Building a Second Brain

How I Made a Documentary Film with Digital Notes

Over the last year I filmed a short documentary on the life and artistic career of my father Wayne Forte. He has been one of the strongest influences on me, not only as a father, but as a prolific lifelong artist. I wanted a way to share his remarkable story with a wider public, to…

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Knowledge Building Blocks: The New Meaning of Notes

One day in your early school years, a teacher probably told you to “take notes” for the first time. Looking around at your fellow classmates, this seemed to involve writing down what the teacher said, word for word, on lined pieces of paper. For most of us, this is how our experience of note-taking started:…

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I’m speaking at Teachable’s “Share What You Know” Summit

It is June of 2016, and I’m sitting quietly at my computer in a trendy cafe in downtown Oakland, California. I’m gulping down a huge, over-sweetened chai latte and sweating profusely as I log in to my computer. I’m incredibly stressed out, and using the sugar as a coping mechanism. I’m sweating not because I’m working…

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Video Series: Tiago Learns Roam

In this new video series, I walk you through my own learning process as I get to know Roam Research, the “note-taking tool for networked thought.” From creating my Roam account and opening the program for the first time, I’ll ask the stupid questions so you don’t have to, experiment with every feature through trial and…

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Why I Organize Areas in PARA with a Taxonomy of Functional Areas

Note from Tiago: Timothy Kenny is the author of “Accelerated Learning for Entrepreneurs,” and is a top productivity instructor on Udemy with more than 87 productivity courses, 110,000+ students, and 5,000+ reviews. Watch our recent interview for a closer look at how our productivity systems can work together. By Timothy Kenny A student of mine recently enrolled in…

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The 4 Levels of Personal Knowledge Management

In order to get where you’re going, you need to know where you came from. When it comes to learning, you need a way to measure your progress toward your goal. How will you know whether you learned it? How will you compare your performance before and after? What concretely will you be able to…

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Second Brain Week: A Free Workshop Series from Top Experts and Creators

To celebrate the launch of the 11th edition of Building a Second Brain, we’re co-hosting the first ever Second Brain Week, a series of free events with 8 top creators and experts. Come join us to learn about digital note-taking, organizing, productivity, knowledge management, and online education, and how creating a system of knowledge management for yourself can…

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The 10 Biggest Changes We’re Making to Building a Second Brain

There is one guiding question for our team as we design the Building a Second Brain course: How can we make a course that is impossible to fail? So many courses make a big promise of everything you will do and achieve…as long as you perfectly complete every lesson and comply with every requirement. I remember taking these courses….

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Introducing Building a Second Brain 11: Idea Inception

I recently rewatched Inception, the blockbuster film directed by Christopher Nolan. The film takes place in a world where “dream sharing” technology has been developed by the military for training purposes. By hooking a group of people up to a special device and putting them to sleep at the same time, a team of dream…

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