The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

Life of Purpose: Tiago Forte | Building a Second Brain

Join us for our Life of Purpose series this month as we revisit some of our most impactful episodes. Dive deep into expert insights and practical strategies on health, performance, and community, helping you achieve personal and professional fulfillment.

In this episode, we're privileged to have Tiago Forte, a productivity expert and founder of Forte Labs. Tiago shares his profound insights on 'Building a Second Brain', a methodology he developed to help individuals become more productive and creative. He emphasizes the role of digital note-taking and knowledge management in achieving success.

Tiago Forte is a thought leader in the realm of productivity. In this episode, he delves into the concept of 'Building a Second Brain' and how it can help individuals organize their ideas and information efficiently. His insights are not just for high performers or business owners. They're for anyone who wants to unlock their potential and achieve their best self.

In this episode, Tiago also shares insights from his online course 'Building a Second Brain.' He discusses how the principles outlined in his course can be applied to everyday life, helping individuals overcome challenges and achieve their goals. This is a must-listen episode for anyone interested in personal development and peak performance.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about Tiago's insights on productivity and the concept of 'Building a Second Brain.' You can find the Unmistakable Creative Podcast on all major podcast platforms. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review!

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Duration:: 1h 5m
Broadcast on:: 16 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

As you've probably noticed this month, we're bringing you our Life of Purpose series and revisiting some of our most transformative episodes, tune in to explore expert insights and practical strategies on help, performance, and community well-being, all aimed at helping you achieve personal and professional fulfillment. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll not only get recaps of the key ideas in each interview, but at the end of the series, you'll receive our free Life of Purpose e-book. What you have to do is go to UnmistakeableCreative.com/LifePurpose again. It's UnmistakeableCreative.com/LifePurpose. It's something that I think that works across mediums. There's these little moments, you know, in this conversation, people will listen back and there will be this one little thing we say that will be the most important point in the whole, in the whole conversation. There is always just this like 80/20 momentary spark that if you can just listen for that, that spark can become, like you said, the next thing and then the next thing and the next thing. You know, almost becomes like this, you're kind of following, I think of it like a river. The river is flowing where it wants to flow, right? The water always follows the path of least resistance. You can try to force a river to go somewhere else, but it'll be just an unimaginable amount of effort and it won't work. So it's much better to just follow where your own creativity wants to flow rather than try to force it. It's much more fun and much easier. I'm Srini Rao and this is the Unmistakable Creative Pot Test, where you get a window into the stories and insights of the most innovative and creative minds, started movements, built driving businesses, written best-selling books and created insanely interesting art. For more, check out our 500 episode archive at UnmistakableCreative.com. Miyago, welcome back to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Thank you, Srini. It's a real pleasure to be here. Oh, I have been looking forward to this conversation for so long. You have a new book out, Building a Second Brain, which I am happy to say I made the introduction to my literary agent and I did that entirely for selfish reasons because I wanted you to write this book for me. Fortunately, lots of other people have benefited from this book, but before we get into Second Brain, I want to start asking you a question that has absolutely nothing to do with that. What social group are you a part of in high school and what impact did that happen to end up having on your life and your career? Wow, that's an interesting one. And actually, I think it does explain a lot. I wasn't really part of any one group. I think that's largely because for various reasons, I went to five different schools five years in a row. Wow. Six, seventh, eighth, ninth, six, no, five, six, seventh, eighth, and ninth, five grades in a row. I either switched from elementary to middle and then middle to high school or I was switching from public school to private school, which I tried out for a year, or I was switching from the US to Brazil where I spent the eighth grade. And so I kind of came in high school just having all of my established social circles obliterated, which meant I had to just be this kind of chameleon. I had friends, my best friend was in student government, but then I had a girlfriend who was in cross country, track and field. And then I had other friends who were in French club and chess club who were nerds. I kind of had to cross multiple social circles. Yeah, well, it's funny because I don't know if you know this by me. I had the same experience, but I lived in the same town. We just changed schools every year. So I was in a different school every year from fifth until 10th grade. Wow, super similar. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, minus the living abroad in Brazil. So you know, when you started working, I mean, I know that you didn't start out really in this field. And I think the last time we spoke, you and I were talking about the fact that you would spend some time in Peace Corps, what did your parents teach you about making your way in the world and career advice, because I know you're partially Brazilian, like, you know, with Indians, we have this sort of cultural narrative, doctor, lawyer, engineer. That's the path. And really, you and I both have careers that couldn't have even been possible prior, you know, to the existence of the internet or when we were potentially in high school. Yeah. Yeah. Again, I think this was a huge influence on me. And it was the exact opposite of what you just described. My dad is an artist, a painter, has been his entire life. And my mom is from Brazil. So she kind of has that alternative cultural perspective, and she's a musician. And so we grew up in a family of artists. I think if I had become a doctor or lawyer, it would have been like the biggest disappointment to my parents. Yeah. That is literally something you would never hear from an Indian parent. It's like, oh, I mean, it's such a disappointment because he became a doctor. Yeah. And the sense I get is the exact opposite. I was to become a poet or artist or dancer. Those were the, I mean, my parents tried to be very open and they encouraged basically whenever we were interested in. But the subtext was a really powerful message to pursue what made me feel alive, what, you know, express my unique talents, what would give me a meaningful career, not just a profitable one. Yeah. Wow. And I wish that that narrative was more prevalent. So talk to me about what started