from zero.
Capture Surprising Inputs
- Capture anything that surprises or interests you, even if you don't know its use yet.
- Trust that diverse inputs will later combine into novel, cross-disciplinary ideas.
What is your relationship to information? Scattered and chaotic, or clear and navigable? Do you have streamlined systems for saving, distilling, and crafting original thought-leadership from what you encounter and store, or are you stuck when it comes time to create order from the chaos?
Our guest this week, Tiago Forte, is here to teach you how to develop a second brain—a mindset that transcends toolset—through information-wrangling habits that will change the way you think and create.
This episode originally aired on July 19, 2022.
More About Tiago: Tiago Forte is a leading productivity expert who has taught thousands of people around the world how timeless principles and the latest technology can revolutionize their productivity, creativity, and personal effectiveness. Today we’re talking about his new book, Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential. Learn more at Fortelabs.co, and subscribe to his Building a Second Brain podcast.
🌟 3 Key Takeaways:
- Building a Second Brain is not about any one piece of software; it is about acquiring a new set of tools in your relationship to information, such as the practice of distilling marginalia or highlights after you read a book or clipping articles you find interesting even if you don’t plan to do anything with them yet.
- Apply the “campsite rule” to information in your business—leave notes better than you found them. You can do this by adding things like commentary, highlights, bullets a heading, etc.
- “Only start projects that are already 80 percent done.” By the time you sit down to make progress on something, all the work to gather and organize the source material should already be done.
📝 Permission: Not to be everywhere on all channels. Pick just one place that best fits your personality and style. Treat that channel as a place for your unique artistic expression.
✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: What do people ask you about most? Build out an FAQ by answering that question thoroughly, and posting it somewhere on your website, in Google Docs, or Notion. Then send future inquirers the link instead of one-off email messages.
📘Books Mentioned:
- Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business
- Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
- Building a Second Brain
🔗Resources Mentioned:
- Tiago on the web, Instagram: @fortelabsco, Twitter, LinkedIn
- Building a Second Brain Book Resources
- Building a Second Brain Course
- Tools Mentioned: Readwise, Notion, Evernote, Instapaper, Pocket, Loom
🎧Related Podcast Episodes:
- 034: Organizing Research and Ideas - Notion Walkthrough #1
- 036: Shaping Big Ideas - Notion Walkthrough #2
- 038: Tracking Progress Toward Finishing a Book (or Big Idea) with an Essay Tracker - Notion Walkthrough #3
- 101: Run Your Business with Exquisite Greatness and Tiny Art Projects with Alexandra Franzen
- Pivot 135: The Bliss Engine with Jim Blake (aka Daddy-O!)
- Pivot 281: Feeling Impostery? Become a Qualified Curator Instead of an Expert
- Pivot 183: Cultivating Opposites and Checklists with Alexandra Franzen
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