Building a Second Brain, page 21
While building a Second Brain is a project—something you can commit to and achieve within a reasonable period of time—using your Second Brain is a lifelong practice. I recommend you revisit Building a Second Brain at various points over time. I guarantee you’ll notice things you missed the first time.
Whether you focus on implementing one aspect of the CODE Method, make a full commitment to the entire process, or something in between, you are taking on a new relationship with the information in your life. You are developing a new relationship to your own attention and energy. You are committing to a new identity in which you are in charge of the information swirling around you, even if you don’t always know what it means.
As you embark on the lifelong path of personal knowledge management, remember that you’ve achieved success before. There have been practices that you’d never heard of before, that are now integral parts of your life. There have been habits and skills that seemed impossible to master, that you now can’t imagine living without. There have been new technologies that you swore you would never embrace that you now use every day. This is the same—what seems unfamiliar and strange now will eventually feel completely natural.
If I could leave you with one last bit of advice, it is to chase what excites you. When you are captivated and obsessed by a story, an idea, or a new possibility, don’t just let that moment pass as if it doesn’t matter. Those are the moments that are truly precious, and that no technology can produce for you. Run after your obsessions with everything you have.
Just be sure to take notes along the way.
I. The Tacit Dimension, by Michael Polanyi
II. I came to appreciate the incredible power of writing in public through my partnership with David Perell, who teaches people how to do it via his online writing school Write of Passage, which you can learn more about at writeofpassage.school.
Bonus Chapter
How to Create a Tagging System That Works
I wrote this book to give you a new way to think about the knowledge that matters to you. It’s designed to give anyone a path to create—and benefit from—a Second Brain and provides an introduction to the fascinating world of personal knowledge management.
The practice begins and ends with notetaking—including capturing, organizing, distilling, and expressing information, ideas, and packets of work. The specific techniques in the CODE chapters are the best place to get started. However, one of the most common questions I receive is about the advanced skill of tagging.
I’ve compiled a bonus chapter on how to create a tagging system for your Second Brain following the principle of actionability. Although not essential for getting started, tags do provide an extra layer of organization that can be useful as your knowledge collection grows.
You can download this chapter at Buildingasecondbrain.com/bonuschapter.
Additional Resources and Guidelines
The technology landscape is constantly changing, and the best practices evolve as new platforms emerge. I’ve created the Second Brain Resource Guide as a public resource with continually updated recommendations for the best notes apps, capture tools and other useful apps, frequently asked questions, and other advice and guidelines to help you succeed in personal knowledge management. You can access it at https://www.buildingasecondbrain.com/resources.
Acknowledgments
I’m sitting here at my usual writing spot weeks after my manuscript deadline has passed. I’ve postponed the writing of these acknowledgments for as long as possible because it feels almost impossible. The number of people who have contributed to and touched this book along the way is staggering. The depth of gratitude I feel for all the love and energy and intelligence that they have poured into me is difficult to put into words. But I’ll try.
Thank you to Stephanie Hitchcock and the team at Atria for your willingness to take a chance on a novel idea and a first-time author. This book exists only because you saw its potential and committed to seeing it realized. I’m deeply grateful to my editor, Janet Goldstein, for wrangling my words (and sometimes me!) into a message far clearer and more elegant than anything I could have come up with on my own. My agent, Lisa DiMona, has graciously guided me through every step of the publishing journey from the earliest days of this project. I look forward to working together for many years to come.
Thank you to the Forte Labs team and extended network—Betheny Swinehart, Will Mannon, Monica Rysavy, Marc Koenig, Steven Zen, Becca Olason, and Julia Saxena. You’ve been behind the scenes every step of the way making the business work, overcoming challenges, and creating new ways of sharing these ideas with the world. I am continuously amazed by your dedication to excellence. You constantly impress me with your deep commitment to creating lasting, positive change in people’s lives. I look forward to everything we’ll accomplish together.
I’m eternally grateful to Billy Broas for helping me find more powerful ways of communicating my truth beyond my inner circle. To Maya P. Lim for crafting the visual identity that will deliver our education to every corner of the planet. And I’m thankful to the Pen Name team for partnering with me in sharing my life’s work far and wide.
The only way my business (or life) functions is with the help of my “brain trust.” The work I do wouldn’t be half as meaningful or interesting without your unwavering support. David, building a business with you and developing our ideas side by side has been one of the most meaningful endeavors of my career. Joel, you are like a rock in stormy seas. I’ve lost count of how many times dinners in your home served as a stabilizing force when it seemed like everything was going to unravel. Raphael, you came up with the name of the course—and now the book. The laughter you’ve brought into my life has been like a beacon of joy every time I’ve started to take myself too seriously. Derick, in many ways this journey started with our late-night conversations as teenagers about technology and the future—ours and humanity’s. Thank you for entertaining and encouraging those far-fetched ideas, some of which, after all these years, found their way into this book.