to shape this perspective on the concept of a second ring. Because I have, you know, having read the book, I know where it started, but for listeners, can you share kind of what the impetus was for starting to think about organizing our digital lives in this way? Yeah. You know, the story that I tell in my book as sort of an origin story is my, my chronic medical condition that I had. But since, because of the questions you're, you're asking, it's kind of priming me to, to kind of realize that it actually started way before then. The medical condition was just sort of this, like this kind of shock. But I think it really goes back to just my temperament and my personality. I love to collect things. I always have collected baseball cards, pogs, Star Wars cards, leaves from the, you know, the ground, like I'm just a natural collector. I'm also a huge nerd. I just love, I've always loved from the youngest age of the world of ideas, sci-fi books, you know, fiction, historical fiction, big kind of big picture ideas. And then also I'm kind of neurotic. I'm kind of OCD, I need, I want to need a certain level of order in my surroundings in my life and my thinking. And so that kind of has always led me to naturally organize, like one story from my, my youth, my parents always scratched their heads that I seemed to organize Legos more than I played with Legos, which is totally right. And to me, it was playing. I found there's something about order, about structure that is so elegant and beautiful to me. But it's so fascinating to create categories and principles and patterns and to shift them around and move them and try different things that to me, that was just as fun as, you know, building things. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's fine that we use Legos as a metaphor because I think it's such an apt metaphor for thinking about how we build things out of knowledge, you know, in ways that we never thought before because I think that that was really kind of what struck me in the book was this ability to create one in spurts, regardless of how much time that we have. But one of the things that you say in the opening of the book is that we spend countless hours reading, listening to and watching other people's opinions about what we should do, how we should think and how we should live, but make comparatively little effort applying that knowledge and making it our own. So much of the time where information orders, stockpiling endless amounts of well-intentioned content that only ends up increasing our anxiety. And I just remember reading that thinking, yeah, this is kind of like a summary of the joke that I always make that if I could actually implement the advice from every podcast guest I've ever interviewed and the books that I've read, I'd be a billionaire with six-pack abs and a harem of supermodels and none of those things. But how do we end up here? How did we end up in this mess? Because technology, to me, seems kind of like a double-edged sword in that if it's used properly, it can lead to beautiful things. But it also has led us into a state of disarray in a lot of ways. Yes, I see it the same way. It's a double-edged sword. It's a double-edged sword. Not inherently good or bad, right or wrong. It is just how you use it. Gosh, there's so many causes for that. There's so many things from the way the internet has evolved to the fact that we're in a knowledge-based economy that values knowledge to the way that software has made it and the hardware, has made it so easy to create content, so now everyone is creating content, to even things like politics and society becoming more divided and more controversial. All these things drive people to seek, to consume, to acquire information, which feels great for a while. We have such scarcity-based psychology where it's more and more and more and more and more and more acquire, acquire, just collect and stockpile as much stuff as you can. I always observe that in the physical world of goods and services, we've started to realize wait a minute, endless acquisition of consumer goods doesn't actually make our lives better. We're just starting as a culture to have that realization, but in the digital world, we haven't even started. We haven't even started. I guess there's digital minimalism, but most people don't haven't turned the corner and started to realize, "Oh, it's actually about being very selective and mindful and intentional about the information that I led into my life," and then it's what I do, how I use that information that actually determines its value. Yeah. I think the thing that makes digital spaces so unique, and I've said this before, I wrote this article about the disadvantage of using folders for personal knowledge management in relation to why I met them, and I said, "The problem is that in the digital room, your storage spaces are like closets with infinite space, and that I think is what contributes to this problem, so you do absolutely have to be much more mindful and intentional." I remember writing in an article somewhere, I told somebody once, "I bet if you deleted 90% of the things on your computer, you wouldn't miss a beat, and your life would go on with no problem." Yeah. In fact, I don't know if you've ever or your listeners have ever lost a computer or completely lost a large amount of data, like a hard drive or a backup or something. It's a really interesting moment to me, having had that experience of you feel a tremendous sense of loss, almost grief, like you've lost this asset, this treasure. But you're right, in a way, when this happened to me, I lost a computer when I was traveling overseas. I felt a sense of loss and grief, but at the same time, I was like, "What do I actually care about? Is the memories, the places I traveled, the people I met with, the experiences I had, the food I ate, which I keep, no one can really take away those experiences from me." I think that's one thing that has led me to this focus on actionability. It's really not about the endless acquisition of these information assets. It's what singular, unforgettable experiences and outcomes and results come out of them. That's what you keep. 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Get your first month free when you sign up at greenlight.com/acast. Hi, it's Mark Bittman from Food with Mark Bittman. Friends, a word from the folks at Whole Foods Market. Customers love shopping at Whole Foods Market on holidays, like Thanksgiving and Mother's Day. But the fact is, there are lots of ways to save on quality items every day at Whole Foods Market. Here are some of them. You can see the savings for yourself because Whole Foods Market has great everyday prices on customer favorites, like responsibly farmed salmon, no antibiotics, every chicken breasts, organic strawberries, organic blueberries, and more. And you don't have to sacrifice quality to save. There are so many ways to save at Whole Foods Market, and now you know. I think that initially, people view what you teach as a method for organizing information. And I realized that that's kind of the surface level of everything that you do after reading this book. But there are a couple of things that struck me in particular that I want to talk to you about. You say that information is the fundamental building block of everything you do, anything you might want to accomplish, executing a project network, getting a new job, learning