Book Update #3: The Goal That Took Me 15 Years to Achieve

It was the fall of 2005. I was a 20 year-old student at Saddleback Community College near my hometown in Orange County, California.

Over the previous year, I had exhausted nearly all of my college savings by attending one of the most expensive universities in the country, in faraway Washington D.C.

Building a Second Brain 13: The 9 Biggest Improvements We’re Making

As soon as cohort 12 of Building a Second Brain finished earlier this year, my team and I sat down to start designing the next cohort. We looked at everything:  Feedback from students  Ideas for improvements saved in our notes New apps and features that have been released And our long-term plans for making this…

Podcast Time Travel: What I Learned From Listening to 100 Episodes of the SPI Podcast

Over the last 18 months I performed an experiment in how I consume content. I became a father in 2020. It was and continues to be one of the most profound, joyful experiences of my life. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But alongside this dramatic shift in my life, I noticed another great…

Building a Second Brain 13: The Founders

We are officially launching cohort 13 of Building a Second Brain (BASB), our flagship online course on how to save your best ideas, organize your knowledge, and use it to lead a fulfilling life with more ease and less stress. We’ve spent the last 5 months making a new round of radical improvements to every…

Dan Charnas on Working Clean: An Interview on the Power of Mise en Place

I recently hosted Dan Charnas, author of the book Work Clean: The Life-Changing Power of Mise-en-Place to Organize Your Life, Work, and Mind (affiliate link), for an in-depth conversation about the most interesting, impactful principles from his work. Dan takes us on a fascinating journey through his career in the music business, as one of the first…

Tiago Forte on the Mindvalley Podcast: 4 Powerful Tools to Boost Your Productivity

I recently joined Vishen Lakhiani, Founder and CEO of the education company Mindvalley, on the Mindvalley Podcast to talk about the 4 essential tools I think every modern professional needs in their toolkit. I also talked through my CODE methodology, which lies at the heart of my approach to building a “Second Brain.” Listen below, or visit…

Second Brains in the Wild

I’m often surprised when people find the idea of a “Second Brain” – a system of knowledge management that lives outside one’s head – to be fanciful or unrealistic. When in fact, the practice of saving and storing important information in a trusted place is ubiquitous. Professionals of all kinds have developed ways of documenting…

Octavia Estelle Butler: Notetaking as Science Fiction

Octavia Estelle Butler was born in 1947 in Pasadena, CA. Known in her early years as “Estelle,” she was raised by a single, widowed mother who worked domestic jobs to make ends meet. Painfully shy and introverted from a young age, Estelle became an easy target for bullying at school. Her shyness combined with slight…