I’ve had a series of mentors and advisors who shifted my trajectory in ways I can hardly believe. Thank you to Venkatesh Rao for serving as my introduction to the online world of ideas. A few words of your public support and encouragement fueled my motivation for years. Thank you to David Allen for pioneering the personal productivity field and introducing us to the possibility that we could proactively improve how we worked with and managed information. I have been profoundly influenced and helped by your ideas.
Thank you to Kathy Phelan, not only for believing I was on to something, but for sponsoring and advising me in bringing my work into companies. Your belief in me at the time outshined my own, and your advice and lessons continue to resound years later. Thank you to James Clear for giving so generously of your time and guiding my book writing efforts around many pitfalls and blind spots. At a time when everyone in the world wanted your attention, you chose to give it to a fledgling writer with not much to offer in return. Thank you to Joe Hudson, who came into my life as a friend and mentor at a crucial moment when I needed to learn how to navigate the emotions of the new level of self-expression I was taking on. Thank you to Srini Rao for going all-in with your support of my work and taking a risk in putting your reputation behind it.
Thank you to Forte Labs’ followers, subscribers, customers, and students. You are the fuel powering all the capturing, organizing, distilling, and expressing that makes the Building a Second Brain community so vibrant. This book is just as much a distillation of the stories, strategies, and techniques I’ve learned from you over the years as it is my own ideas. You are the ultimate authority on what works and what doesn’t. By taking my courses, reading my writing, and giving me feedback on everything from tweets to book drafts, you’ve opened the door to a future where Second Brains are available to people everywhere. I never expected so many people to believe in what I was doing. Every single day I have your support and attention I consider a miracle.
Everything I am ultimately comes from my family. My soil and my rock, from which the meaning and joy in my life springs. Thank you to my parents, Wayne Forte and Valeria Vassão Forte, for giving me an upbringing that exposed me to countless enriching experiences, cultures, places, and people. Dad, you are my model of what it means to express myself with unsparing honesty and taste, while also upholding my responsibilities as a father, husband, and citizen. Mom, you gave me the gifts to balance out my strong will and sharp tongue—patience, generosity, graciousness, and self-awareness. You both dedicated your lives to making me the kind of person with enough abundance to share with others. So many of the teachings expressed in this book have their origin in the simple, practical lessons you taught me and modeled for me as a child. To my siblings and in-laws, Lucas, Paloma, Marco, Kaitlyn, and Grant. You are my best friends, my confidants, and my lifelong companions. Every time I start to lose sight of who I am and what’s important to me, you bring me back to the soil I came from. I cherish every minute we spend together.
And finally, from the bottom of my heart I am thankful to you, Lauren and Caio, for making all this worthwhile. Lauren, you have played every role a person can play in my life—partner, lover, cofounder, coach, advisor, and now, wife and mother. You became whoever you needed to become, acquired whichever skills were demanded of you, and ventured into one new territory after another, all to help me reach my dreams. There’s nothing more gratifying in my life than watching you grow and evolve into the most inspiring, genuine, open-hearted person I’ve ever met. I consider it my highest privilege to walk alongside you as you step into your greatness. Caio, you’ve only just arrived, but already I can’t live without you. You make my life so much more colorful and hilarious. My love for you gives me the determination to become the best version of myself I can. My highest hope for this book is that it makes the world a safer, more humane, and more interesting place for you.
About the Author
TIAGO FORTE is one of the world’s foremost experts on productivity and has taught thousands of people around the world how timeless principles and the latest technology can revolutionize their productivity, creativity, and personal effectiveness. He has worked with organizations such as Genentech, Toyota Motor Corporation, and the Inter-American Development Bank and appeared in a variety of publications, such as the New York Times, The Atlantic, and Harvard Business Review. Find out more at Fortelabs.co.
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Notes
If I have made a mistake somewhere in this book—either in attributing an idea to the wrong person or not giving credit to someone where it is due—please email me at hello@fortelabs.co so I can fix the issue as soon as possible. In addition to the notes below, you can find a full list of updated endnotes and corrections at Buildingasecondbrain.com/endnotes.
CHAPTER 1: WHERE IT ALL STARTED
1 Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014), Amazon Kindle Location 1990 of 5689.
CHAPTER 2: WHAT IS A SECOND BRAIN?
1 Nick Bilton, “Part of the Daily American Diet, 34 Gigabytes of Data,” New York Times, December 9, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/technology/10data.html.
2 Daniel J. Levitin, “Hit the Reset Button in Your Brain,” New York Times, August 9, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/opinion/sunday/hit-the-reset-button-in-your-brain.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share.