a new skill, starting a business requires finding and putting to use the right information. Your professional success and the quality of life depend directly on your ability to manage information effectively. And then you go on to say that research from Microsoft shows that the average U.S. employee spends 76 hours per year looking for misplaced notes, items, or files. And that just struck me as like 76 hours is a shitload of time in which you could accomplish something. Yeah. It really is. Yeah. So, you know, you talk about the fact that the world is moving faster. So how do you balance this sort of, you know, evolution of information? Because I think we are producing and consuming information at a pace unlike any other time in history. And the funny thing is that that's not going to decrease. It's only going to increase. Oh, absolutely. It's increasing every day and it's not going to stop. It's just not. Yeah. So one thing that, you know, I want to talk about, and then we'll start to get into the tactical aspects of this was, you know, the more I dove into your work, the more time I spent in MEM, the more I started to really explore this idea of network thinking. I realized we've basically had people write all these books, like deep work, like digital minimalism, a world of that email, not that I'm picking on Cal because I love y'all new board. It's one of my favorite people in the world. And we've built all these distraction blockers. We've come up with all these productivity hacks. And yet the thing that I realized is not a single one of them addresses the root cause of all these problems. They all alleviate symptoms because after going through your book and spending a lot of time really thinking about this, I realized the root cause of all these issues is how we organize information. I totally agree. And yet that is the one thing nobody has ever tried to really solve. They've just put band-aids on all these problems. Oh, yeah. The thinking has been that it's not possible that there is no, it's like give up, it's hopeless. There is no way to organize your own information. And that's the solution becomes outsourced to Google, to Facebook, you know, someone else has to come in and save you. And I think that's just there's, you need to have agency and empowerment to do it for yourself, to have a place that you truly control that is not just, you know, Google or something. Yeah. Well, let's talk about what a second brain is. Let's assume that, you know, somebody who has never heard unmistakable for doesn't know who you are, is like, what the hell is a second brain? Describe the actual definition of a second brain. Yeah. So the broadest definition is really just a trusted place outside your head that you keep and make use of the most important information in your life and that can be paper. I tend to prefer software and that's what my book is about. But it's really, you know, the same way that you have a, this first brain, this biological brain that is the repository of what you know and have experienced, well, there's certain things to remember and things to memorize that your first brain is really not suited to. In fact, memorizing details is pretty much the worst thing that your brain does, the thing that it's worst at. And so, you know, software is still kind of rudimentary in many ways. It's nowhere close to artificial intelligence, but it can take over. You can delegate this the very easiest task, which is remembering things. Yeah. Well, you know, I think that that it's fascinating because I had said, it was like using your brain to store information is like buying a Ferrari and then driving it through, you know, a school, school zone where the speed limit is 25,000 hours, basically wasting its power. Yes. And so let's get into, you know, what you call the four essential capabilities that we can rely on for the second brain to perform for us, making ideas concrete, revealing new associations between ideas, incubating our ideas over time and sharpening our unique perspectives. How does the second brain do that? Yes. So these are really four things that your brain, your first brain is not good at that software can do easily. Do you want to go through them one at a time? Yeah. Sure. So first one is kind of the, I mean, it's the starting point of, of all the rest. You have to make your ideas concrete, right? As long as they're in your head, they're sort of these vague, mystical, ambiguous concepts. And by writing them down, you know, the ancient timeless practice of writing them down, suddenly they are an objective artifact outside of your subjective mind, which means once they're concrete, you can play with them. You can edit them. You can annotate them. You can connect them together. You can combine them and build something bigger. All those capabilities depend on first having them be in a concrete place outside your head. So let's go into the other pieces. Yes. So the second, remind me the second one again, I'm revealing new associations between ideas. My first brain has, as atrophied at this point, so I can't. Yeah. Yeah. So this is sort of building on that first one, you know, we know that connectivity of ideas is extremely important. We know that associations, especially like unexpected associations and usual associations is important. But that is also a thing that's hard to do in our first brain, you know, you might be able to connect two ideas at any given time, but then you shift your attention to think about some other third thing and that first connection kind of dissolves. It's like our working memory is so tiny. You know, we can only remember basically like a few items at any given time. And so if you want the links and associations that you've discovered to last basically, you want them to be preserved over time, you have to make those linkages somewhere outside of your head, such as in a piece of software. Yeah. And then let's talk finally about incubating and sharpening perspectives. Yeah. So the third one is really just that preservation thing. You know, you could, I don't know if you've ever had just a craze, I'm sure you've had many, you know, kind of crazy caffeine fueled brainstorming sessions either by yourself or with a, you know, group of people. And it's amazing. It's fun. You just discover these incredible new ways of looking at the world, but then you reach your biological limits, you get tired, you get hungry. And it's almost like when you step away from that brainstorming session, unless there's a, there's a lasting record of it. It's like a sand castle getting dissolved by the ocean waves. You are basically just letting it all, you know, flutter away into the wind so that the next time you come back, it's like, what did we talk about in that brainstorm? Does anyone remember? Like, it's kind of funny. And so it's just about letting things last so that they can slowly organically kind of develop and build and evolve over time. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, we, I know you and I talked about Ryan holiday last time we spoke. And yeah, I still to this day, remember when he told me that he wrote down the idea for the obstacles away on a note card four years before he wrote the book and that book went on to sell a million copies. And he told me, he said, most of these notes lead to nothing, but one of them is enough to build a career off of, you know, I love that so much because I think that's true of everyone. You know, I, I think the everyone, anyone listening to this, you have almost incalculable value, just sitting in your, in terms of knowledge, sitting in your email inbox, sitting in your documents folder, sitting in your notes app. I mean, it doesn't have to be the most world changing, you know, insight about this, you know, theoretical physics or something. It could just be something that could help someone else. Like, there's no way that you don't have a ton of knowledge that someone somewhere in the world could just benefit from so much. And it's just kind of sitting on our hard drives and our cloud drives, what it's waiting for is us to actually kind of take ownership of it and turn it into something new, which kind of brings us to the perspective point. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, it's funny that you talk about revealing new associations between ideas because, you know, we've mentioned Ryan Holiday. So, you know, if you ask Ryan about his writing process, he'll tell you, believe it or not, he said often the next book is basically a extension of a idea in a previous book or a chapter from a previous book. And then, you know, recently, Stephen Pressfield had a new book come out called Put Your Ask, You Know, Where Your Heart Wants To Be, and like, wait a minute, Stephen Pressfield literally took one word, one sentence from the War of Art and he turned that into a whole new book. And what I realized was like, there's so many seeds for what you should create next in what you've already created, but it's very difficult to see that if you haven't externalized what you're talking about. Exactly. Oh, I love this point, Serene. This is so good. So, I think people often think, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to create something. And they think they have to, like, go into the workshop or the cave and just hammer out this singular, perfect, you know, perfect diamond of a creative work, which, of course, is impossible and they'll just be there forever, kind of tinkering away. And that's just not how creativity works, especially in the internet age. It's iterative. It's so iterative. You put something out and then people say, okay, 90% is so, so it's really about this 10%. And then you double down on that 10% and then they give you another 10%. You just keep doubling down on what I think of as the signal, the signal, there's always a signal and there's always noise. If you can just find that signal, and honestly, the best way of finding it is having other people find it for you, right? It's almost like by working in public, you are outsourcing so much of the work to other people, you're actually drawing on their intelligence and their perspective rather than trying to do all that effort yourself. It's funny you say that because my friend Gareth and I, we co-host this weekly segment of the podcast called The Unmistakable Creativity Hour. And every idea we have for the next episode is almost always based on something he says in the previous one. And usually just take a note while we're talking inside of men. And because I have like 8,000 notes in here at this point or 7,000 plus notes, it takes me two minutes to plan the episode using what you're talking about because we have so much content at our disposal. But literally he says one thing and I'm like, okay, cool. And sometimes I don't have an idea at 15 minutes before, I'm like, we're going to talk about and then I look and I'm like, oh, okay, let's just use that. It's something that I think that works across mediums. There's these little moments, you know, in this conversation, people will listen back and there will be this one little thing we say that will be the most important point in the whole, in the whole conversation. There is always just this like 80/20 momentary spark that if you can just listen for that, that spark can become, like you said, the next thing and then the next thing and the next thing. And it almost becomes like this, you're kind of following, I think of it like a river. The river is flowing where it wants to flow, right? The water always follows the path at least resistance. I can, you can try to force the river to go somewhere else, but it'll be just an unimaginable amount of effort and won't work. So it's much better to just follow where your own creativity wants to flow rather than try to force it. And it's also much more fun and much easier. Yeah. Well, I think that that makes a perfect segue into talking about this concept that you call code, which I know stands for capture, organize, distill and express. So explain this to our listeners. Yes. So, you know, as I was writing the book, this was actually a relatively late edition and it became the very core of the entire book, which is kind of surprising. I basically realized at some point through writing and speaking and teaching my course, that there's no such thing as a second brain apart from simply the tools that you use to execute your projects. Mm. Like, I think people think, okay, let me, let me build this contraption, this one machine. And then once it's totally done and perfect, then I'll start to use it to, you know, get things done. And that doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. It's like someone spending, you know, six months perfectly out fitting a, like the most ultimate commercial kitchen, you know, buying every appliance and every knife and everything. And they don't even, you know, boil an egg or make a pot of rice. It's like, that doesn't make sense. How do you know what, what appliances you need? How do you know the best way to lay out the kitchen? How do you know where things should be stored? The decisions about how to build your second brain have to come from the daily reality of simply just moving forward your projects and your goals. And that, what that process looks like, and this is why I made it the core of the book, is four steps, which is the creative process. You capture information, that's the C, then you organize what you've captured, which is the O, then you distill what you've organized, which is the D. And then finally you express your voice, your message, your story, your idea, not out of the blue or, you know, on a blank slate, but drawing from and compiling together all the little building blocks that you've gathered from the previous three steps. That is cool. Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my hundredth mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited to premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim-blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com/switch, whatever you're ready. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month, new customers on first three month plan only taxes and fees extra, speed slower above 40 gigabytes of CT tails. They say opposites attract. That's why the sleep number smartbed is the best bed for couples. You want a bed that feels firm, but they want soft? Sleep number does that. You want to sleep cooler while they like to feel warm? Sleep number does that too. JD Power ranks sleep number number one in customer satisfaction, with mattresses purchased in-store. And now sleep number smartbeds start at $999. Price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii. For JD Power 2023 award information, visit jdpower.com/awards. Only at a sleep number store or sleep number.com. Hi, this is Farneesh Tarabi, host of the Webby Winning Podcast, So Money. If you're aiming for a goal, be it saving for a house, growing your family, or retiring, life makes it difficult to stay the course. But with a dedicated Merrill Advisor, you get a personalized plan and a clear path forward. Having the bull at your back helps your whole financial life move with you. So when your plans change, Merrill's with you every step of the way. Go to ml.com/bullish to learn more. Merrill, a bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing involves risk. