My 7 Takeaways from Building Your Second Brain by Tiago Forte

Get Organized and Get Creative

Tiago Forte’s book, published in 2022, is one of those rare non-fiction books that I not only thoroughly enjoyed, but wholeheartedly recommend to everyone. It focuses on helping us deal with a massive amount of information that we confront every day. This amount seems to be increasing at a very fast pace. One study Forte cites estimates that today we consume five times more information than in 1986. The pace at which the information overload increases is only speeding up. You cannot absorb or remember it all. You also cannot ignore it all. Instead, you need to develop what the author calls your “Personal Knowledge Management” system — a Second Brain — to help organize your digital information, build effective methods and practices for its use, and, as a result, boost your creativity.

Usually, books that deal with individuals’ information management approach the issue from the perspective of personal productivity. In Forte’s method, the key is creativity. While there is plenty of organizing in his approach, he does not just try to teach us how to store things in perfectly organized files and folders, but rather how to construct a digital environment in which we can become our most creative selves.

Note-taking and organizing information are usually not something we are taught at school. Most of us find or figure out something that kind of works for us and stick with it. Some have notebooks, analog or digital, that we carry with us at all times and write down our thoughts, ideas, and plans. But often these become sort of like black holes into which information goes and is rarely ever retrieved and used. That is bad. Even worse is when we read or hear an interesting concept, a thought, a quote — anything that we think might be useful and therefore we might want to keep. But we don’t record it and before you know it, it is gone.

If these things happen to you, if you don’t already have a reliable note-taking system, you need to read this book. I would add that even if you have a good system, read it anyway — you will find ways to upgrade or simplify your system.

Here are my 7 takeaways from Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte:

1. Keep what resonates. How to choose what to keep? There is so much information. So many interesting things to read and learn about. At any given moment you might want to research and read up on health issues and exercising, astrophysics, neuroscience, geopolitics, environment, the Napoleonic wars, the Mongol empire, language learning, classical music, gardening, cooking, and million other things. Most of the time we know what we will want to keep. But sometimes we are not sure. It is in those moments when Forte’s advice is helpful. “Think like a curator — objective, opinionated, and reflective. Consider new information in terms of its utility, asking, ‘How is this going to help me move forward with one of my current projects?” You don’t need to take notes about everything. DON’T HOARD! Keep only what matters to you. Only what resonates. Forte adds: “Keep notes for your future self”. Think of what the future you may want to keep. You don’t need to make it an overly analytical or logical decision. If something generates curiosity, excitement, or joy (think like Marie Kondo), then you know it is something worth keeping. Oh, and make sure to record the reference, the website, and the author/book title. Make it a habit and you’ll thank Tiago Forte later.
2. Concept of 12 Favorite Problems. If you are still struggling with what to take notes about, Forte suggests identifying your 12 favorite problems. I referenced this in my article on doing a personal annual review (find here). This is a version of Richard Feynman's method, only applied to helping you decide what to focus on in your note-taking. What are the questions that you are interested in? It doesn’t matter if it is a question about your job, your hobby, your relationships, or anything else. They can be abstract or specific, large-scale, or something pertinent to your life. Make a list, and approach it as a work in progress. This will be helpful in guiding you to resources that will offer the right material for you to work on and collect notes from.
3. Organize by Projects. One of Forte’s most important pieces of advice is to save things for actionability. We are used to organizing our information by topic. Forte offers a PARA system, which helps organize information by:
   - Projects (specific things we are working on now, for example, renovating the kitchen, garden project, Spanish learning, BJJ learning/leglocks, etc.),
   - Areas (long-term responsibilities, for example, human resources, health, finances, etc.)
   - Resources (interesting or useful things for future reference, for example, chess, Japanese, program/supply learning, etc.)
   - Archive (inactive things, moved from projects/areas/resources, for example, completed things, things no longer of interest, etc.)
   The point is that you store information with specific intent. Focusing on projects, rather than topics, and separating projects from areas allow us to work in a more clutter-free environment — what Forte calls a Cathedral Effect. When we are in a building with lofty architecture, like a Cathedral, we tend to think more abstractly, while in a small workshop, we will think more concretely. Organizing the information accordingly puts us in the right operating mode for the task at hand — if we are working on a project, we need to be in our digital “workshop”. If we are brainstorming on an area, we want to be surrounded by the right “digital environment” that helps us think about a broader area that we are committed to over a longer period of time. If you are struggling to decide where to put a note, Forte offers a tip of having an “Inbox” where all the newly created notes go, and you can take time to decide where each note should be placed.
4. Less is More. Forte quotes Lao Tzu: “To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.” One interesting method Forte describes in the book is Progressive Summarization. Let’s say you have read a book and put together detailed notes on 10–12 pages. The idea is to go from detailed notes to a shorter summary, then to even a shorter selection of key elements, which then can be summarized in 1–2 sentences as the key idea. Remember, the overall point of your system is to identify patterns and connections. If you have way too much information, you get lost. Being able to identify the key points of different notes you keep can save incredible amounts of time and create singular clarity showing you the kind of patterns you would not have otherwise noticed. Again, keep your future self in mind. Remind yourself of your purpose for reading. Taking notes mindlessly only leads to pages and pages of notes. Not helpful.
5. Build a foundation for creativity. The traditional image of an artist who is hit by inspiration and then creates a masterpiece is just a myth. Not only it is not true, it can be harmful because it sends a wrong message. There is barely ever creative success without a foundation of study, practice, discipline, and hard work. Every creator draws from a large pool of knowledge, information, and experiences accumulated over a long period of time. Your second brain, the information you have in your projects, areas, and references, helps make sense of all that. Your archive can also store all your drafts, pilots, sketches, concepts, prototypes, and any other type of work in process, that may help create the next product. You would be surprised to how much artists use and reuse their past work. So browse your notes, and your materials, sometimes systematically, sometimes randomly (give space for serendipity!) for ideas, inspiration, and practical bits of information that can help with whatever you are working on. Keep in mind, whatever you create today is a step towards what you will create tomorrow. It is a process of your ongoing evolution.
6. Share your work! Now that you have the depository of knowledge that the second brain offers you, start creating. Share your work. As Forte puts it, your second brain is like a deep well “full of examples, illustrations, stories, statistics, diagrams, analogies, metaphors, photos, mindmaps, conversation notes, quotes — anything that will help you argue for your perspective or fight for a cause you believe in”. You will be able to come up with new information, identify new links and associations between ideas and concepts, and offer fresh insight. You do need to make the important final step of sharing your work with the world. This is crucial so you make a contribution. So you get feedback that will help you get even better the next time. So you can connect with people who are also interested in the topic. To help with moving forward with the delivery of your intended product, Forte offers a number of interesting strategies: the Archipelago of Ideas (a version of creating an outline, connecting smaller “islands” to form an archipelago), Hemingway Bridge (ending a writing session only when knowing what comes next, so for the next session you know exactly where to start) and Shipping Small and Concrete things (instead of starting with a book, writing series of articles; or instead of a film, starting with a number of YouTube videos, etc.). As Forte puts it, this is the stage where your first brain gets to do what it was intended to do — “turn information into results”, moving from consuming to creating.
7. Don’t overdo it! An important overall comment Forte makes is not to make your system heavy. Do not focus too much on labeling, filing, tagging, etc. Make sure to keep an eye on how much time and effort you are spending on your note-taking system. If it feels like hard work, you must be doing something wrong. As Forte puts it, you need to “Move Quickly, Touch Lightly”. Don’t chase perfection. You just need a system that works. Not one you are going to make a presentation about. Also, things change. For example, what is in your projects, can move to reference or vice-versa. Which is why a lighter system is better. The point is “moving our goals forward, not getting a Ph.D. in note-taking”.