3 Microsoft, The Innovator’s Guide to Modern Note Taking: How businesses can harness the digital revolution, https://info.microsoft.com/rs/157-GQE-382/images/EN-US%2017034_MSFT_WWSurfaceModernNoteTaking_ebookRefresh_R2.pdf.
4 IDC Corporate USA, The Knowledge Quotient: Unlocking the Hidden Value of Information Using Search and Content Analytics, http://pages.coveo.com/rs/coveo/images/IDC-Coveo-white-paper-248821.pdf.
5 Robert Darnton, The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future (New York: PublicAffairs, 2009), 224.
6 Craig Mod, “Post-Artifact Books and Publishing,” craigmod.com, June 2011, https://craigmod.com/journal/post_artifact/.
7 Including innovators like Paul Otlet, Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart, Ted Nelson, and Alan Kay, among many others.
CHAPTER 3: HOW A SECOND BRAIN WORKS
1 Wikipedia, s.v., “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid,” accessed October 13, 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_Structure_of_Nucleic_Acids:_A_Structure_for_Deoxyribose_Nucleic_Acid.
2 Deborah Chambers and Daniel Reisberg, “Can mental images be ambiguous?,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 11, no. 3 (1985): 317–28, https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.11.3.317.
3 Nancy C. Andreasen, “Secrets of the Creative Brain,” July/August 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/07/secrets-of-the-creative-brain/372299/.
4 Wikipedia, s.v., “Recency Bias,” accessed October 13, 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recency_bias.
5 Robert J. Shiller, “What to Learn in College to Stay One Step Ahead of Computers,” New York Times, May 22, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/upshot/what-to-learn-in-college-to-stay-one-step-ahead-of-computers.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share.
6 For a fascinating look into how persuasion and sales is becoming a fundamental part of almost everyone’s job, see Daniel Pink, To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others (New York: Penguin Group, 2012), 6.
7 Tim Ferriss, Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), 421.
8 Each of these stories is real, but names have been changed to protect their anonymity.
9 Erwin Raphael McManus, The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art (New York: HarperCollins, 2014), 171.
CHAPTER 4: CAPTURE—KEEP WHAT RESONATES
1 Wikipedia, s.v., “Taylor Swift,” accessed October 13, 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift.
2 Swiftstyles II, “Taylor Swift being a songwriting genius for 13 minutes,” July 27, 2020, YouTube video, 13:52, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLHQatwwyWA.
3 NME, “Taylor Swift—How I Wrote My Massive Hit ‘Blank Space,’ ” NME.com, October 9, 2015, YouTube video, 3:58, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bYUDY4lmls.
4 Gian-Carlo Rota, Indiscrete Thoughts (Boston: Birkhäuser Boston, 1997), 202.
5 James Gleick, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (New York: Open Road Media, 2011), 226.
6 Raymond S. Nickerson, “Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises,” Review of General Psychology 2, no. 2 (June 1998): 175–220, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175.
7 Marianne Freiberger, “Information is surprise,” Plus Magazine, March 24, 2015, https://plus.maths.org/content/information-surprise.
8 Dacher Keltner and Paul Ekman, “The Science of ‘Inside Out,’ ” New York Times, July 3, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/opinion/sunday/the-science-of-inside-out.html.
9 Stephen Wendel, Designing for Behavior Change: Applying Psychology and Behavioral Economics (Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, 2013).
10 Zachary A. Rosner et al., “The Generation Effect: Activating Broad Neural Circuits During Memory Encoding,” Cortex 49, no. 7 (July–August 2013), 1901–1909, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2012.09.009.
11 James W. Pennebaker, “Writing about Emotional Experiences as a Therapeutic Process,” Psychological Science 8, no. 3 (May 1997), 162–66.
CHAPTER 5: ORGANIZE—SAVE FOR ACTIONABILITY
1 Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 80.
2 Joan Meyers-Levy and Rui Zhu, “The Influence of Ceiling Height: The Effect of Priming on the Type of Processing That People Use,” Journal of Consumer Research 34, no. 2 (2007): 174–86, https://doi.org/10.1086/519146.
3 Adam Davidson, “What Hollywood Can Teach Us About the Future of Work,” New York Times Magazine, May 5, 2015.
CHAPTER 6: DISTILL—FIND THE ESSENCE
1 “Inside Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather Notebook”: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/inside-francis-ford-coppolas-godfather-notebook-never-before-seen-photos-handwritten-notes-9473-947312/.
2 AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies - 10th Anniversary Edition, Television Academy.
3 Francis Coppola’s Notebook, imdb.com, 2001, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0881915/.
4 Jess Wise, “How the Brain Stops Time,” Psychology Today, March 13, 2010, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/extreme-fear/201003/how-the-brain-stops-time.