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fener, and Smith, Inc., registered broker-dealer, registered investment advisor, Member S.I.P.C. Brian Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down. 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Yeah, you know, it's funny because when I read that, I realized, you know, for 90% of the people, myself included prior to really understanding, you know, your work and the work of Sanka Arrens, and really taking it to another level, that for 90% of people capture is where knowledge management kind of comes to an end. Yes. It's like they, you know, save a bunch of quotes to read wise or whatever, and then they don't do anything with it. They might refer to it in a conversation like that, you know, that was kind of the extent of it for me. You know, when I started rewriting stuff in my own words, you know, which is distillation, it just took on a whole other level. And then when I combined both smart notes and progressive summarization, the result from mind boggling to me. Absolutely. It's so true. Yeah, I think, you know, capture for eons was the hardest part because we, I mean, what you had to use scrolls or vellum or eventually paper, I mean, there was so many obstacles to surmount that note taking essentially just became just the taking, like you said, just just, you can just get it down. Oh my gosh, that's success. But now with capture tools, which is what I call them digital capture tools, you can just snap a photo with your phone and then use live text feature on iOS to, you know, be a string of text and paste it into your notes. You can just hit a button and speak into otter AI and have, you know, your voice transcribed. You can have something like read wise, which automatically detects, you know, highlighted in ebook or an article and saves it in your notes. These are, we're starting to be able to create notes with little or even no effort, which then does, it solves one problem, but then it creates another problem, which is the problem of over capture, over accumulation. Yeah. Well, let's talk about your four capture criteria, because I think that that was really, you know, sort of a good way to get people to be much more deliberate about how they go about this. Absolutely. Could you remind me what they are? Yeah. That's how there is, because now I know this book better than you do even, but don't worry, because like I actually, it's because they've been living and breathing the concept today and in doubt, mainly because I've been riding this guy, like if you asked me five months from now, I'd probably have to look it up. It's, you know, personal, surprising, inspiring, like it was inspiring, useful, personal and surprising. Yes. So these are the four criteria, you know, the way that I came up with these is basically there's a, there's the most frequent objection that people always have, which is always, why don't I just do a search on Google, right? I mean, that's essentially the extent of most people's knowledge management. They need to know something, they do a search. And it's a great question, because honestly, Google has taken over a vast swath of knowledge seeking, right? Think about in the past, if you wanted to know, you know, what was the population of South Africa? How would you even, you'd have to like walk, you know, go down to the library or have an encyclopedia or something. Now it's, it's instant, an instantaneous search away. And so it's like Google replaced maybe like 60 or 70% of our knowledge seeking activities, but there's still this 30 or 40% that Google can't do at all. And that's the four criteria. So one is information that's surprising or I'm sorry, one of them is information that is inspiring. I always say you can Google the answer to a question, but you can't Google a feeling. You can't Google a state of mind. You can't Google a perspective or a lens that makes you see things a certain way. And so one way of thinking of your second brain is just a, it's like a motivational treasure chest. It is like a, it is an archive of everything that moves you, inspires you, makes you feel passion, makes you feel interested. And those could be quotes, stories could include images, could include, you know, memories from your past. Those are things that Google simply cannot surface for you as an individual. Wow. And then, yeah, I mean, that's true. You're absolutely right. Because I like having those capture criteria, I think really leads to a lot more discernment in the way that you pick up things from books because like I noticed myself sort of, you know, highlighting less and I figured it out finally. I thought to myself, okay, I've written two nonfiction books and I explain this to people for us. Like if you look at every single nonfiction book, it follows a very similar structure. The author basically will make a key point in the opening of a chapter, then he'll support that key point with a couple of examples. Maybe he'll keep one to, you know, as a point of reference and then they will give you the key takeaway. And I'm like, other than the key takeaway and the key point, you don't really need to capture anything else. It's so true. Your behavior around highlighting and saving excerpts really changes when you start systematically keeping them and then reviewing them and then using them. You know, you start to, one thing I love to do is write book summaries. When I really want to understand a book. When I'm like, okay, this book could be a major milestone in my own journey. It's not enough to passively sit there and just read it or even review the highlights. I have to write. I have to put it into my own words. If you saw the number of notes that I rewrote in my own words for your book, I literally used all of them to write the ultimate guide to building a second brain in Mamen less than a week. That's why you know the book better than me at this point. Well, I mean, that's the thing, right, is that when you rewrite stuff in your own words and I learned this from Salka Aaron's, is that it reinforces, you know, one year understanding because I think for me, that book made one thing, made it clear why I got bad grades in college because if you think about high school versus college and, you know, knowledge consumption and, you know, knowledge testing in high school, you don't have to be smart to get good grades. You have to be good at memorizing shit and regurgitating information. You don't actually have to understand anything and I realized this, you know, after reading the wealth of nations where, you know, I got to see an economics in college and I was terrible. And what I realized was that often what will happen is you're presented a concept, but then you're tested on that concept in a context that you've never seen before. And that is really, I think, the true test of whether you understand something is that can you take this knowledge and understand it in