In summary, the four steps of Forte’s note-taking process are:

In today’s world, a reliable note-taking system is a superpower. It makes you more confident in your knowledge and your ability to produce. It also allows you not to worry about what you put where and what you may have lost or missed. One unexpected by-product of building a second brain is that others around you will take notice that you have become more efficient without the extra stress that normally comes with enhanced productivity.

Remember, creativity is built on the foundation of systems and discipline. Sure, every once in a while you could do things differently if you feel you are in a rut. But creativity should not be an excuse for chaos and laziness.

Very importantly, try not to waste too much time jumping from one note-taking app to another, or changing the app every time a new one emerges on the market. This is one of the productivity traps (see my article on the subject here). Your purpose is not becoming an expert in note-taking apps, but moving forward towards your goals. Evernote has been my trusted app for over a decade.

Looking forward, especially with the advent of tools like ChatGPT, finding information will become even faster and easier than it is now. The key skill of the future therefore will not be locating information, but curating it. It won’t be the volume, but presentation, advocacy, and ability to form a compelling argument.

To conclude, I leave you with this last quote from the book: “Chase what excites you… Run after your obsessions with everything you have. Just be sure to take notes along the way.”

If you want to check out Tiago Forte’s work, in addition to reading Building the Second Brain, you can visit his website, Forte Labs, which has a lot of information about his method. On his YouTube channel, Tiago has a number of very useful videos, including the ones where he analyzes the existing note-taking apps and makes recommendations on which one could be right for you — check those out.

On the issue of creative work, I strongly recommend these four books: Stephen Pressfield’s The War of Art, Austin Kleon’s Share Your Work, Seth Godin’s The Practice: Shipping Creative Work, and Rick Rubin’s The Creative Art: A Way of Being. I have not yet read Rubin’s book, but it comes highly recommended by a reliable source.

If you enjoyed this article, these are some of my other articles that can be of interest:

• My 7 Takeaways from Getting Things Done by David Allen
• Advice From Your Future Self
• Track and Measure. Key to Skill Acquisition
• Reading. Why Read? How? And What?
• My 7 Takeaways from Deep Work by Cal Newport
• How to Do Your Personal Annual Review
• My 7 Takeaways from Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Plan for Serendipity
• What They Don’t Teach Us at School