another context than the one in which you acquired it? Exactly. That's, that's really it. And for me, that's, that's what expression is. It's implementation, application, it's trial and error, whatever word you use. It is, you know, it's like you hear an idea, you're like, wow, that idea is fascinating. You have no idea if that idea has any value. It can be complete 100% BS. In fact, you have to assume it is, right? No. Like, imagine a sideways, I always like to make the comparison to science. Imagine a scientist just, you know, sitting back in their, their chair and thinking of a new theory and going, ah, yes, this is the truth. This is a fact, this thing that I just thought of just now, you know, that's ridiculous. You're not, that's not, you're not allowed to call that a fact. You have to create, you have to create an experiment, right? A hypothesis, you have to test it. Then the results have to be replicated. We have such a rigorous process for what we call science that's empirical. Maybe in our personal lives, you know, if someone gives you, I don't know, a health tip or an exercise routine, you don't need to go to the, to that extent. But there's got to be some experiment, like you can't just take it on faith that this thing is good advice. You have to test it or try it in some way. Well, yeah, I mean, this is why, you know, I, I've been joking and kind of teasing out a book. I've been working on title, everybody's full of shit, including me, which is about the fact that all prescriptive advice is context dependent. So the same advice that works for one person could royally screw up another person's life. Exactly. There's so many things. It could be, it could be wrong. It could be dangerous. Or, you know, maybe it's just, it works for certain personality types, but not others. Maybe, I mean, in fact, I would bet it is true of all advice. It works given some assumptions, right, under certain circumstances, but not others. Or it depends on your stage of life, or it depends what you're trying to achieve, or it depends what resources you have. Like every piece of advice in the universe has some, it depends, some, you know, limitations or conditions under which it's true. There's no such thing as universal advice. And so part of testing is just just exactly what you said, determining whether you fit the criteria for that advice to make sense for you. Yeah, well, let's talk about para, because, you know, I think that, like I said, I mean, I, para was something that I embraced right after our first conversation, but when I understood it through the lens of your book, it was just a whole other level of clarity and execution speed that I yet to experience. So explain para for people who are unfamiliar with your work or don't know you anything. Because I think the thing that really struck me that you say is that you'll always need to use multiple platforms to use your projects forward. No single platform can do everything. The intention here is not to use a single software program, but to use a single organizing system, one that provides consistency, even as you switch between apps and many times per day. Yes. Yeah. So I really, you know, I always use the word system. A lot of the times people assume I'm referring to a software program, like one software program, and I'm really not. The system transcends any particular piece of software. It's manifested partially in a piece of software and various ones, but I really, I don't know, I've just been burned too many times by identifying too closely with one app. I mean, I can cite lots of examples for one reason or another. My loyalty was punished. And so I've sort of arrived at a platform agnostic approach and system that, you know, if any single company, if any single app went out of business or turned evil or decided to sell my data or whatever it was, I, you know, I might be able to sat or disappointed and I have to do some work to transition. But there always needs to be an exit plan, basically. There always needs to be a way for you to take your data with you and not have it, you know, kind of go down with the ship. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I think I sort of reread the book one more time just for the sake of our conversation just to kind of, you know, get some ideas. And I remember you talking about Twilight Tharp and this whole idea of project containers and how, you know, the nice thing about having everything as a container is you can move it without losing any of the content. So what does Paris stand for for the people who don't know because what I, like I said, to me, once you start organizing every app with the same structure, it does the reduction on your cognitive load is fucking amazing. You know, that's, that's the hidden theme. I don't even know if I actually directly mentioned it throughout the entire book. The whole thing we're trying to do is reduce the cognitive load on your brain. That is, that is the overarching thesis. Every little decision is made through that lens. And Paris is a great example. So Para is the way that I recommend people perform the organized step, which is the second, the second step that the O encode. And it's actually the probably, in fact, definitely the single most by far, the single most popular technique that I've ever taught, it was kind of how everything started was with the problem of organization. Like you said, that's where most people are kind of stuck. They've, you know, captured some notes, written some things down. They have some files, but it's like, what is the structure that allows me to make sense of all this? And it's simply four letters, I'm a huge fan of four letter frameworks. I love four letters, which stand for the four categories into which all information, and I mean all information from all sources and all formats can be placed, which is projects that you're working on, which is the P areas of responsibility, which is the A resources that you're keeping track of, which is the R and then archives that are no longer active, which is the A. And that we can go through those one by one, if you like, yeah, let's do that. So the operating principle, you could say the organizational, the organizing principle of para is instead of organizing information by these very broad subjects, which is what most people do, because it's what they've seen in the library, right? You know, like psychology, you know, science, architecture, you know, biology, as if it's like your class notebooks in school. The problem with that approach is, you know, when you have 15 minutes in between meetings in the middle of a workday, you will not have time to look through a gigantic folder or tag called psychology. It's simply too vast, it's too not specific. And so what I have people do is organize according to horizons of actionability. So how actionable is something and typically what that looks like is projects are just generally the most actionable thing, right? They have a deadline, they're happening now, there's people waiting on you, there's, you know, milestones to meet. So really most of your attention should be going to your active projects, which is why the project's category is first. Then you have a slightly less actionable category, which is your areas of responsibility, which is not projects, but kind of aspects or domains of your life or your work that you have to manage and keep track of over time, so things like in your personal life, your finances, your health, your friendships, your spouse, your dog, your car, right? It's not like, oh, I have a deadline and, you know, three days, it's more just like an ongoing kind of management. And then resources is all the other things you're learning about, things you're researching, meeting, you're doing highlights from books, kind of like everything else. And then archives is simply anything from the previous three categories that is no longer active. You don't want to delete it, right? Like in the digital world, pretty much there's no longer ever any reason to delete anything. You can just keep it all, don't even have to make that decision, but you do not want it front and center, crowding and cluttering your attention, your workspace. So the archive, I think of it as like the deep freezer, like down in the basement, I can stick something in there. It's preserved exactly as it is forever. And if I want it, I can go find it, but in the meantime, it's kind of out of sight, out of mind. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny because I, you know, we did the first most recent Maximize Your Apple with Meme launch. One of the things I had to advise people to do was to start by archiving everything. Yes. And because then you get this sort of level of clarity, because I mean, you know, just the sheer overwhelm that people were feeling was mind boggling to me and to watch the way they work. And the way the metaphor that I came up with when I was trying to describe this is that the way that most people manage knowledge day to day is a bit like going to different grocery stores to buy every item on the list when all you want to do is make a fucking peanut butter and jelly sandwich. That's such a great analogy, yeah. And yet, you know, it's kind of amazing because I think that once people see this and I think the thing that frustrates me is that this is really hard to describe verbally and it's so much easier to see visually. Oh, yeah, this is the big challenge of all this. It's so abstract. It's so abstract. We're talking about information and categories and associations and patterns like before, you know, consumer technology really took off. I mean, the only people that even thought about this stuff were like, you know, information scientists and information theorists. Now it's like we each have to be like an information scientist just to get through our day to day lives. Yeah. So what other thing that you say and I think this really was the thing that stood out to me when I started to understand, you know, what made this so powerful was that you say parrot isn't a filing system. It's a production system. It's no use trying to find the perfect place where a note belongs. There isn't what the whole system is constantly shifting and changing in sync with our constantly changing life. And that's what I realized was like, I'm like, yeah. And so, you know, it's funny because as I've been working with them, I said, you know, the whole term personal knowledge management is nonsensical because none of us want to manage knowledge. We want to generate knowledge. And so I was like, we need a new term to describe this and it's personal knowledge generation, which is why I think I like men because it doesn't just manage knowledge, it generates knowledge. This is such an important perspective. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the purpose of all this is to create. It really is. I would even say it's not really worth all this effort if you're not creating anything. Now distinction, though, is so today, many people who are into knowledge management systems and whatever are content creators, they're writers, bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers. That's sort of been like the many of the early adopters. But I sincerely believe that is just the very leading edge of the first wave. Content creators are just a little bit ahead of the curve because that's their profession. But when I work with people who work in even the largest biggest traditional organizations, to me, they're creators too. I mean, they're writing dozens of emails a day. They're giving presentations, they're writing memos and reports, they're creating deliverables and presenting them to clients, even something like a decision. Like let's say you're a senior executive and you're not doing much execution. To me, even making a decision is such a creative act in a world of infinite possibility for you to arrive at a subtle, quality, effective decision to me is on par with a ballet or an orchestra or a painting. It requires so much deep thinking and innovation and sensitivity. So I really, when I look out on the world, I have to see nothing but creators. If there's any job that a human is still doing, I always say, it's because it has an element of creativity in it somewhere. Yeah, absolutely. So it's funny because the first time we spoke, I remember you walking me through the concept of the archipelago ideas, which I think really makes a nice way to talk about sort of moving a project forward. And when I saw how it was explained in the book, I was like, holy shit. And you just got a glimpse of how I planned the ultimate guide to building a second brain and man. And for those of you who want to know how I did it, you can go actually watch the YouTube video that I did about Tiago's book. But walk us through this idea of the archipelago of ideas and how people use it. Because when I saw that, I was like, wait a minute, this literally changes your ability to create content in a way that you never could before. And I mean, it speeds up the process. I already thought I had figured out a way to get really fast with men. When I saw this, it was just like, oh my God. That makes me so happy. I mean, you're already such an incredibly prolific creator. So if it has something to offer you, then I feel confident in it. No, you should. Trust me. You saw what I said about the book and we'll share that with our listeners towards the end. That really worked. Yeah. You know, it comes from a book by Stephen Johnson. I think it's called Where Good Ideas Come From. And I think I even have quite a lengthy quote from him right in the book to cite where it came from. And it's really just this idea that if you're going to create something new, whether it's a well-reasoned email all the way to a book, you don't have to sit down and just like furrow your brow and clench up your fists, and then just all at once in one gigantic, what I call a heavy lift, kind of just like get it out there. That is really difficult and it's stressful and it's not sustainable. And you don't actually come up with something that great because you're only drawing on the ideas that you can think of right in that moment. So essentially, archipelago of ideas is a very second brain approach to creating new things, which is you lay out essentially an outline, like you lay out bullet points or even links to a series of different notes in a sequence that makes sense, right? In the order and in the sequence that you're going to present it in the final version. So that, I mean, the clearest example here is writing. Every time I sit down to write to actually do the writing, virtually a hundred percent of the time on the left side of my screen, I have my outline, my archipelago of ideas. So I've already done all of the thinking. There's no new research. I don't open one new browser tab. I don't go find any new article, nothing, all the research has been done. So all I have to do is translate this outline of, you know, a logical point by point, you know, argument or message or story or whatever it is, translate it from outline format on the left of my screen to the right side of my screen where I have like a Google Doc, basically translating it from outline format into prose. And so it's easy. The final step of writing, which people describe as like torture, like it's so hard and so painful. When you have a second brain becomes the easiest, you're just snapping together a collection of Legos that you've already found, already decided the Legos you're going to use and you even have like one of those instructional pamphlets for how to put them together. Yeah, no, it's it's truly a it's a game changer. I mean, I, you know, like I said, I think people really need to see this in action to see how it works and how powerful it is. But you know, if there's any testament, you know, that I can think of the book, like I remember telling my roommate, Matt, my old roommate, Matt, I said, tell you what, I'd like buy the book. And if you don't think it was worth your money, and by the way, this is not enough. I'm making to everybody listening just as an FYI. I told him, I was like, I will give you the $20 for the book. If you don't think it's valuable. And he sent me a text saying, you know, after reading the first chapter, I think you got to the first part and he's like, Holy shit. I'm like, yeah, I was like, when it comes to books, Matt, I'm always right. Not that, you know, that that's entirely true. But I was like, I've never given him a book recommendation where he didn't end up, you know, finding it to be an absolute game changer. When it comes to organizing our lives, there are books that I would put at the top of my list. And this is going to go into that list. And writer Carol's bullet journal is the book that I've gifted the most, the one that I've purchased on Amazon for people. And yours is going to be added to that as, you know, the combo of the two. It's going to be like, I'm sending you these two books, read both of them. Because they together, I mean, they're, you know, they're life changing. I can't be one person who I introduced the bullet journal to who didn't say, I don't understand how I lived without this before. I know. I, I, I, first of all, thank you so much. I mean, you've been really, I'm really not sure this book would exist without you, you know, your introduction to, to, you know, our shared literary agents. But also just as importantly, I mean, I could find an agent, but you're just belief, you know, being on your, on your podcast, I don't know if you even know this was really one of my biggest breaks. Like I can remember back. I think more people have said that they first discovered me through the unmistakable creative podcast that I think, and it's not even the biggest podcast I've been on, but there was the thing about the combination between your audience, your passion and support, the timing, you know, quite early on, that I'm like lighting a fuse under what today is building a second brain. So thank you. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like I said, I, I am just blown away by this. So I have one final question for you, which is how we finish all of our interviews. And I'm curious to see how you'll answer this after having written this book. And, you know, I'll have, I think almost three or four years later. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable? God, I think it comes back to that idea of perspective. Every single person has a unique perspective. It's, it's kind of a mathematical fact. No one has had the exact set of life experiences and learned the exact lessons in the same order in the exact same way. And you know, we're taught in school and elsewhere that our perspective limits us, you know, that we have blind spots and biases and, and we, we miss things, which is completely true. But there's another side of that coin, which is our perspective also allows us to see things that no one else can see. And this is the reason I think everyone can be a creator, is a creator, should be a creator, is if you don't communicate to even one person, what you see through that unique lens of yours, I think the world has lost something forever. I think that it's, it's inherently unmistakable to share something that, that you see uniquely through your, your own lens. And that's why we need everyone. We really need everyone on the planet capitalizing on the value of their ideas, taking ownership of their story and their message. We really can't get enough because the world has a lot of problems and we, we really just need everyone's contributions to them. Yeah, amazing. Um, well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story, your wisdom and your insights with our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, your work, the book and everything you're up to? They can find everything at BuildingASecondBrain.com, including the book, the course, the podcast, the blog. Uh, it's all part of the second brain extended universe. Awesome. And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that. Listen up corporate types, it's me, Billie Eigen. You might use Workday's responsible AI to future-proof your business. That doesn't make you rock stars. And have rock stars ever been responsible via finance and HR rock star with Workday. Hi, this is Jonathan Fields, host of The Good Life Project, where each week I talk to listeners about investing in their future by increasing their own vitality. But when it comes to those financial goals, whether it be saving for home renovation, growing your child's college fund or travel, life can make it difficult to stay the course. By working with a dedicated mayoral advisor, you get a personalized plan and a clear path forward. Having the bullet your back helps your whole financial life move with you. 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Sunglass Hut really has it all, and again, a frame for every shade of you. Have you ever felt a twinge of worry about AI taking over your job or diluting your creativity? Well, what if you could turn that fear into creative fuel? We've just published an amazing new ebook called The Four Keys to Success in an AI world, and this is more than just a guide. It's a deep exploration into the human skills that AI can't touch. The skills that are essential for standing out and thriving, no matter how much technology evolved. We're talking about real differentiators here, like creativity, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and much more. Inside you'll find actionable insights and strategies to develop these skills, whether you're a creative person, a business person, or just simply someone who loves personal development. This isn't a story about tech taking over. It's a story of human creativity thriving alongside AI. Picture this AI as your creative co-pilot not just as a tool, but a collaborator that enhances your unique human skills. The Four Keys ebook will show you exactly how to do that, and view AI in a new way that empowers you instead of overshadows you. Transform your creative potential today. Head over to unmistakablecreative.com/fourkeys. Use the number 4 K-E-Y-S that's unmistakablecreative.com/fourkeys and download your free copy. [BLANK_AUDIO]

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